Friday, July 01, 2005

Art for London 2012

When London bids to participate in the (2012) Olympics, it means business. And culture. Which is why the bid comes accompanied by a wonderful program: 40 Artists, 40 days. Basically, it is a publicity for Britain and its artists:
In the final 40 days of the campaign we want to raise awareness of this wider Olympic opportunity, and encourage support for London 2012, by creating a unique countdown calendar that will focus attention on Britain’s exceptional creative talent. We have asked 40 leading artists to provide a work, either original video, music, text, performance or visual art, which will be showcased here on Tate Online as a message of Olympic support, with a new piece being added every day until you can enjoy all 40.
The diversity is fantastic, as is the quality and the nearly always contemporary edge. On the site you'll find excerpts of dances (some quite interesting) , music, literature about music in England, and much, much more. My big disappointment was the work One Story Building by Blast Theory (you know I like them). But not because it's bad. It's an "interactive work" where you call a number and have to answer a series of 2000 (2012?) questions:
In this interactive work, the participant drills through two thousand either/or questions. Starting with the question ‘Urban or Rural?’, the piece moves from the expansive into the cloistered, finally arriving at a secret and private space. Reminiscent of ‘10×10’ by Charles and Ray Eames, it uses this swoop in scale to explore the taste of the participant, whilst gently mocking the notion of interactivity itself.

Single Story Building can be accessed anytime of day by phoning 0871 504 3987. Use your phone's keypad to navigate through the work. Calls are charged at the national rate (8p/min from a landline).

And I can't even tell you what's it like - it's a number I can't access from Lisbon. Anyone in Britain can give some feedback (wink at Lunettes Rouges)?


(via)

5 comments:

vvoi said...

i'm glad you like the blog. of course i'd love to hear about any interesting stuff happening on (or off!) the web! you can write me to the e-mail address you have, or to vvoitek [at] gazeta.pl

Anonymous said...

I will call this number tomorrow, even though I, of course, support Paris'candidacy! (we will know in about 60 hours)

Anonymous said...

With the bombings in London this morning, I cannot work, so I had free time and called this number. My "trip" was Urban/City/Center/Main street/Non-commercial/Inside/ 4th floor/ back bedroom/ child on the floor/near the coal stove. Then I went back and travelled a bit around. The girl has a great, deep, erotic voice, I liked the concept, but got bored pretty quickly: This interactive arborescence is old stuff, it was new in the 80s with the first software games and books of which you are a hero.
Well, we lost the games, so I should keep quiet.

vvoi said...

How are you doing, Lunettes Rouges? Thank you for remembering us in these crazy days! - I first read about the bombings from your comment (what a strange way), but I would have certainly thought about you.
As for the Blast Theory project, can you say a little more about it? Is there an "objective"? Does one get to an "end"? Does it sound like a "game" from beginning to end?

Anonymous said...

The objective, I assume, is to make you move from public space to private space, and to give you full control.
There is no end, or rather, to end it, you must have explored the N combinations, and keep track of where you went. As far as I could tell, there is only one way to go to one place, and every place is different.

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