Friday 13 November 2015

travellingthroughspaceandtime

in the air there is no internet! - on a flight back from Glasgow after attending and giving a paper at Futurescan3 - my first time in the city - my experience of Glasgow was a real mixture of civic pride and really really friendly people. The Civic Chambers are quite extraordinary and worth checking out - how much marble can one place contain and what wonderful ceilings. And then the food - recommend two fat ladies and The Hanoi Bike Shop  - two extremes of dining but both wonderful in their own way.
During Futurescan I was privileged to listen to a wide range of presentations - some links here to ones that were really excellent and will require more thinking - The quietly determined Reiko Sudo talking about the role of saying yes, Julie Ripley on the subculture of surfing as a role for growing both a multimillion industry and a way of life seeded with the Australian Government selling us 'australianess' a by-product being the hideous phrase 'going to uni! - ironically an indication of the downfall of education. Alison Mayne looking at the online world of isolated knitters and the issue of wellbeing - she also had the most excellent title 'Does anyone have a pattern for a sombrero to fit a crochet monkey?' and finally a 20 minute talk by Helen Burbridge about the join in a pattern between a sleeve and a body within a post war dress was captivating.

I got out to Tramway to see the Turner Prize - I really enjoyed the playfulness of Nicole Wermers with her the ceramic advertising stubs and chairs wearing fur were excellent - but I really loved the work of Bonnie Camplin - the work was a number of videos of people who have conspiracy theory at their core - often they had engaged with alternative ways of thinking including training to become super soldiers by the illuminate. The room was also full of printed matter and these books in some way substantiated these claims or at least explored and presented the opportunity to consider the 'truth' of their claims - you could photocopy anything and take it away with you - my favourite publication was The Psychic Energy Workbook where I could work on my psychic self defence skills.