This day Monday is turning out to be a Bob Geldorf Monday. My intention last night was to complete the set work yesterday while writing something and this created the first problem because I was not in a thinking creative mood. The choice appeared to be between writing up a holiday and meal occasions remembered at the hotel where I first stayed in the autumn of 1973 prior to my interview and appointment as a local authority chief officer and where I had a meal once more, a week ago.
Something, which I cannot remember a couple of hours later, led me to think that I needed to reflect on the fourth anniversary since commencing full time work on project 101 on July 1st 2003 and I quickly realised that I only had a broad recollection of how the work had progressed and that I needed to check records, and then to my horror I discovered that some digital records could not be found, although I had a printed record, but worse still I had become lazy about the keeping of some records which will be important in years to come.
The day was reorganised and after a salad lunch with an unbuttered roll and a mini siesta watching Bargain Hunt, I directed myself to making a summary record. I had spent too much time with one eye of Big Brother House and I must soon decide if this enthusiasm is to be maintained or abandoned. I arranged my travel to London for the Diana concert on July 1st, going by train and return by coach; although on reflection it is such a long journey I may re book by train later this evening.
As previously recorded the 101 project has it seeds in the opening of the Baltic in 2002, the film of the life of Jackson Pollock and the purchase of two books, in particular the last two chapters of the Stangos Edited Concepts of Modern Art. Then after an important break involving three diverse life changing events I had visited the Saatchi and Tate Modern on a Spring Day in 2003 I knew not only what I wanted to do but how to do it. It was after a fourth event which shocked and devastated after a first visit to Gibraltar at the end of May 2003 that the decision was taken to commence full time work on July 1st , having planned to commenced on the 65th birthday in March 2004. July 1st was also the day that I was advised I had won a joint BT Tate competition with prizes which included a state of the art BT phone and the Tate companion to British art. It appeared to be a good omen.
The first decision had been to the test out my concept by anonymously sending a sample set to eight critics, artists, exhibitors and art media interests. There were three reasons for doing this: 1- A commitment to the project; 2- An attempt to find out if anyone else had previously thought, or was working on something similar and 3- to see if there was a reaction or any interest. At the time I was debating if I should attempt to raise funds to maintain the former family home, or start afresh elsewhere.
I decided against acquiring the knowledge and technology to put myself on line but kept a record through a mixture of open access and confidential audio tapes which I continued until 101 90 mins tapes were completed. I commenced to digitally photo each completed set or volume of sets, and these photos comprise the about three quarters of the 350000 photos taken to-date. I also commenced a record of how the work was displayed around the house, of the garden year and of the immediate environment as well as visits to former residential and occupational homes and offices. Some 20 hours of unedited film was also taken in the first two years of the project.
While I can list the main project work activities without reference to records, I need to have a better memory of how the work progressed. My first activity was to work with crayons and then with pastels. I made a visit to Oxford to where I had studied and worked 1961-1967 and to Teddington and Ealing where I had then moved and worked 1967-1970. Later in the year I translated by 1993 completed unpublished novel into creative set work and before the end of the year a list of all published writing. There were also the records of my confidential records of the Department of Health Drug Advisory Service visit to Oxfordshire in 1989. Between July 1st and December 31st 2003 I created 413 sets an average of 68 a month.
During the first quarter of 2004 a major project involved former work and homes and then my diary of events covering a ten year period from 1988. There were field trips to former homes in Yorkshire and Cheshire, and to Manchester and Birmingham where I had undertaken practical work and attended the University and a second visit to Oxford. There was work on the Drug Advisory visit to East Suffolk. The major field trips were to Calne, in Wiltshire and Gibraltar, as I recommenced work on the family history. There was information on financial history from Bills and receipts and systematic work on my creative writings from the early 1960's to the mid 1980's. I remembered that I had lent my only copy of a play which was not returned. In the late 1960 I had written a weekly report on child care social work matters raised in Parliament through Hazard and these had been sold to local authorities, voluntary organisations, training institutions and government departments, as well as writing a loose political column each month for a professional journal. I undertook some work on my support of Football and the great share dealing adventure when I had turned £1000 into £7000 in a matter of weeks and then lost everything when the stock market crashed. In 2004 I produced over 1600 new sets at an average of 135 a month.
Something, which I cannot remember a couple of hours later, led me to think that I needed to reflect on the fourth anniversary since commencing full time work on project 101 on July 1st 2003 and I quickly realised that I only had a broad recollection of how the work had progressed and that I needed to check records, and then to my horror I discovered that some digital records could not be found, although I had a printed record, but worse still I had become lazy about the keeping of some records which will be important in years to come.
