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.
