My Girlfriend Broke A Plate! (For Jeremy)

My Girlfriend Broke a plate is a piece of work based on the immoralities o f the Jeremy Kyle show. Centred on the aspirations of the contestants and the behaviour of the backstage staff, there becomes a strange juxtaposition in the confusion of unlikely contestants becoming what they imagine the real show contestants to be.

 This work also challenges the roles of authority within a minority influence – if spoken to abruptly, will a participant become defensive or subservient. The Host to the backstage of this publicity shoot is ‘just doing their job’ in her actions, and is un-amused by the participants that she would have to deal with everyday.  Only praising those who make her life easier, those who moralistically choose not to argue are given a hard time. The subservient succeed by arguing and imagining ‘over-the-top’ situations to fit with the shows identity. Unlike the actual show, this is just a publicity shoot, therefore realises a different standpoint to the show- those who ‘want to’ participate.

There are quite sinister themes also appearing in the context of this backstage show, people can view what is happening through a internet link up in the main exhibition space which encourages them to want to be involved, yet the lack of sound indents the knowledge of what they will be getting themselves into. It also uses voyeurism to expand on the thoughts of the immoralities of watching the unknowing participant- suggesting that if they watch, enjoy and ‘want to be involved with the show’ then they deserve to be belittled, embarrassed and confused backstage as well as being watched themselves by the audience.  It can also be noted that the themes of each show are quite dull in comparison to the issues usually raised in Jeremy Kyle- this is to correspond the ability for people to argue over the slightest of things- and even the detrimental action that this can provoke. Domestic issues that are not noted on the show are explored here as issues that are not addressed in reality,  and the imagined aggression between the participants can indicate the lengths of how these circumstances are addressed at home, backstage.

Work in Progress

A piece of working progress for  the up and coming chelsea Postcard Auction after-party/ art event

Second Hands

Hi,

Do you feel strained by the thought of making work for the coming interim Show? Or feel as if you need a break to focus on other work, such as your dissertation?

Perhaps I can help?

For my input into the our week of the Interim Show i am lending my services to anyone participating- as a second pair of hands. Whether you need help constructing your work, thinking about and researching concepts, a second opinion on aesthetics or even just someone to run down to the shop for you to buy tea- I am on hand to be your second pair of hands!

If you would like help next week, i have a timetable of when i will be available where you will be able to book up to 2 hour sessions at a time (see below). Please e-mail or text and i will respond asap to try to suit all of your needs!*

Availability:

Monday 10am- 5pm
Tuesday 10am-5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am -5pm

I am also on hand to help by e-mail, so do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions or concerns.

I hope I can Help!
Kind Regards

Natalie


*Please note that i can only help to the best of my ability, physically and morally and although i will aim to give you the time that you desire for me to help, I may have to adjust your time if it clashes with another's booking.

Queens Speech to Parliament

I think i have had a breakthrough this weekend after finding this speech- shall definitely be played in the recession Christmas dinner-

Opt-In space Exhibition: An Alternative Space

We have spoken about having exhibitions in the opt-in space for a long time now, but they have never actually amounted to anything- there are often groups that members of the studio prepare, but nothing that is collaborative between students. This is what i am hoping for with this exhibition and i have had a lot of good press about organising an exhibition. The date of the private view is actually next Wednesday and we had a meeting today (after several previous discussions in the opt-in space) about a couple of finalisation's. The space is going to be kept as a studio during the exhibition, so it will be more like an open studio event- the group thought that this was the main ethos of the space and wanted the exhibition in keeping with the work that happened here. Also we decided to keep the name 'An alternative space' for the exhibition as it can relate to any of the work submitted, because we do all work in an alternative space. The process now is becoming quite exciting as there are a lot of works that are beginning to be submitted- Salt are planning to have a whole day event on the Thursday and I'm planning to do my 'The recession will be over by Christmas' performance in the opt-in space on the Wednesday, hopefully I'll also be able to set up the black space into a screening room. The only thing that is worrying me at the moment is that quite a few people have said that they would like to be involved but haven't actually shown me images of or even told me dimensions of what their work is. I feel a bit of a free for all coming on for next week when we start to set up. We are planing to meet again next week on Monday to spend the day curating,  tidying the space and hanging first pieces of work, apparently one of the students has a sculpture that is 2m tall- I'm now thinking of possible places this could be placed- there's not many, but it could really create an interesting dynamic within the open studio space (Initial curaton ideas below).
My piece of work for the show is lacking a little at the moment i feel so I'm going to have to finalise some ideas over the weekend about how i want to stage the dinner.

