Rirkrit Tiravanija's Kitchen

Thai Green Curry Anyone?

A couple of months ago the Serpentine Gallery asked if I'd like to do an artist's talk about their forthcoming show by Rirkrit Tiravanija - this name might not mean much to you but the fact it didn't ring a bell with me was pretty humiliating as he's the 'leading light' of 'socially engaged practice' ... Anyway we got into a double bluff - I admitted I didn't know who they meant, but they were then too embarrassed to withdraw the offer - result I do lots of research but also work myself into a total twist about the whole scenario. I went to the opening and felt really critical of the show - this didn't help.

Rirkrit Tiravanija's Kitchen
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope.

So spent Saturday morning resentfully doing some last minute swotting up and speed reading Relational Aesthetics (not recommended) - finally decided to actually cook something in the show in order to at least try and engage with the ideas behind the piece (which consists partly of two 'mirror' replicas of the artist's New York apartment, supposedly fully functioning with stocked fridges for cooking Thai Green Curry, the artist's speciality). Find on the phone the fridges are un-stocked, trawl round supermarket, travel across boiling London with mood to match and then of course thoroughly enjoy myself - showing off, arguing about the show and in the end having a curry cooked for me by the tour group. This including Illia, a Newcomer to London from Estonia, who likes the show so much he's practically moved in - yet none of the staff have spoken to him yet! I hope he's there now making pastries as promised when we all parted company 2 hours later.

We are not afraid (.com)

I seem to have spent a lot of time since Thursday thinking about both what actually happened in London and people's diverse reactions to the situation. On Saturday I went with a friend to the Living Museum on the Mall - a huge make-shift display in tents devoted to marking the 60th anniversary of the end of WW II. This trip was partly research for a forthcoming project Karen & I are doing about re-enactment, but last weeks events gave the whole day a rather surreal, and I have to say sad and at times rather disturbing edge.
The first thing we saw coming down onto the Mall were a series of WW II trucks, fire engines etc. Many with slogans on "1945 - 2005 London can take it". I found these pretty disturbing on lots of different levels and I think it rather tainted the whole visit for us. It's quite hard to articulate why I think these comparisons seem offensive but I suppose the bottom line is they seem so unconstructive and to infact distract from the specifics of two very different, if both tragic situations.

WW II truck
Originally uploaded by Nina Pope.

Once inside the exhibition the strange atmosphere continued, recorded airraid warning sirens served to put people on edge and I found the museum style 'browsing' of the exhibits and people casual and confusing. At one moment you'd be engaging with a cheery young re-enactor telling heart-warming stories about London buses during the blitz, and the next straining to understand what a frail elderly man dripping in medals was doing in a hot tent surrounded by barging crowds ... and how this was helping to 'commemorate' the end of the war.
It didn't do much to move me towards an understanding of the motivations of WW II re-enactors.

On Sunday I dipped into the press for the first time since the bombings, amongst the deluge of mobile phone images the news of a new website www.werenotafraid.com jumped out at me. Apparently started actually on Thursday it contains 'plucky' images from around the world showing just how unafraid of terrorists people claim to be. As the site more or less shares the name of our most recent film "Bata-ville: We are not afraid of the future", I found it hard to stop thinking about it.

If I'm perfectly honest on Thursday I didn't really feel afraid, and it was only when I actually started to think through the fact that friends & relatives would only 'know' who the victims were when they failed to make contact that it really even started to sink in. The significance of a lack of contact in a day overloaded by communication. The site (I guess as I can't get onto it!) probably again emphasises that 'plucky' Londoners will carry-on regardless of terrorist activity and pull together in some spirit-of-the-blitz way ... but what does this really mean ... surely not messages of defiance chalked onto WW II trucks parked along the Mall?
I certainly think that people outside of the city (bar those unfortunate enough to be affected by the bombs) were more afraid than those of us who live in London. In fact one of the things that typifies many non-city dwellers (for me) is in fact this type of un-specific fear - fear of crime, of change, of anyone different to them. The question is are 'Londoners' not afraid through choice, due to their natural 'grit' or just because they have to get on with it ... and today many of them have to get back on the tube?

Liquor with that?

First post pressure has now been mounting for some time ... My students have Blogs, my mentee is a queen Blogger, friends have Blogs and now Karen (my 'art collaborator' ... not that she isn't a friend!) has a Blog (Tales from the Rural Laptop) ... in short this is long over due ...

On Tilly's Blog (That's Dr. Tilly Blyth to newcomers - Curator of computing at the Science Museum) TechStyle she mentions Karen and I's early web based project A Hypertext Journal as a Blog predecessor - well as it's nearly 10 years since we made this, so I think it really is time to move on and get with posting. The only trouble is that since then I think Karen may have become funnier than me ... and I no longer have the starting advantage of being the only one to know how to write HTML at the off-set (not that our Blogs will be at all competitive).
Sometimes at random moments gems from our original Highland Journey still float to the web surface ... they have been there so long fragments seem to be lodged at the top of obscure Google searches. My favourite is when Karen once tried to show an Interweb-virgin-colleague the power of the search: ask me anything she quipped ... anything you want to know about and I'll type it in .... OK 'Salmonella' she replied ... first Google entry to appear had been written by Karen herself during a particularly unpleasant bout of food poisoning we suffered near Aberdeen. This did not seem to convince her colleague of the 'power' of the Internet.

Whilst this might seem an odd day to be starting a Blog, it might also be apt. As I type in London, communication networks all around are jammed with news of the bombs/explosions that happened here this morning and I can't really work as the phone is ringing every five minutes with friends and family checking up on us. The day we started our Scottish journey the Dunblane Tragedy hit the news, within days one of the first on-line book of condolences sprung up amongst the, then young, UK web user base. The thing I remember from 9-11, is it was the first time I was really aware of watching something awful happen live on our studio TV. During the recent war people have been searching for news on Blogs rather than radio or TV. Today I have seen images of an exploded bus on Flickr and read news on the BBC posted by people 'on the ground' rather than reporters. I know everyone at work at the Royal College is OK because all the staff and students in my department checked into one ichat to swap messages.

It might be a weird day to start a Blog ... but it's better than listening to the slow drip feed of bad news from the BBC.