The day was reorganised and after a salad lunch with an unbuttered roll and a mini siesta watching Bargain Hunt, I directed myself to making a summary record. I had spent too much time with one eye of Big Brother House and I must soon decide if this enthusiasm is to be maintained or abandoned. I arranged my travel to London for the Diana concert on July 1st, going by train and return by coach; although on reflection it is such a long journey I may re book by train later this evening.
As previously recorded the 101 project has it seeds in the opening of the Baltic in 2002, the film of the life of Jackson Pollock and the purchase of two books, in particular the last two chapters of the Stangos Edited Concepts of Modern Art. Then after an important break involving three diverse life changing events I had visited the Saatchi and Tate Modern on a Spring Day in 2003 I knew not only what I wanted to do but how to do it. It was after a fourth event which shocked and devastated after a first visit to Gibraltar at the end of May 2003 that the decision was taken to commence full time work on July 1st , having planned to commenced on the 65th birthday in March 2004. July 1st was also the day that I was advised I had won a joint BT Tate competition with prizes which included a state of the art BT phone and the Tate companion to British art. It appeared to be a good omen.
The first decision had been to the test out my concept by anonymously sending a sample set to eight critics, artists, exhibitors and art media interests. There were three reasons for doing this: 1- A commitment to the project; 2- An attempt to find out if anyone else had previously thought, or was working on something similar and 3- to see if there was a reaction or any interest. At the time I was debating if I should attempt to raise funds to maintain the former family home, or start afresh elsewhere.
I decided against acquiring the knowledge and technology to put myself on line but kept a record through a mixture of open access and confidential audio tapes which I continued until 101 90 mins tapes were completed. I commenced to digitally photo each completed set or volume of sets, and these photos comprise the about three quarters of the 350000 photos taken to-date. I also commenced a record of how the work was displayed around the house, of the garden year and of the immediate environment as well as visits to former residential and occupational homes and offices. Some 20 hours of unedited film was also taken in the first two years of the project.
While I can list the main project work activities without reference to records, I need to have a better memory of how the work progressed. My first activity was to work with crayons and then with pastels. I made a visit to Oxford to where I had studied and worked 1961-1967 and to Teddington and Ealing where I had then moved and worked 1967-1970. Later in the year I translated by 1993 completed unpublished novel into creative set work and before the end of the year a list of all published writing. There were also the records of my confidential records of the Department of Health Drug Advisory Service visit to Oxfordshire in 1989. Between July 1st and December 31st 2003 I created 413 sets an average of 68 a month.
During the first quarter of 2004 a major project involved former work and homes and then my diary of events covering a ten year period from 1988. There were field trips to former homes in Yorkshire and Cheshire, and to Manchester and Birmingham where I had undertaken practical work and attended the University and a second visit to Oxford. There was work on the Drug Advisory visit to East Suffolk. The major field trips were to Calne, in Wiltshire and Gibraltar, as I recommenced work on the family history. There was information on financial history from Bills and receipts and systematic work on my creative writings from the early 1960's to the mid 1980's. I remembered that I had lent my only copy of a play which was not returned. In the late 1960 I had written a weekly report on child care social work matters raised in Parliament through Hazard and these had been sold to local authorities, voluntary organisations, training institutions and government departments, as well as writing a loose political column each month for a professional journal. I undertook some work on my support of Football and the great share dealing adventure when I had turned £1000 into £7000 in a matter of weeks and then lost everything when the stock market crashed. In 2004 I produced over 1600 new sets at an average of 135 a month.
The spring of 2005 was devoted to creating a chronicle of events 1939-2004 and to the writing of an autobiographical work 101 in Black and White where 101 copies were privately printed and which are likely to form a work for exhibition, in black and white boxes 9.3.39 together with 101 photos and 101 statements. There was component set making such as the period of involvement with non violent civil disobedience and direct action, some college tutorial work and confrontation with trade union and political extremists. The anniversary year came to end with the sale of the former family home and moving to my present location. There was further work on personal history with my interest in Jazz and the years of adult and further education, and professional work training. In the autumn of 2005 major work was commenced on family history with the development of on line searches of census records and church records before the creation of the national records of births, marriages and deaths in 1837. Despite moving home 2005 has been my most productive work year with just under 2000 sets completed at a monthly average of over 160.