SNOW!

As the blizzard swallowed up all of the little houses in old London town and isolated towns in parts of Kent and delayed people getting to work and forced a number of commuters from Brighton to sleep on a train throughout the night, Natalie was traipsing through the snow in Essex buying fags for her nan.

It was very cold, and just as i always do, i had managed to leave going to see my nan until a day that it snowed. Not only that but i couldn't go a different day because my nan had ran out of cigarettes and milk and the sheltered housing that she lives in is never properly gritted outside (the local council do know how to deal with snow, don't they) I usually refuse to buy my nan cigarettes- but as i was going to be the only one seeing her in a couple of days i felt as if i had too (I got id'd as well- proves how often i buy these types of things). She also warned me before i got there that people would be panic buying milk so she wasn't fussed which type she had- as long as i got some. She's right- people do panic buy milk in a crisis- but it doesn't make sense "we have no food but as long as we have milk in our tea everything is dandy!" The trains weren't too bad in the end either, i managed to get to Essex on Monday and back to London on Tuesday, usually anything is a reason to stop the trains in Essex but i think this time it was obvious that Kent was hit the worst and they were still running a service (In a town in Kent a news reporter measured the snow as being a '4 pints of milk carton' deep!- that's accurate milk crisis measuring for you)

Anyway, at my nan's we had a good chat about my upcoming exhibition in the Opt-in space. I'm making a piece of work relating Christmas in the war to Christmas in the present recession so i wanted to see if there was anything she could give me tips on. All i found out really was how awful Christmas was if you were evacuated- she told me one story about how for Christmas one year she had to sit in silence all day with her evacuee family while the other children played and then had to be grateful for a pair of ankle socks she had been given. A little different from the Children nowadays with their Wii's and DS's. I think i might make a point of that in the work. Also she gave me a funny idea involving ladies stockings. I'm unsure if I'll use the actual information she gave me in the work. But it is a good insight into the past that i can definitely reflect on in my performance.

I'm helping in the Christmas fayre tomorrow, however if the snow doesn't ease up I'm not sure if it will be going ahead? I'm supposed to be doing hook the duck, face painting and a cake raffle (picture of the cake i made below- it is Chelsea college in the snow!) I've also made some Christmas cards- hopefully they will sell well- if not I'll be a little embarrassed, and I'm also to run the Tombola before Anika gets out of her seminar and help Joe set up. I feel a long day of fundraising ahead...

'Sorry i'm late' Presentation

From last weeks discussion with Bex- today was the big day of collaborative performance.
The collaboration, we had decided was to be about the distribution of text that Bex produces in her everyday practice. Bex would throughout the week distribute information whilst i would gather (If found) and translate it into a performative piece of work. Hopefully the seminar group would also pick up on these nuggets of information.
I received a text last night- through extreme fear that i wouldn't receive any information saying:
'page 2/2
Lines are down
seek other methods'
From this, i gathered that the information was about the train strikes that have been happening in recent weeks and i decided to write a presentation/ speech about change (after all, this is what you seek from striking) I also decided it should be ambiguous, like the text that Bex had sent- as if all the people in the seminar group had received exactly the same lack of information that i had (Which it turned out that they had) and we were all in the room on a 'revalutionary hearsay' basis. Titled 'Sorry I'm late' to be the only emphasis on what i presumed the text was about:

I know, i know, I’m sorry i’m late. It was expected that i would be late, so i’m sorry but there was really nothing that i could have done. I tried to get here on time. It didn’t happen. You know how things are. It didn’t happen.

