Good news everyone! I actually tried the Online Business System a few people were talking about last week ( article: http://bit.ly/Sg1DHU ) and I made $750 in 2 days. They overnighted this check yesterday aka I could afford an iPhone 5 today, and I’m cashing it first thing in the morning. which isn’t anything to brag about, but my check next week will be for $2k or more. So they definitely pay, and I already made 75 times the $10 investment I put in. Trust me - break out your credit card or make your parents buy this for you (my dad bought it for me) It’s easy to do the system and it’s cheap as hell. Here’s the CBS MoneyWatch article where you can buy it http://bit.ly/Sg1DHU and it’s only 10 bucks. I suggest you get in on this now because I doubt it will work in a few months. (and no I don’t make any money from telling you guys about it. I’m just fucking excited and need to share this with everyone.) http://bit.ly/Sg1DHU (I keep repos!
ting this so everyone can see it)

I‘ve recently found myself deliberating over whether to become a member of this or that creative society, institute and/or gallery. It’s an odd concept, befriending a venue or organisation in order to receive more information, free things, more schmoozing; but I suppose in a society where money makes the world go round, it’s what has to be done.

The main factor behind my consideration is down to trying to squeeze every last drop out of my final year as a student; both in terms of discount and free time. I’ve always subscribed to arts and culture magazines, such as Frieze, Dazed & Confused, and Corridor8, so spending a little more to gain a little more doesn’t really strike me as much of an issue.

I feel my options of membership can be split in to two simple categories, to join specific venues (theatres and/or galleries) or to join umbrella organisations such as The Contemporary Art Society, or the Art Fund.

With regards to the former, joining venues, I’ve frequented the Cornerhouse a lot over my two years in Manchester. It seems an obvious choice when you gain so much while spending so little (£25 annual payment); reduced cinema and event tickets, guaranteed previews, and of course discounted food and drinks. You’ve also the knowledge you’re supporting a genuine local, national and international institute as Cornerhouse invests so much back in to all three communities. So yes, that’s a no brainer I’ve already convinced another friend to commit to, ensuring I’m not going to the cinema on my own. I feel the other places I make use of fail to offer me enough further benefit if I joined their membership schemes, other than this feel good factor (Selfish, I know). The royal Exchange Theatre already offers great under 26 and student offers, Manchester Art Gallery, Whitworth Art Gallery, etc. all offer a programme that is widely free and readily available.

It’s that second option (joining societies) that causes much more need for deliberation. Living in a specific region, although travelling, I’d like to join something that suits a person with rooted interest in the arts and culture, something like The Contemporary Art Society, yet also offers options to the culture vulture in me, such as the Art Fund. It seems very much to be a competition between these two and no more, but with the former sitting around £25/£35 and the latter at under £19, why is this such a hard decision? 

I feel the former is leading by a country mile in terms of benefits at the moment; with a much more integrated network, covering many galleries and venues throughout the Northwest, and England as a whole. However, the latter, although more sporadic in terms of its offerings, has a greater feel good factor of supporting the creative industry as well as offering satisfaction in the form of a quarterly publication, something I’ll miss as I sacrifice a publication subscription for a membership.

When I return to Manchester on the ninth of Septmber, I’ll be joining the Cornerhouse as a member for definite. Maybe, by then, I’ll have decided which of the two socities/membership schemes I’ll join. Scrawling this down and publishing it on my blog is really just a way of helping me decide, weighing the pros and cons, as well as opening the conversation to others that may have experience with this kind of decision.

The opening of a new art-space in Manchester, the Paper Gallery (www.paper-gallery.co.uk), provides peculiar answers to these questions. Set in an industrial chic street, Mirabel Street – a passage way squeezed between city centre and Salford – this room-sized gallery stages a multidisciplinary obsession with the artistry of paper: as soon as one enters the tiny space, the lines of interrogation multiply. How can paper be used in a functional, visual, playful, conceptual, provocative, documentary, accessible, affordable, dangerous and sexy way? Is paper-based imagery still alive after the death (?) of painting? Can paper orchestrate new forms of art-attacks within the ordinary, the mundane and the domestic?

via Corridor8.co.uk

We’ve all read media reports of internal problems at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles — exhibitions canceled, staff fired, and artist trustees resigning in protest. Reporters on the West Coast are having a field day. These problems can probably be laid in part at the door of bad management. There is no doubt the current museum director, Jeffrey Deitch, and his predecessor, Jeremy Strick, made foolish decisions: Strick spent down the museum’s endowment without attending to fund-raising, and Deitch appears to be willing to degrade the program to boost attendance…

via ArtInfo.com

Dan Graham’s work primarily focuses on the notion of time, spectatorship and the phenomenology of viewing, questioning the psychological effects of architecture on the spectator. Graham has deployed a variety of media in order to pursue his investigations, ultimately questioning Guy Debord’s “society of the spectacle”: a society obsessed with the media, often mimicking the same interpersonal dynamics that can be found in a TV reality show.