2006 was devoted to family history research and a major visit to Calne to study original church record. This led to an amazing discovery of a Tithe Map of all properties drawn to scale with a register of all owners and renting occupiers and which showed the property where my mother's great grandfather and his extraordinary wife gave birth to seven daughters in succession and then five sons. I walked into the local history centre on the same day that a distant relative who had once lived in the same street as the great grandfather were visiting and being shown a photograph of an ancestor. A family history to 1901 covering information and photos was produced in three versions. This work is basis of a work about my relationship with my mother.
It was after the completion of this part of the project that I decided to create the AOL Blog from May 2006 to April 2007 and which has 900 entries. Each day I made one to three entries chronicling work and other activities, and a review of a cultural experience which had some reference back to life before 2003 when the project was commenced. There was also a back up record of some 50000 photographs, primarily of development work. I was not aware of any readership but the writing was checked to ensure it met the rules of the project and therefore it was not a comprehensive truth because thoughts and feelings related to known living individuals were excluded unless there was prior approval or the issue had been made public. There were also those matters restricted by statute. The writing of the Blog provided a structure for the day although this remained secondary to the main project task recreating my previous self aware life.
During the second half of 2006 I worked on the records of a child care inquiry when I had accepted an invitation with the approval of my employers in the early 1980's and where because of matters uncovered I drafted the majority report, although it was carefully rewritten and agreed by three of the four panel members of the inquiry. There were important lessons about inquiries within a legal framework there were some fifty lawyers ranging from Queen's Counsel to office assistants involved on behalf of the main interests. Those who had warned and complained, neighbours, foster parents had to rely on panel members to listen to their interests. The inquiry lasted 3 months and the study of the documentation and writing of the published report took a further year, undertaken early morning before commencing my normal managerial responsibilities 1855 new sets were completed in 2006, at an average of over 150 a month. I completed inventories of Books, of audio sounds and visual films in the media format of fifty years. I read and I listen trying to recapture the original experience and re-evaluate from the perspective of subsequent experience.
This year over the first five months the rate of new work has fallen significantly but remains over 100 a month. I have been considering why this has been so, and why I have not pursued some activities where there had been great enthusiasm and a sense of priority.
Yesterday I watched a programme about the life of the Comedian Benny Hill who devised his work and TV programmes and became an internal celebrity because of the visual nature of work. Various friends and admirers mentioned that he liked his own company, overeat and drank when he lost his new work contract, but that he liked to be in company but chose to control when and with whom. This was me but no longer.
It commenced last year with the experience of live theatre, and switching from seeing current cinema in theatre to the study of films and film makers centred on Ingmar Bergman and Almodovar with some 40 viewings todate.
Then there has been the impact of my Space discovered by accident having attended the live performance of X factor finalists and doing some homework on the artists. My interest quickly developed as a means of fulfilling the original intention that the process of my work should open to anyone interested in addition to the open part of the work itself. I also commenced to trawl the profiles of others and their friends to find those whose lives touched on aspects of my previous experience, and then discovered tribute sites to many of those who had significantly influenced my development. However this has had several unexpected consequences. It has led to important real live interactions and experiences where the links with time past has been stretched.
That my mother has reached 100 years also has had its impact, although being able to make almost daily visits, since her move locally approaching three years ago, has been more profound, because we have both had the relationship we never had as a child. Until now I have known what it was like to grow up without a meaningful relationship with one or both biological parents and only guessed at what it would be like to have had that unique relationship with a biological mother and flesh to flesh bonding father. This is not to imply that that all such relationships are good and appropriate, and enable children to grow up as productive and effective members of society and with constructive relationships with subsequent partners and their own children.
Too often when politicians and media comment and moan about the loss of Englishness, they are referring to a narrow sub culture created by heredity and industrial revolution wealth, which dominated and had authority over Victorian society, and which continued until the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The majority culture has always been very different but without power. This has changed significantly over the past two decades. The composition of the British Isles has become European and International. The majority of young people are involved in liberating adult education and our cities and major towns have been given over to their culture and entertainment as well as to their education. The internet digital revolution has not only transformed what we see and hear but how we see and hear, but had rapidily sidelined politicians and the political process. People not only watch but vote in their millions Big Brother, Idol and X Factor. Business has become global with the capacity to switch everything to where goods can be produced most cheaply, and managements and research to where the best can function the most effectively. Meanwhile religions and ideologues murder and create havoc in order to justify their continuation and authority.
I was stuck in a limbo between a vanishing minority but powerful English culture and a new forced from which I felt and was to a certain extent excluded. I suddenly find that I am able to live in the world wide culture of the present. This requires a revaluation of how I am using my time and work priorities.
interesting blog. Posted by ~ Z ~ on 12:06 - 12:44
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