But anyway , I’m sure None of us want to be here. To be honest it took me an hour longer that in should have to get here. But we can’t be talking about why we are here, how we got here, but only how we can change the way we got here. 

WE CAN MAKE A CHANGE TO THE WAY THAT WE GOT HERE. 

It’s time that we did make a difference. If not for ourselves, but for future generations. I have younger sister. She is 10, what will happen when she is in this position? And to be honest the way the youth is like today, she’ll be there before i ever was a her age. Do you know what i mean? Children aren’t children anymore. This cannot go on forever, otherwise they will begin to get too old.

 People have rights, that is understandable. But this is why it has happened really. If people didn’t have so much freedom then they wouldn’t have the option to aggravate other peoples lives. Other people have lives, lives where they want to talk to others- tell them their ideas, their thoughts. I admit that. But they shouldn’t have to have lives that affect other’s lives...  I’m glad that you are thinking along the same lines as me. Without having common interests people are nothing. 

PEOPLE ARE NOTHING WITHOUT EACH OTHER

I read a book before. It was about France. Well, It was set in France. I’m certain. A small book, not many pages, a story book; it was about philosophy. Well. A philosophy. A philosophy about how people can affect each others lives in a detrimental way without even realising it. I remember the book because it had some really nice illustrations in it. I advise that everyone reads it. It will help with how you are feeling at the moment. Anger is only a thing that you can feel in the present text. 

This leads me to my final slide and the object of this presentation. You all came here for answers, and that's exactly what i am going to give you. Answers. The answer is of course is that there  was a consensus. Nothing that i could do about it. And only something that YOU can change. Yes you. Not me. I am here to encourage you to do something. 

Of course you may think that the reasons were right; or even just reasonable-  for these people doing what they did..., but you have to remember  why i was late this morning, why you are here and why the person  sitting next to you is here. They are here for you as much as themselves, and they are here for your children, and your children’s children.

Remember:

People are nothing without each other- We can make a change to the way we got here.

You probably have questions. I don’t blame you. I would.    If you do, please contact me by e-mail. I’m more likely to answer quicker. (Show contact slide)

Thank you for your time. (sit down)

My character was 'stumbley' and out of breath, as if it was a nightmare to get to the presentation, and i didn't allow time for questions- although i think it was quite obvious within the presentation that the character had no more information that anyone else. The work was a way of explaining the links between our normal work and i think that the similarities are mainly in language and style of dispersion of information. I know that my work is always very ambiguous and i think so is Bex's.The main difference which is quite obvious is the way we distribute our work. Mine is very controlled and 'in your face' where as Bex's is subtle and up to the viewer whether or not they take the work.
a lot more forthright with strikes and will gather as large communities to protest for others; instead of the British attitude of complaining about strikes.
Overall- feedback was very good and it was quite a good opportunity to make a piece of work with a guaranteed audience.

Collaborative Presentation

Today in our Seminar we found out that we are to do collaborative presentations of our work in the coming weeks. I have been put in a pair with a girl whose work links to mine because of it's social interest- we were told we were put together because we both had accents- but after speaking for a long time it was clear that this wasn't the case, i don't even think i have an accent. Anyway, it was interesting mainly because i haven't really spoken to this person about my work before and to a majority extent don't know hers. We both work in extremely different ways- the ethos of Bex is to relax and find the right time to make her work, for me it is more about doing something straight away and jump in the deep end without thinking. So as we have decided to make a collaborative piece of work for next Thursday this should be interesting.
Bex is interested in everyday systems (For example phoning a call centre) and in a way another link to mine is that her work can be around small amounts of angst that cannot be resolved. Her work usually comes in the form of nuggets of information that can be found, if you want to find them- my work is a lot more confrontational. Another thing that will make the out come of our collaboration more interesting.

