Thursday 13 November 2008

Fancy a brew?

Here's a suggestion for a little artistic down time, to follow yesterday's rather lengthy posting.

Since 1 January 2006, artist Ellie Harrison has been maintaining the web-based project Tea Blog. Every time she drinks a cup of tea or another hot drink she notes down a snippet of what she is thinking about and uploads it to the blog. There are now well over 1,500 thoughts archived online, which chronicle the last three years of the artist's life via her tea-drinking habits. Tea Blog is now entering its final two months and is due to end at midnight on 31 December 2008. It makes me smile and think and imagine someone else's life - all of which I think are Recommended Activities.

I found this project whilst browsing around a-n's marvellously refurbed new website, which really is an example of what can be done to open up dialogue and practice using the web. To be honest I found it rather overwhelming, in fact - there is just so much on it, so many artists, so many projects, so many aspiring students, so much good advice... I was a little paralysed by choice.

But I'll get over it. I just need to put the kettle on and have a think...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Listening recently into a fascinating discussion about the scope and value of user-generated content, such as blogs, the issue of whether a blog is perceived as leisure/social activity or as soemthing more 'serious' arose. The US N-Ten network that successfully combines all manner of user-generated online debate with face-to-face and other communications across the geography is news to many of us in the UK who don't have 'time' to watch a concept unfurl slowly in real time but hanker after for a speed read version. Web 2.0 is a 'listening' tool that has already changed our life and times and certainly my knowledge as a visual arts specialist. "A continuous studio visit" (from your chair) as Tate online said about Artists talking blogs.

Mark Robinson said...

I think you're right. A number of people have asked me whether I've got nothing better to be doing than writing this blog. For me it is a similar part of opening up my own processes. Part downtime, part serious. And of course 'downtime' is central to any arts process, isn't it?