Invitation to participatory artwork BE INDIVIDUAL

Dear all,

Bisan and I (Alice) invite you to, BE INDIVIDUAL a participatory artwork exploring the issue of Identity.

Tired of being labeled? 
Choose your new identity tailored to your INDIVIDUAL choice.
Identity cards will be issued FREE of charge.

where: Grand Central Cafe, corner of Royal Avenue and North Street Belfast
when: Wednesday 1st December from 12 to 3.00

We hope you can make it.

Alice and Bisan

MA Art in Public
University of Ulster
York Street
Belfast

ps please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.

Belfast It's Yours Take It part 3

Belfast It's Yours Take It part 3
Originally uploaded by Dogtired aka

Update: The offers to send artwork to the third Belfast It's Yours Take It Exhibition of FREE art are coming thick and fast. I always get excited by the prospect of hosting an IYTI event, they are great.Want to find out more about IYTI, click the link below.

There is also an IYTI happening in New Orleans in December organised by Dingler, this one is called Art for Toys and is such a great event, NoLA Rising is making a call for art for It’s Yours, Take It (NoLA 4)

Click here for full information.its yours take it
NoLA Rising has a long history of distributing artwork at no cost to the New Orleans area. After hurricane Katrina, it was a guiding mission of Rex to replace street signs and paint signs of hope for those who had returned to the city. One person made a movement of dozens of artists.

Memory Research Project

 Thank you to all who have responded. All the boxes have been booked.



Call for paprticipants.

I would like to make an experiment in memory and require people to participate.

My goal is to research how much information is retained during a certain activity and how this is recalled at a later date. It would be good if this could be incorporated into a walk, either a group walk or an individual walk.
This work will be realised as an exhibition in the future, please bear this in mind when considering taking part. All information either written, drawn, spoken, photographed, will be anonymous, participants memory boxes and contents will only be identified as "Specimen A" etc.,
The experiment will take place from 19th November 2010 and will end on the last week in February 2011

If you wish to take part please email me at dogtireda AT gmail DOT com

Memories of place/activity

Equipment provided by me to participants:

Box, paper, pen, instructions.

Think of a walk in the broadest terms, e.g. it could be a trip to the supermarket, school run, organised walk. A walk could be how you walk around at work, or in your studio.

I would like participants to go for a walk and do the following:

Record your route, either a written list of where you walked, google map, hand drawn map,

place in box provided.

Walk and collect items that you come across during the walk.

Place these items in the box provided, this can be anything as long as it fits inside the box.

Write (on the paper provided), a list of what you did, felt, thought, on the walk, bullet points only.

You may put a photograph of the walk inside the box, a drawing, or a newspaper/magazine clipping of that day.

A week later I will ask you to recount the walk (as a voice recording), without prompts, then recall the walk using the items in the box.

After the recording I will ask a few questions on how you think you retain and recall memory.

switch map

switch map
Originally uploaded by Dogtired aka

switch map


www.s-w-i-t-c-h.org/2010/bangormap/bangormap.html
Download a map here.

SWITCH project Bangor

SWITCH project Bangor
Originally uploaded by Dogtired 1st Class Honours

www.s-w-i-t-c-h.org/2010/bangor.html

14th - 21st November 2010, Bangor, Co.Down, Northern Ireland
SWITCH is every bit as good in Bangor as it was in Nenagh.
Go see this if you get a chance, you can view from 5pm in the evening. There is a tour on Thursday evening. Check out the SWITCH site for more info.

Striking a pose!

Victoria Shopping Belfast

Victoria Shopping Belfast
Originally uploaded by Dogtired 1st Class Honours

This is a reminder to self to sort out my actual website. I have been rather tardy and not updated it in a long time. If you want to look at my old work go to www.aliceburns.co.uk

I shot this photograph of the roof of Victoria Shopping Centre Belfast on a night out, for dinner with some of the MA Art in Public crew. Point and shoot camera, you can make a almost decent photo with a pretty basic camera.