I also had another fundraising meeting today- one of success due to the astonishing amount of money the baking Team make on their first Sale- It was around £250 and they managed to sell everything that was made. We have decided to have the bake sales once a month to generate the best income as possible- I'm trying to encourage the baking team to have themes for the next couple of sales. Joe today also announced that he was going to be organising a Christmas Fayre for the 1st December- it sounds like there are a lot of people interested in running a stall- hopefully we can make a good amount of money from this too.

Hitachi Private View

The private view yesterday was a very stressfully classy and entertaining evening. The Hitachi Consulting staff were all really pleased with the catalogue, as were the students (I think) and they layed on a brilliant spread of wine and nibbles.  I can honestly say that it was a very deserving crescendo to the months and months of work that everyone has put into this project and I think that Jeff (The Organiser) was very pleased. The staff and guests were all very impressed with the work, and for the first time i actually stepped back from the curatorial nit-picking and saw the show for what it was. A very good one, with some really excellent pieces of work.
 We also stopped for a drink after the show with the majority of the PV guests and exhibitors- my last role project managing was to try and find a table big enough for us to all fit around. Not the easiest of tasks and by the time i had everyone sat down, people started to leave. A couple of us stayed until a bit later and had a good drink to the project, which i feel i will start to severely miss tomorrow when i can stop thinking about it-
Here are some pictures of the evening-

Working with Participants

I had a tutorial the other day to look through the work i had done over the summer, and it led to some interesting questions about why i don't involve my participants in my work. My initial response was that i don't want the people that i work with outside of college to feel as if i am using them for my own discourse. Of course thinking about it i do in some ways use these people for my own gain of knowledge, experiences but i would say only as much as you would be using someone by listening to a conversation to see what they have to say.  I would say that this is an interesting boundary though.  It leads to questions that have been raised in my thesis about artist intention and when socialising with someone starts to become 'using them' my thought of this from my thesis is that at the beginning of the year Boris Johnson employed a friend to have a key arts Job. Was that an intention of knowing Boris or an intention to get a good Job with a happy coincidence?
I'm still not keen on the idea of making participatory pieces of work for the people i work with. In some ways I see it as un-ethical and it would be like using them as Guinea Pigs in an experiment. I would invite them to an exhibition and if they were too ask to be involved, they could defiantly be involved- that has happened in the past and everyone seems happy at the end of the work.
I was also told in the tutorial to try and make a mends with my studio, and use it for what it is. To be honest it is not the end of the world that the Blue Room has gone. I just slightly despise the fact that now i have to book space from my own studio, its time consuming...

www.thegalleryistalking.org

The galleryistalking launch this afternoon was recieved well by the public, as we were placed in the octagon there were lots of visitors walking through and they were interested to see what we were doing. Unfortunatly i missed the labour intensive morning of constructing maps in one of the Tate rooms, but i think my fingers were pleased after constructing about 50 maps at home the previous week in preperation.
I had also arranged a couple of events that day in conjunction with the opening of the website and the map. One being Notate which was a piece of work made by myself and Joe as part of our working collective 'No'. It is a work intended to question the usefulness of accessibility solutions by letting individuals make thier own mind up about how they visulise things. It isn't a critisism of the work that has been produced within thegalleryistalking, more of an exploration from an outsiders perspective of the resources that have already been made.
To read more about this go to:

http://thegalleryistalking.org/notate

Infact, go to the website for an insight into the whole project, there is a forum, writings about the website and project, downloadable resources and lots more. There should also be photos of the launch coming soon. I'm quite ecited about where the project can now be taken as the first step has been very successful and i dont think there are or have been any preconceptions as to where the project could and will go.

Nei Vei! After Norway.

Dear Child Have Many Names
29th July 6pm- 1st August

Jomfru gata 4

Trondheim, Norway

These are the details of the exhibition that Ellie is curating in Norway over the summer in a disused shop. The piece of work from Norway that Joe and I made to be put into the exhibition is the video piece made on the first day by the Fjord in the night of us exercising as Edwardian's. Unfortunately we wont be able to see it placed in the exhibition, but if anyone is around in Norway, drop by to have a look.

