Newcastle Byte Size

At the moment I am volunteering for the Byte Size Project (formerly ICT volunteers). Info at their website -> http://www.newcastlebytesize.co.uk/. This project helps people gain confidence and experience with using computers. It is funded by the New Deal for Comunities for Arthurs Hill. It is particularily for people who have had little exposure to computers, but is open to all. Go to the website to find out how to access the learning and what times it is on.

Psychogeography and Newcastle

Having gone on Michaels ‘tales from an abandoned spaceship’ tour in April I have become interested in what physchogeography is. Found out it has to do with the situationists

psychogeography and derive

So another event coming up…….

SHADOWED SPACES
> Sean Meehan, Tamio Shiraishi, Ikuro Takahashi, Denis Wood
> 6th-15th July: FREE
> loads more info at http://www.arika.org.uk
>

Hogarth at CaixaForum

Whilst in Barcelona i got to visit the CaixaForum, the Social and Cultural Centre of the “La Caixa” Foundation in Barcelona.

Strangley I saw no Spanish art, but an exhibition of the English engraver William Hogarth. Some of his etchings can be seen here at the british museum. Beer Street vs Gin Lane was particularily illuminating. One an upright sort of place, the other full of debauchery. The problem in London, England, AD 1751 was intemperance due to spirits rather than lager louts. He made these prints ‘calculated to reform some reigning Vices peculiar to the lower Class of People’. It upheldthe virtues of beer and the evils of gin.

Monica, Ulla and Adam

Originally uploaded by sctv.
The capsula people and bioartist Adam. In the background are incantations to name the hybrid DNA we created during the workshop. This is part of the Days Of Bioart07 exhibition (www.capsula.org.es/diasdebioarte).

Losing it / a little

Well, i have been busy, and active and haven’t slowed down, and my blogs haven’t kept up…….(the other one at transitlab.org is going very slowly, due to a wierd explorer incompatibility I think…and i don’t have access through anything but, dammn those library computers).

So, i am in Barcelona! To see the capsula Days of Bioart at the Centre d´art Santa Monica, and to mix some dna with Adam Zaretsky….it wont be my own though.

Yah, had one of my best seafood experiences last night at la Paradeta (C/comercial 7 in Born, Barcelona). You get to select the seafood from a display that has reasonable shop prices. They then cook it to order… I had some gamba/shrimp as a starter, squid/andaluza calamares, babyoctopus/chipiron and mussels/marianera mejillone plus a small beer and a bit of bread for 14euros. I was stuffed.