TEDxYork (click the link if you can’t view flash)
Had a magnificent time at TEDxYork. Enjoyed speaking very much (during and after it happened, at least) and was a real privilege to hear thoughts from people like Alan Lane, Alex Kelly, Dan Bye, Tassos Stevens, Baba Israel et al. A little disappointing in terms of female presence, but otherwise really fascinating. I’M TOO TIRED TO TURN ALL OF THESE NAMES INTO LINKS. PLEASE GOOGLE THEM. And do read Alan’s talk about ‘cancer, West Berlin, pianos and ideas above your station’. I’ll post the TEDx video of my call to arms for artists, technologists and citizens as soon as it’s up. No time right now to turn my notes into something bloggable, but will leave my slides and conclusion above and below if you want to peruse them. They give very little away, sorry.
This week: Umbrella Project sound categorising, PhD, Zero Hour visit to London, more desperate volunteer recruiting, and preparation for the workshops I’ll be running in Brussels. No rest/wicked, etc.
These examples, they use technology, but not as a tool, They put a body at the centre of it, and use it to create a spectre.
“a revolutionary practice that relies as much on imagining and mobilizing better stories as on shocks to the system” (Pile, 2010, p. 53)
If I might return to the metaphor of ‘steam’. Technology and art should about taking heat, and water, and producing something fundamentally different.
Too often the arts look at technology as a tool – not as a material, as long as they do, they won’t truly be able to work with it
The arts need to embed themselves in the real world like a virus. Haunting the city with visions of what it might be. Of how we, not private interests, might be able to use technology in the city.