'A self-propelled underwater wheelchair is part of a surprising and unexpected spectacle'

It is probably unfair to target the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Programme as it is like shooting fish in a barrel. But here is an extract from their website about a planned event - or should that be 'installation' -  produced by artist Sue Austin:

An ambitious series of performances by a self-propelled underwater wheelchair, which leaves traces of its joy and freedom as it flies along mid-water with its human occupant.

As you watch, this surprising and unexpected spectacle transforms your perception of the wheelchair as you too become part of the artwork.

Additionally an online debate will take place to explain the dramatic and often disorientating image of the wheelchair sweeping gracefully along.

Freewheeling is an emerging disability-led initiative dedicated to promoting the concept of disability arts as something of unique society – the 'hidden secret'.

Sue Austin’s performances aim to generate a widespread public debate about the nature and value of contemporary arts practice shaped by the experience of disability.

Unlimited is principally funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor and is delivered in partnership between London 2012, Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the British Council.

In a press release, the artists said she was looking forward to the project which would 'mean that we can continue to contribute to the "conversation" about the value of diversity to society on a much more ambitious and wide reaching scale.

'This provides a unique creative opportunity, producing an exciting and stimulating visual experience which combines both performance and digital media to create a stimulating audience engagement and interaction opportunity with tangible artistic legacy. Our involvement in the project recognises the potential for the development of 360 degree imagery as a realistic creative medium.'

Apparently, the wheelchair 'acts as a portal that pushes one through to new levels of consciousness or awareness of life.'

There are more exciting explanations here.

This is the first of our posts to be included in two themes: Creative and jargon. Congratulations.

Jargon time

We think we need a new category: jargon time. A friend (PPE from Cambridge) sent us the following, remarking that he had no idea what they were actually about. It is like one of those random-word generator games.

‘Created by a group of leftfield (sic) change makers and thought leaders, SU: Alliance is a new breed of social enterprise. With decades of experience in the fields of social innovation and urban planning, we act as a catalyst for local authorities and social investment agencies  to do action-based research that will inform policy through achieving profitable social impact . Our purpose is to act as an intermediary to realise and scale social change; to overcome barriers to progress; to achieve more with less and to work with entrepreneurs, committed to applying their unique leadership and commercial skills in the building of value-based sustainable communities.  We will start in London.

‘Our business model is predicated on the belief that smart values can and will be the bedrock of an alliance of likeminded individuals and organizations who come together to achieve profitable gains aligned to social and environmental returns. Our purpose is therefore to align CIVIC, CORPORATE and SOCIAL investment objectives to work collaboratively so that we can accelerate change. We believe that all these institutional sectors are increasingly committed to achieving similar results. All three use the same success factors. They all want to see, in all they do:

• deep IMPACT
• measurable OUTCOMES, and
• high PROFILE

‘Our ambitions are to realise all of these through our core activities of DOING, LEARNING and INFLUENCING.

‘We want to make massive small change in our towns and cities. We want to address the role that districts, neighbourhoods and quarters have in improving urban growth by finding integrated approaches to change. Multiple interactions make up the complexity of urban society and in turn affect our rapidly changing world. We are set up to challenge this complexity and accelerate movement towards a more resilient, talented and civil city. To meet this challenge, we have created a game changing social enterprise business that brings together smart people with the assets and resources.’

Prizes will be awarded to the first correct solution. Oh, and for good measure the organisation’s email address is almost embarrassingly easy to mis-type:smarturbanism.com

Widening the gulf ...

Here is another example of the Arts Council mis-understanding museums and widening the gulf of understanding between museums and artists. These are the 'objectives' of an ACE-funded project:

• To support museums and artists to work together to open up museum collections in new ways
• To extend the skills of museum staff and artists (note who is listed first) and build their understanding of each others practice (why?)
• To provide inspiring and stretching opportunities for artists (note no mention of museum benefits)
• To attract new audiences to museums (how about helping museums to do what they are already doing, only better)
• To introduce ‘traditional’ museum audiences to high quality contemporary art (note the use of the ‘ ‘. Is it exclusive, or descriptive of museums in general?)

There is no sign that the museums and galleries concerned got any money out of the scheme; just the artists who were teaching the museums how to do things properly.

Contemporary artists subvert museums' planned event

One of the delights of the bonfire of the quangos was the move of responsibilities for museums into the Arts Council for England. This was like letting the Art Teacher loose to give History lessons: creating a gulf of understanding. There is knowledge and a desire to communicate clearly on one side: a desire for artistic exploration on the other. Try this example:

Museums at Night 2012 gets funding and extra competitive element

Arts Council England and the HLF will both be funding Museums at Night next year, while a new competition is being launched to find contemporary artists who will receive funding to put on an alternative Museums at Night event.  More here

Museums at Night is a well-understood, if under-funded, museum promotion but now it seems they must welcome contemporary artists - who will get extra funding - to subvert the original idea. Perish the thought that the extra money might go to the museums to decide what they want to do with it.

Artists' bonfire

And now the first in our Creative or What? section:

'The BBC reports that the Arts Council England has given £3,000 of National Lottery money to a project allowing artists to burn their work.

'The second Manchester Artists' Bonfire took place on Thursday and saw some 30 artists incinerate their creations.

'Organisers said it was "a research project into art and activism" that allowed local artists to collaborate and to discuss art in a direct way.'

So that's all clear then.

Locked in loo

Cutting-edge investigative journalism does not get much better than the following from the West Briton of 16 February:

Someone using public toilets at Swanpool in Falmouth got a little more than they bargained for when the lock jammed. They ended up being stuck in the cubicle for 20 minutes after a fire crew had to be called to get them out on Friday. The crew, alerted just after 9pm, had to dismantle the lock and use a saw to open the door.

Welcome

The title Mumblings, Musings and Mutterings being too long and its derivatives having already been taken, we have decided to limit ourselves to the title My Mutters as expressive of the thoughts that we will jot down in this blog. You may get the feeling that the authors are not entirely understanding of, or necessarily comfortable with, the modern world. This is not the case. Don't think that we are simply grumpy old men and women. We think we are the rational ones: it is the rest of the world that has got things out or proportion.

It is difficult to know where this stream of consciousness will take us. Certainly, we will highlight absurdities where we find them - a rich seam currently being the ability of arts-funding organisations to confuse creativity with novelty: to believe that someone who stands on his head for three days is making a statement about world peace and the importance of chocolate in the diet of the western world and therefore deserving of vast sums of money.

Living in Cornwall, we also have the delight of very local 'high quality' journalism typified by the long-remembered headline from a respected London local newspaper Cat Show Fails to Disappoint. To this day, we have been unable to work out exactly what the journalist was trying to say and can only guess how the organisers reacted to the piece.

It is with just such a stirring piece of cutting edge journalism that we start our journey into the unknown. Enjoy the voyage.