We have decided after our time in Norway to label all of the work that we have made as the 'Ni Vay' project which in Norwegian is directly translated into 'No Way'- of course the phrase isn't in the Norwegian dialect but we feel it suits the work and experience. We are undecided of where to take our work from here, but if we do exhibit in London, we have a lot to do so with.
For now though, I have to turn my focus to the Tate and thegalleryistalking, and The Ties that Bind.

Day 5: No performance, last performing day

Our last performing day today, Cricket players. We have just been over to play a spot of cricket- unfortunately we couldn't find any flat ground to play on so we had to make do with an abandoned car park, behind a bus stop. Every where that has grass is actually just one big hill. What we have found from playing cricket is that actually Joe and I are very unfit, I was first to bowl and after Joe had hit the ball once i was worn out. It is also very difficult to play with just two of you. It involves a lot of general running up and down, as we didn't bring any cricket gear with us either, we used a couple of old pieces of wood that we found for a bat and stumps- an original idea that for performances we would make all of our props while in Norway (Although up until now- the final performance day- we have not needed any props)
This has probably been our least obtrusive costume of the week, so i feel a lot more comfortable, especially after finding out about the Jante Law. We do look as if we have just been playing for a club, i suppose the cricket costume doesn't differ too much by country.
We have filmed a little of us playing cricket on super 8 film- watching it back should be amusing, it will probably just be a lot of breathlessness. I also did a small performance piece this morning down by the Fjord that we filmed both on super 8 and digital, so i have watched it back already. It involved walking slowly down into the Fjord in my Edwardian under garments, slowly walking in so i disappear under the water. It seemed somewhat graceful in my mind but the realisation was quite different. The performance came from the idea that Edwardian Lady's used to swim pretty much fully clothed after being assisted into the water in a changing room of sorts. This is a performance that i wanted to do when we were Edwardian, but as it was so late it wasn't such a good idea.
The experience of walking into the water was something that i have never felt before- it was so extremely cold. Up to my waist wasn't such a problem but as my arms entered the water and it raised towards my chest i felt as if i couldn't breathe any more- I  was screaming, but there wasn't any sound coming out. I did manage to walk in as far to cover my entire head but as soon as my head was under i felt as if i was about to pass out and swam straight out. Looking back at the footage, i look like i am in pain, its not graceful, and what i felt took ages to walk all the way in was less than two minutes. My head was in and out within seconds.
To top this all off, there was the painful image in the background, of a Norwegian family- the children jumping in and out and swimming in the fjord.
Silly tourist.

Day 4: No Performance

Last night we went out to meet a couple more of Ellie's friends, got some food etc. Despite the lack of veggie options, we had a fun and interesting night.  I suppose the main thing to mention however were the conversations we had about English stereotypes. After showing the people we met some of the work that we had been making, explaining why we were doing it, we got some fantastic conversations about what British people were about. Mainly the conversation involved tea. Twinings in particular. We have some brilliant footage of posh English accents.

Anyway, today we went on an excursion to a little island by ferry which has a monastery built on it. Of course, now its only for tourism purposes, but it was pretty much untouched which was good, again, like most of the surroundings in Trondheim, beautifully picturesque.  We have been performing as 'aristocracy' today- the hunter farmer type that you would see in big inherited mansions. It was somewhat like we had traveled by boat to conquer another land. There is a little cafe on the island that again sold mainly meat- but we had some more waffles and a good old cuppa Rosie (that would be a 'Cup of Tea' for those of you confused by my cut in with cockney dialect). This inspired Joe to make a little spontaneous performance to teach the locals how to make a cup  of tea via self help video. It's very patronising and funny, but Joe did an astounding job of keeping a straight face throughout.

I have spent most of my day reading 'Magesty magazine' a magazine that you can buy at most airports and main railway stations in England but probably no-where else. Leading tourists into the presumption that the majority of English people are concerned about what the Royal Family are doing. However, quite relevantly there was a large section in the magazine about the royal visit to Norway that happened a couple of weeks ago. All i can say is that the Norwegian royal family are far more attractive than ours, but saying that, Princess Anne's hair is amazing. I modelled mine on hers today.

