once i found a whole skip full of pcs (about 20), so i grabed them all i tried to give them away, but no-body wanted them. they were quite interesting as they were ex-government machines (lots of official names and secrets), so i decided to make them publically accessible. so i put them in my studio, which happened to be a subway under a road at the time. it was wired into the lighting and looked quite strange. its not every day you see a government computer in a subway !
i once put up some posters with babys and tvs on. this started a massive local arguement with the feminists who claimed that the had put it up.
i screen printed up a load of pedestrian road signs and put them around town, but upside down these lasted for months since they looked so official. blue looks like government.
my favourite poster was one that just had random text on it. this also created a lot of interest as i was putting it up. people kept running up to me and asking what it meant.
i met my girlfriend through putting up fly posters.
we had a phase of running around town stealing boring council planning signs, painting on top and putting them back up.
'have you noticed the smog poster' generated the most negative reaction; the local council claimed in the newspaper that they wanted to catch and fine the author 400 pounds.
I did the biggest flyposter in the world:
People often attempt to get back to nature, but most fail by involving technology in the process. If you walk in your computer designed trainers, ride your mountain bike, or watch nature on television you will never fully succeed.
7400 sheets of A4 were stuck to a rock face. An image of my left hand was created using 1500 photocopies of hands and 5800 blank sheets.
It took 16 days to complete and work could only be carried out at high tide every 12 hours, when I could get water from the river Avon to mix glue.
Each photocopied sheet had the words, Is it possible that our obsession with sex is due to our alienation from nature by or technology.
I started off by photocoping my hand, then I scanned it into a computer, reduced the definition and printed it out. This produced a pixilated image from which I could compile the 7300 sheets of A4, ready to be taken to the rock.
it lasted about one month before it was removed and we had a nice arty opening about 15 artists took part and 60 people attended.
we were always looking for new spaces for putting our work. One day we decided that the Arnolfini had too much space and not very exciting ideas. So we stole one of their buildings which wecovered with our work. We did this for over a year and when we got bored the Arnolfini took it back and stuck some of their work on it.
In the light that advertising is now the most popular visual art, we aim to discuss the differences, if any, between fine art and advertising.
Art will be installed in typical advertising media through out Bristol, such as bill boards, magazines and flyposters.
To encourage the search for meaning, advertising (riddle) methods and art (hidden referrence) games will be used.
Advertising Art is a conceptual performance group and has no members or political sponsors to hinder its progress.
on sunday 24th November 1991 Advertising Art began.
Due to lack of funding and recent demoralisation of artists there are no memebers or resources. To get around these problems it was decided that Advertising Art would be a conceptual group.
Advertising Art is dedicated to questioning.
The plot is as follows:
A group of progressive artists will install images other than moving humans and cars into the electromagnetic spectrum of Bristol.
Metaphors which fear loss of power will then attack, armed with telephone tapping, media silence, covert agents and helicopters.
The group will attempt to protect itself from hostile metaphor insurgencies with a carefully considered array of random concepts ie dis-information. But eventually the forces of darkness will discend.
This performance intends to dicuss power, information and the exclusion of artist from television process.
Electromagnetic Installation is not a conceptual performance.
this started of with a radio station, which covered a radius of about 10 miles around Bristol. we had no presenters/identity/jingles and played anything we considered to be good or strange. we were under surveillance at this time, but they contacted us to say that they enjoyed it.
we then tried tv but it was the wrong time so it didn't last long. tv requires a lot more resources.
i got a bit bored with doing text posters, so i tried a little experiment, which basically envoled carrying some chalk around with me at all times and drawing what i felt like all over the place.
i can send you a disk with london.sea on it if you like.
the abstract (words and pictures) have the power to restructure the mind and body. They can be used to injure (e.g. advertising an voodoo) or to heal.
Perverted hostile structures aim to change you for their own political gain, by using aggressive texts and images.
I am opposed to them and intend to both defend and heal you with my own texts and images.
Please find enclosed an image to injure enemies of freedom and to heal their victims.
hope you enjoy this exhibition: its my first cyberspace opening :-)