World Cafe 9/11/10 The Social Impact of the arts –

World Cafe 9/11/10 The Social Impact of the arts –

The text for today's discussion was the introduction in, The Social Impact of the Arts by Eleonora Belfiore and Oliver Bennett, published from research undertaken on behalf of The Centre for Cultural Policy Studies. The remit of the research was “in order  to develop rigorous procedures for a better understanding of the social impact of the arts.” (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/theatre_s/cp/research/fellowship/)

In the foreword the authors clearly lay out the framework for the text, identifying the purpose as, “an intellectual history of claims made over time for the value, function and impact of the arts.” How these claims have been articulated is also a key area for discussion in the text. And finally the aim of the authors to “reconnect” contemporary policy discussion with “a complex intellectual history” (Belfiore, Bennett 2008). We should also note that the research is undertaken with an emphasis on how these issues relate to Government funded Arts and policy decisions.

The introduction identifies the “intellectual history of claims” and how the arts are perceived by various individuals and organisations, firstly by the middle classes and academia, identifying that the arts are “often assigned great importance by middle-class parents” and are “seen as desirable if not essencial” in the academic world. The perceived importance of the arts in society is also highlighted by how the study of the arts and associated institutions has increased at a rapid rate around the world, citing various studies that validate the figures. For example the number of museums was calculated in 1991 to be around 23,000 by Susan Pearce, and in the UK the BBC is required to provide arts programing “under the conditions of their licence,”.

Belfiore and Bennett state the claims made for the arts include; In 2007 Tony Blair stated the arts were “ growing faster than the economy as a whole”. Nation States use the Arts as a descriptor of National Culture, and even claim that without the arts, society “would be an enslaved society” (Francois Mitterrand in Shapiro 2000, 11).

Susan Knight claims the arts have transformative powers that “ create community, nurture culture identity, promote leadership and consciously develop agents of change” (Canada Council for the Arts 2007). Knight is not alone in these claims, perceived as positive in relation to the transformative effects of the arts. However, the claims are validated by the methods and language of Government Policy Making, a shift towards a more scientific approach was required by Government, and that method was and is evidence based policy making, a set of tools by which to measure the validity of claims for the arts as a panacea for all social ills. The authors point out that this is “problamatic” and has lead to a situation were “instead of questioning” the claims made for the arts, “researchers” have concentrated their efforts on “coming up with the evidence that they do”.

A more realistic interpretation of how the arts perform the claims of, “value, function and impact of the arts” is broached by John Tusa, Director of the London Barbican in (2002), Tusa states that while the arts can be an agent for social change etc., that these functions are not “intrinsic to the arts”. Whilst James Purnell (2007) has stated “they would still matter if they did none of these things. They are intrinsically valuable before they are instrumentally so.”. And here lies the difficulty, the arts and their effects are intrinsic, to each individual. Yes it is possible to measure certain outcomes, but those outcomes are often subjective and not easily quantified.

Historical debates on the value and effects of the arts is varied also, from the “Enlightenment”, to the Formalist View through to “Art for Arts Sake” , and the Postmodern theories that embrace all cultures and cultural diversity, have had their time in the spotlight and all have been superseded by one or the other.

The authors suggest that this has been seen as “a slide into uncritical cultural relativism” In conclusion the authors suggest that the debate needs to include this complex intellectual history if the debate is to move beyond mere advocacy.

Reflections on SWITCH Nenagh

Reflections on Nenagh

SWITCH

Switch Project - contemporary artworks being shown around Nenagh Co Tipperary and Bangor Co Down, this November. This Artist led project consists of 8 video works by international artists projected onto the windows of empty shops. This year artists were invited to respond to “The Scale of Things”

“something unexpected, something unlikely; eight artworks inserted into places where they should not be. “ (Fiona Woods http://www.s-w-i-t-c-h.org 2010)

It was a delight to experience SWITCH on a guided tour by the projects curators on a wet November night in Nenagh. The tour began with an introduction to the project and the handing out of the time machines, an integral piece of equipment to the tour. Not only were we treated to eight artworks by international Artists, but our little group was very international with people from; Ireland, North and South, Germany, Holland, England, and Palestine, no mean feet for a small rural town in the middle of Ireland.

Off we set, time machines in hand, to experience not only the physical landscape of Nenagh but eight contemporary artworks located throughout the town. The time machines were of course slide viewers and at the location of each installation we were given slides that either related to the history of Nenagh or previous installations of SWITCH. I can recommend this project without reserve and am looking forward to a second viewing when SWITCH comes to Bangor County Down on 14th November.