Day 3: No Performance

Today we bravely risked 'The Chav' performance, i managed to make my outfit out of clothes i had in my wardrobe from that ambiguous teenage time of my life- I think Joe had to try harder with his costume- but he did very well. Very convincing. Again we went down to the Fjord, walking down a massive hill in massive heels is a challenge, and i think as soon as you are wearing the baggy clothes/ baseball caps its difficult not to walk with an odd limp and a shifty stare. The surroundings however, made us look totally harmless.

Which reminds me- yesterday we had an amusing moment when we met a friend of Ellie's - she pointed us out as the people from England that were dressing up. Having heard form a friend, and apparently she had seen us with the Italian tourists and thought that we may have been with them. Obviously, our main look as an Edwardian was 'tourist' which is fair enough really.

We posed today next to a boat we had found on the fjord- It had 'sea c**t' spray painted on the side. A lucky find for our costumes but an unfortunate scene for us tourists on holiday. We mainly shied away in our outfits today, whilst hanging around not doing a lot. I suppose our image of a chav really. I suppose in the same way it meant that we weren't seen by any of the locals- probably the one day this week where we ironically haven't broken the Jante Law.

Day 2: No performance

We dressed as Country Bumkins today, i attempted to plait my hair on both sides, but failed miserably. Joe suprisingly suits this one but i have felt very insecure wearing my costume- anyway, today we have been into town again, this time to visit the royal familys royal house, suprisingly it is on the main high street, opposite a Burger King. We are aware of the fact that they don't often stay in Trondhiem, but security is so lax that we have been able to walk right up to the front door to pose in our costumes.
We also tasted an 'Ice boat' today. very tasty.
Elinor also broke the news to us about the scandanavien 'unspoken' law, that involves not dressing or making yourself stand out in public in anyway, which makes us feel even more like tourists than we expected, however the same law also mentions that you should not judge others- which explains why nobody has really said anything. It makes the act of performing in Norway more interesting though- hopefully we can talk to some people over the next couple of days to see how they feel personaly about looking differently. Does this law still have claught? and if so, do we as toursts have a get out clause because we are not part of the culture?



Jante Law:

(for more info, follow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_Law)
There are ten different rules in the law as defined by Sandemose, but they all express variations on a single theme and are usually referred to as a homogeneous unit: Don't think you're anyone special or that you're better than us.
The ten rules state:

1. Don't think you're anything special.
2. Don't think you're as much as us.
3. Don't think you're wiser than us.
4. Don't convince yourself that you're better than us.
5. Don't think you know more than us.
6. Don't think you are more than us.
7. Don't think you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think anyone cares about you.
10. Don't think you can teach us anything.

An eleventh rule recognized in the novel is:
11. Don't think there's anything we don't know about you.
In the book, those Janters who transgress this unwritten 'law' are regarded with suspicion and some hostility, as it goes against communal desire in the town to preserve social stability and uniformity.

Day 2: No performance: Joe's video diary

 

Day 1: No Performance in Norway

Yesterday was our first performance day in Norway. It started with an Edwardian tour around Trondheim, we have seen 'the main' tourist attraction in Trondheim, a cycle lift up a steep hill- while we were there we actually managed to run into a very large group of Italian tourists also looking at the lift. I cant say that this has confirmed that the cycle lift has the most visitors out of all those that come to Norway, but we did not see another group like this anywhere else in the city and the cycle lift was closed due to maintenance.
Obviously we had been dressed as Edwardian's all day, it hasn't gone un-noticed on our tour, although nobody has said anything, other than, that really suits you.
We also tasted 'brunost' which is a brown Norwegian cheese and had waffles with sour cream and jam. The waffles were very tasty.
I think the main event for us yesterday was staying up very late to witness the sunset and sunrise without it going out of view at about 3am it was as light as day. This is when we made our first piece of work, by the fjord, an adaptation of what we 'believe' Edwardians would do if they had encountered the fjord as we had, of course in true stereotype fashion.