The OUTCIDER ART symposium was in interesting experience. My brother Theo had prepared a short presentation about Foucault’s ideas of radical politics and how they could be applied to art making. I don’t really have time to fully explain the concept here which involved the realisation that we are controlled by knowledge because we understand everything by referring to knowledge, but if I get some time I will transcribe some extracts or make some audio samples for the website. The lecture was mostly attended by Goldsmiths Fine art post graduates, however Theo the lecturer was still an undergraduate. This caused a mix of responses, those who found it funny and those who were not amused. We had been hoping that the whole thing would be light weight knock about with a few stupid songs. Goldsmith’s Fine Art department has a reputation for super criticality and Theo was quickly faltered by a series of difficult questions which he had trouble answering because he had not really done as much reading and the discussion soon turned into a more uncomfortably conventional debate on art philosophy. However the songs seemed to go down well despite the fact we never got around to rehearsing them and Sam Curtis rounded the event off with a game he had devised about Foucault’s love spud.

One of the theories Theo presented was that once the people are prepared to die then a government can not threaten people with death and no longer has any power. Theo applied this Theory to art and suggested that though the art institution can readily threaten artists with death, it can threaten to say that their artwork is not good enough; therefore Theo proposed that the institution would have no control over an artist if they were prepared to make crap work (I was held up as the main example for the justification of failure). This seems like a suitable justification for the performative failure of the event… however this theory of failure was also picked to pieces by the audience.

It was a nice little escapade into improvised performance and failure and we learned a lesson or two even if it wasn’t the one Theo was teaching.

Watch the video :



Just got back from Whitstable Biennale where I was working with a group of artist under the direction of Gary Stevens. Tired and sun burnt, but we all had a great time and I will type up my notes from the event over the next few days.