Even at Reading Festival there’s still time for art! I was there stewarding over the week and it was quite good! The best act was definitely Rage Against The Machine!
As advertised on the B-VAC website we had a Flash Art Mob on Saturday 16th August. It was kinda small but it went really well and I can’t wait to do another one with more and more artists involved!
I was finishing off some artwork when I came across a clipping from a newspaper I picked up on my travels in America. After a bit of researching I found out it was an article written by from the California Herald. Here’s an extract:
It’s painfully obvious it’s not about talent anymore, in the one place an individual could take refuge, in art and music. It’s about effortless attempts of self validation through promotion. This is now branching out though, into a national phenomena. Thanks to media and reality shows like American Idol, easy-to-use computer graphics, widely available electronics equipment replicating instruments that could fool even the most trained of ears and build- your-own webpage online communities like myspace, we’re nothing more than the time we spend typing or what our image invokes. Notoriety has never been more desirable or promising.
The rest of the article can be read here.
One thing that’s stood out to me a lot recently is that a lot of art that I see isn’t really driven by it being fun. It’s all about the CV and exposure and whatnot. OK, so I’m not totally innocent, but a lot of the work I do with other people is because it’s fun. The CV can wait.
Good artists make good art, not great CV’s
Last weekend I was in Chester with CECI to perform at the Roam The Rows Festival.
I’ve been to Chester before and it really is the quaintest town I’ve ever been to. I really like how it’s modern yet has a historical feel to it.
This is the first time I’ve performed to an audience that isn’t exclusively arty and the first time I’ve ever done some sort of street performance. My main concern was that the public would just walk by uninterested. However, when there’s a guy with a massive balloon on his back it’s hard not to be interested! It was all very well received and everyone who experienced the art piece enjoyed it, even if it did leave their hair a bit static at the end (hence the sexy hair nets).
I have another street performance this weekend with B-VAC, but more on that soon.
As you may or may not know I do a bit of community work and workshop work. I’d usually document this on this website but I felt it deviated from my personal artwork a bit and I consider the hellocatfood name to be my artist persona, so for that reason I set up www.antonioroberts.com. It focuses completely on my community and education work and hopefully gives that side of my work a more professional feel. Go have a look-see!
I was at the pub today with Vickie Wood of CECI, discussing the next performance, when I thought I’d bring up the question about how to mention the previous performance on my CV. Do I say that I worked with CECI, as part of CECI, collaborated with, performed with or as part of or some other terminology? I only asked this because I don’t want to take credit for work that I’ve had minimal input in.
I’ll put it into a perspective bit more. When I first performed with Insectoid and CECI I didn’t have any input other than my performing of their piece. So, for that I’d just say I performed with them. However, as I’ve gotten to know the work more I’m at the point where I’m helping make decisions about future work. So, what do I say then? Have I collaborated with them, worked with them or performed with them?
What does everyone else in arty/blogging land think? I may be being a tad bit over cautious, but I really don’t want it to seem like I’m taking credit for anyone elses work.
There’s an open submission thingy going on and the theme is ‘In Common’. I want to look at what we have in common with nature.
So, I guess the first question is:
What do we have in common with nature?
Answers on a postcard please.
On Wednesday I was asked by CECI to help out with the FluxFeast performance at VIVID. From the VIVID website:
FluxFeast is an attempt to undermine the monumentality of art through the use of food
Myself, along with other members of CECI, were slightly sinister, yet at times playful waiters. My favourite part of the night involved the waiters swapping and changing dishes with other diners whilst they were blindfolded!
H4NUM4N has a few more photos of the event
I’m going to be moving into exclusively using open source software to create artwork in the near future*. More on why once I get my head around some of the software.
*that is unless it’s completely necessary that I use a piece of commercial software e.g. GMIP doesn’t support CMYK, yet Photoshop does.
On Wednesday 18th June I was helping out fellow artist Vickie Wood at the graduate exhibition at Margaret Street. Several of you may have seen me look a little like this
I shan’t explain, but instead point you to the website to find out more
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