Graham’s 2-Way Mirror Cylinder Bisected By Perforated Stainless Steel, 2011-2012, is one of the latest outdoor pavilions designed by the artist. These architectural structures frequently play with the viewers’ perception and understanding of both inner and outer space. The design of the pavilions, and the two-way mirrors within them, create unexpected reflections and explore the voyeuristic act of simultaneously watching oneself and being able to watch others. They also question how we move and operate in the public sphere: a dimension that both alienates and seduces us.

Dan Graham, b. 1942, Urbana, Illinois, is an artist who lives and works in New York, U.S.A. Recent solo exhibitions include Pavilions (Lisson Gallery, London, U.K., 2012), Dan Graham (Protocinema, Istanbul, Turkey, 2011) and Dan Graham presents New Jersey (Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2009).

This is an incredibly overdue post, It’s been months since I last scrawled anything on this page, and I have a few things to talk about; events attended, galleries visited, shows seen, jobs done, people met… etc.

I’ve had a week in Greece, almost a month in Edinburgh and time in London, Bristol, Leeds and Glasgow. I will get round to updating this blog, and I will do it before I return to Manchester on the X of September. Bear with me. I’ll get there.

With Dieter Moebius’ live score, supported by Polinski and the TriAngle Showcase still reverberating through our bones, day two of the festival kicked off.  Drew Hemment, Creative Director of FutureEverything, introduced the day with a nod to the successful launch of www.idhideyou.com by Brighton based, Oscar nominated, Blast Theory. He also managed to perk everyone up by questioning whether or not people shared a ride on the same player as him as he played along with over one hundred people.

Then came the incredible and passionate, self-branded Icelandic Parliamentary hacker, Birgitta Jónsdóttir. Not only did she take to the stage but she took over the #futr hashtag as more or less every word of her keynote “The Future Is You” was transcribed or paraphrased into a tweet. Her beliefs were obvious, the political system is at present too large, too corrupt, too limited - it needs to be wiped “defragged, zero’d” and “reinstalled”. She described her impression of the conference and festival beautifully, as a poet activist would, “the brave new world, the FutureEverything island.”

Ideas of co-operation and co-creation from Birgitta’s keynote dominated the day. Mark Robinson-Field from the Co-operative Membership Team led the “Co-operation - The Original Social Network?” presentation reinforcing comments made by Birgitta and reminding us of Manchester’s role as the home of the co-op movement. Passions continued to run high through the afternoon as Bilal Randeree delivered his keynote “Al Jazeera and the Arab Spring”. Bilal embodied the political and activist themes of today with references to Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘cute cat theory’, were the politically disinterested only become turned on when their access to social media is taken away by governments.

With all these experts at hand we could not ignore the fact that today Facebook went public, interviews with a host of speakers asking whether the evaluation at $100 billion is worth it, provoked interesting responses in a video which featured in the top ten most watched videos on the BBC website today.

The final day of the conference drew to a close with discussions about reasons for the London riots, social media and social change, and the importance of context in a venue which was at the centre of the industrial revolution, MOSI is on the site of the world’s first railway.  Discussions around  transferring social movements from the digital to the real world came alive in response to speeches from Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Mark Robinson-Field and Bilal Randeree, striking the political chord and affirming and expanding the role of a digital revolution.

Following on from the exceptional buzz of Lawrence Epps’ #littleclaymen, the first day of conference opened with an explorational Keynote by Rohan Gunatillake; delving in to the role of the Buddhist faith in a tech savvy 21st century society. This was followed by an audience enamoured by the prospect of exchanging data using sound with unveiling of Animal System’s chirp.io. Today, #futr chatter on twitter really took over, all of which, wifi permitting, was then visualised live on screen in MOSI’s fantastic conference space with the ‘Revisit’ project by Moritz Stefaner. People where enthralled by the prospect of a Digital Olympics where data supplied to the audience will be managed and curated through a whole host of exciting projects.

The afternoon resumed and swiftly built up momentum with the intriguing Turing Sunflower project, throwing questions out to the crowd; how can curiosity and interest can be retained with such a long winded participatory project? Cesar A Hidelgo then took to the stage of room one immediately capturing the attention of the audience and exploring the entire global economy with the most basic of analogies. He then demonstrated the potential that remains still unreached with data visualisation as it bubbles away in the near mainstream.

The excitement continued for the rest of the afternoon as the panel: Producing A Living took to the stage, the day ended with closing keynotes by Juha van’t Zelfde and Rufus Pollock with The City and The City and Open Knowledge Foundation.  The evening activities continued with the launch of Blast Theory’s incredible real world game www.idhideyou.com and music at the Institute Cervantes’, Mutek supported Audio/Visual show by Nikka + Alba G. Corral.  The programme also includes Metropolis restored + restructured w/live a score by Dieter Moebius, supported by Polinksi with his own A/V show at St Philip’s and the evenings TriAngle records showcase at Islington Mill.