Feed Lack Loop, at Lighthouse and in Second Life

Feed Lack Loop was a 'blended reality' event and exhibition which took place in the on-line world Second Life (SL), and simultaneously at Lighthouse, Brighton, UK. The culmination was an event, in which a performer mimicked the actions of an avatar in SL. Information from the real event was fed back into SL so that attendees there, and those physically situated Lighthouse, could witness actions in both the real and virtual environments

Artists are only a law unto themselves

The tacit freedoms which appear to be granted artists are considered here. What is the nature of those freedoms and what are their origins and consequences? Artists and their artworks have certainly challenged moral convention and had a destabilising effect. More often though, it is only the laws of the ‘art system’ which are being broken. In fact, an implicit rule for art, since the Romantic period, has been to break with previous orthodoxy. In this case artists are not ‘a law unto themselves’, in the typical usage of the phrase, but its original biblical meaning may be apt. That referred to a grouping being inherently compliant with the given morality and codes, and therefore not needing to have any law imposed upon it. The chapter explores these questions and reflects on the problematics of politically motivated art. Secondly, would didactic art inevitably be poor art? Reference is made to a significant essay by Theodore Adorno, recent writing by Claire Bishop and John Roberts, Yates McKee’s account of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the work of Forensic Architecture and other artists and practitioners. There are important implications for any conscious attempt at the instrumental employment of art, as panacea for societal ills, say, or to prompt social change. The suggestion is even made that perhaps it is art which is parasitic on politics, and not the other way around. It would be crude nevertheless, to dismiss the broader effects produced by artefacts and performative interventions and, likewise, to deem meritless, works which serve campaigning intentions. Meanings can unfold in ways which are not straightforward and ‘art’s inventive forms of negation’ (Bishop) are something to defend

Art as 'artificial stupidity'

Through treatment of selected interventions and artworks, the thesis investigates relationships between cybernetics, conceptions of intelligence and artistic practice. The works in question are primarily the artist’s own, documented in the thesis and a separate portfolio. Specifically, intelligence’s downside, the controversial notion of stupidity, has been reappropriated as a means of considering the way artists intervene and how art, as a system, functions. The term ‘artificial stupidity’ was invented in reaction to a particular construal of what Artificial Intelligence (AI) meant. The notion has been employed since, and the thesis discusses interpretations and uses of it. One meaning relates to an ability to become, or make oneself, ‘stupid’ in order to facilitate discovery. In the conclusions, the arguments are extended to ‘art as a social system’ (Niklas Luhmann), suggesting that it survives and reproduces through a wily kind of pretend idiocy combined with occasional acts of generosity to other systems. The research methodology is threefold. Firstly, unapologetically playful approaches, characteristic of the artistic process, were utilised to generate ideas. Thus, art becomes primary research; an equivalent to experimentation. Secondly conventional secondary research; the study of texts; was conducted alongside artistic production. Thirdly the works themselves are treated as raw materials to be discussed and written about as a means of developing arguments. Work was selected on the basis of the weight it carries within the author’s practice (in terms of time, effort and resources devoted) and because of its relevance to the thesis themes i.e. contemporary and post-conceptual art, the science of feedback loops and critiquing intelligence and AI. The second chapter divides interventions and outputs into three categories. Firstly, the short looping films termed ‘simupoems’, which have been a consistent feature of the practice, are given attention. Then live art, in which a professional clown was often employed, is considered. Lastly a series of interactions with the everyday technological landscape is discussed. One implication, in mapping out this trajectory, is that the clown’s skills have been appropriated. ‘Artificial stupidity’ permits parking contravention images to be mistaken for art photography, for beauty to be found in courier company point-of-delivery signatures and for the use of supermarket self-checkout machines, but to buy nothing. The nature of the writing in chapter 2 and appendix A (which was a precursor for the approach) is discursive. Works are reviewed and speculations made about the relationship with key themes. The activities of artists like Glenn Lygon, Sophie Calle, Samuel Beckett are drawn upon as well as contemporary groupings Common Culture (David Campbell and Mark Durden) and Hunt and Darton (Jenny Hunt and Holly Darton). Chapter 3 includes a more structured breakdown and taxonomy of methods. Art theories of relevance including the ideas of Niklas Luhmann already mentioned, John Roberts, Avital Ronell, Mikhail Bakhtin, Andrew Pickering and Claire Bishop are called upon throughout the thesis. Interrogation of the work raises certain ethical or political questions. If there are good reasons for the unacceptability of ‘stupid’ when applied to other human beings, might it be reasonable to be disparaging about the apparent intellectual capacities of technologies, processes and systems? The period of PhD research provided an opportunity for the relationship between the artist’s activities and the techo-industrial landscape to be articulated. The body of work and thesis constitutes a contribution to knowledge on two key fronts. Firstly, the art works themselves, though precedents exist, are original and have been endorsed as such by a wider community. Secondly the link between systems and engineering concepts, and performance-oriented artistic practice is an unusual one, and, as a result, it has been possible to draw conclusions which are pertinent to technological spheres, computational capitalism and systems thinking, as well as art

Irish Social Attitudes in 2018-19: topline results from round 9 of the European Social Survey

The National Coordinating Team at the Geary Institute for Public Policy at University College Dublin, in partnership with the Irish Research Council, is pleased to present the first national report ever produced for the European Social Survey in Ireland. Without peer, the European Social Survey has recorded the perspectives, aspirations, and concerns of the Irish population for nearly 20 years. Ireland has participated in each round of the biannual survey since the first (2002) and has already begun preparations for the 10th round, which will enter the field in 2021. This report offers an accessible and comprehensive overview of the main findings of the 9th round, which was collected by face-to-face interview between late 2018 and early 2019. The intention is to inform a broad audience and contextualise Irish public opinion over a period of significant economic uncertainty and demographic transformation.Irish Research Counci

Rearing, at Whitechapel Gallery

One run of performance routine in which performer cracks eggs contained in the first of three childrens' potties, separating the contents into the second and placing the empty shells into the third. This took place at Wormhole Saloon, curated by Joel Cahen

Artificial Stupidity

Presentation of research into concepts of 'Artificial Stupidity'.</p