Monday, 18 January 2010

"White lies"

I'll get this one out the way so I can update a lot quicker in the future;

I had a conversation with someone a while ago who was talking about the ADA being re-painted a different tone of white. A few other people had heard similar things but there was a number of different stories behind why it happened. The most amusing story was that the initial paint in some areas of the building had dried differently than in others, leaving a different colour on the wall. The architect wasn't happy and so had the entire building re-painted a slightly different tone of white. don't know if theres any truth in it but it just made me think 'i wouldn't be surprised!' I remembered this story because I find it interesting how our environments are often meticulously 'manicured' and our experience in them manipulated even without our involvement. (not too far away from my old theory of 'everything is a conspiracy and we're all being brainwashed!'when i was a bit younger).

More interesting than that tho was that I bought it, and I walked around uni with my head tilted for a while, examining the new paint which was so profoundly important. My work at the end of each year usually involves a lot of photo's of things i've put places (interventions) backed up with a lot of chat, stories, anecdotes, theory that you can apply to anything, and a lot of 'bending' the truth. all of this is the feedback I get from doing stuff initially - learning from it afterwards - and then sort of telling people it went brilliantly by adding layers of theory and context, which in a way is kind of true because it all came from feedback from other people in the first place. Iv started to play with the function of the documentation of work -which is becoming more and more interesting now we all need to rely on them for our assessment... . .anyway, have a look at images of previous work on my other blog!

For one of my projects, the big main one, I am planning to re-paint, again, the entire ADA building. To do this I need;
  1. To spread a rumour with a lot of help from other people
  • word of mouth, plugs in meetings and lectures etc, e-mail, publish fake documents and letters from the architect + others in mind.
  • set up ubiquitous but hidden interventions in the building E.G stack up tins of emulsion, cordon off areas of the building with hazard tape and dusty old carpet protectors and have ladders lying around etc. Think of Keith Willson's 'puddle'.
  • Hire (for real -pay for by the hour) people to convincingly (ish) act out the job of the painter and decorator. this will also be part of the rumour as I will print adverts "Rick Mather architects looking for students to help with maintenance work - including info about the re-painting job.
The idea of a real economy is interesting to me (if it go's to plan - I'm selling some old work to pay for it) because ill be paying an artist to perform and paying them to carry out a pointless menial task, which we can all relate to.

I know there are loads of obvious things that you guys might have questions about if you've bothered to read this far but Il go on forever if I mention everything at once. + I've started to think that all the potential pitfalls could turn out to be interesting in themselves and work out differently so I'm welcoming questions.... . .sean
(obviously id appreciate it if you kept all this to yourselves 4 now cheers)

Relevant to me;

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