spaces

i went on a recent trip across london to a theatre space in battersea power station called ‘arches lane theatre.’ it was a small stage under railway arches. the journey took about an hour during a day with no piccadilly line and a bus strike. but i still made the journey as the event was a preview show for a comedians tour that i liked. whilst there i looked around the battersea shopping centre. rows of shops that you could get anywhere in an impressive hall. i ate a meal at one of the many restaurants and grabbed a coffee at one of the many cafes. all good.

the show was great and a bargain for ten pounds. but a shadow was hanging over the evening. the theatre was going to close to be replaced by another restaurant. the theatre folk didn’t want to leave and had started a petition to wandsworth council. following the no notice decision. yet again we are going to lose an important space. when councils or authorities or management come to these decisions it is always for short-sighted reasons. they think: we can make more money doing a restaurant than having a theatre. they do not see they will remove the reason for me going there. that a restaurant will lose a group buying a meal. a cafe will lose people buying coffees. my reason for crossing london to go to battersea would have gone. i have theatres nearer me and there are restaurants aplenty. the shopping experience i can get many other places closer to me. my journeys to battersea will come to an end.

but it is not just the financial impact closing a small theatre can have on an area. there is another impact as well. it impacts up-and-coming creatives, performers, artists. when starting out they need these smaller venues to try out their material and see if it works. provide an opportunity to develop a show and refine skills. smaller venues are more affordable in a time when government continues to underfund the arts despite the money the creative industry brings to gdp. quite often creatives are producing shows at loss. they are funding the work through other day jobs. they make the art despite the lack of support. what do we the punter get? we get to see new and emerging talent. maybe something no one else is yet doing. even possibly a new star in the making. but all of this will be lost if small venues continue to close due to short-sighted authorities.

i manage a bookshop and small arts events space. we can hold about an audience of thirty. the premises are run as a cooperative and we go out of our way to support creatives who want to develop a show. we are always willing to listen to an idea. we dont make a lot of money out of it. we do it because such spaces are important. not just for us but for future creatives. for everyone.

obsolete forms

Featured | Posted by theworddoodler

let’s talk about art and the creation of art and what is art.
when people first wanted to record what they saw or happened they painted on the walls of caves with paints they created from things around them. it represented what they saw and did. then over time the technology improved. paper. canvases. but people continued to paint to show what they saw.

photography was invented and replaced painting as a technology for recording. painting became art. people used to record events on their cameras. people, places, things. until the rise of the movie camera which replaced the camera as a means to record events. so photography became art and movies became the way to record events. a new technology on the scene. this in its turn became superseded by computers. each new technology reducing the previous to art. the old technology became a means of expression. the representation of the idea.

and now we find ourselves with a new technology making redundant the old. AI. all before is reduced to art. obsolete technology the expression of art. text and image. but what of AI? some say that they create art using AI. they enter the commands and something is produced. they call it art. they claim creation. but is creation just merely the idea and the output?

when earlier artists created an artefact was it merely the output that was considered the art? the result of thought, experimentation, technique, the breaking of rules and the inventing of rules. does not the process also make the art. with AI there is no process. there is simply the input of the idea and the output. there is no experimentation with the materials, the developing of technique, the following of rules and the breaking of rules. that was all done by the artists whose work was scraped and stolen. there is no original technique and expression of process. the process is gone. bastardised. just idea and output.

am i being too hard on the AI creator? i think not. previous technologies that became art did not rely upon the stealing of the work of others. it is not an averaging of many different people’s thoughts, processes and ideas. and even when previous creators made art with dead technologies based on other creatives’ ideas they acknowledged the fact. they made reference to it. they did not claim it was solely their creation. they owned up to the great artists they were inspired by. AI artefacts make no such reference or admittance. they lie that they are original, something new. rather than an amalgamation of many creatives’ ideas.

if you want to be seen as a creator of art then engage with the process of art. take time to develop your skills. find your own voice. develop your own techniques. break the rules your way. develop your own new rules. don’t short cut and steal another’s work and claim it yours. you did not own the process. the work is not yours.

moment 24

Featured | Posted by theworddoodler

the sky is so dark here. real dark. not like the dark of the city which is like a deep, dark blue. illuminated by the streetlights. the lights of shop windows, offices, apartments. the lights of cars going somewhere, quick and fast. a blur of light up from the city, into the sky, making it dark day. the sky is never black in the city. just the colour of uniform. the stars lost, devoured, consumed by the city life. florescent lights are our wonder now. laser lights across the sky, picking out buildings. no room for shadows. nests are filled with birds with insomnia. tablets on a branch. if only we could sleep. the streetlight flickers. blink on. blink off. blink on. turning backs to the light. but here it is real dark. black of soul dark. reaper cowl dark. even trees become invisible. you have to sense them. sound echoes in its closeness. it touches the ground. spreads. over every blade of grass until all are nothing. a void. a board to be chalked upon. above are shapes i had forgotten. shapes like stars. pinpoints of white in the sky.