What I did in September 2015

[squirmelia]

Caught a boat to North Greenwich and saw some of Alex Chinneck's wonderful creations: a curled up pylon in a gallery and an upside down pylon. I also made a pylon out of cardboard in the pylon making workshop, and then wore it as a hat.

Wandered around the Shoreditch Town Hall Hotel with Monika, wondering where the Duchess was, peering into TV screens, walking through wardrobes, and looking for jewellery underneath floorboards and realising that neither of us had reflections. (Had we become vampires?)

Walked around Osterley Park and visited the Osterley Cork Oak, which is one of the Great Trees of London.

Set my alarm for 3AM and got up and stared at the red moon.

Saw some of the sculptures which are now part of The Line, including Thomson & Craighead's signpost saying how faraway "here" was and Richard Wilson's Slice of Reality.

Had drinks with Frood at the St George's Tavern and the Cask.

Saw Mistress America at the cinema, and ate delicious tofu at Joy King Lau with doseybat and Lina.

Wandered through Meanwhile Gardens and stared at the reflections in the canal, while on my way to the Trellick Tower.

Stared at the colourful wallpaper in Pugin's home, The Grange, in Ramsgate.

Walked across the sand in Ramsgate and stared at the sea.

Wandered through the Ramsgate Tunnels, which were originally a railway tunnel and then extended to provide shelter for 60,000 people, and were used during the Second World War.

Saw some beautiful sunsets.

Reached my activity goal on the Misfit app every day.

Waved goodbye to Barbelith.

Visited Bold Tendencies in a multi-storey car-park in Peckham. Stared at the views of London from the top, looked in the Derek Jarman garden, stared at pictures of rooms and wallpaper, and at the patterns that were in the Possessed exhibitions and followed the squiggly line by Richard Wentworth across the roof.

At the South London Gallery, I saw a room that looked somehow destroyed, with dangling parcel tape and bits of toilets and the words on the wall, "Destruction is difficult; Indeed it is as difficult as creation. - Antonio Gramsci (Prison notebook 6)."

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(More, but repeated from before.)

Wandered down onto the foreshore near Vauxhall Bridge to see the Rising Tide sculptures.

Went to Now Play This at Somerset House, which was directed by several_bees: Listened to talks about games & intimacy; played an adventure game that was in someone's head and explored The Unbuilt Room; went on a liars' tour and had to walk like an Egyptian as a forfeit; saw the sewer lamp; tried to make sound effects for a movie directed by pippaalice with objects while playing Foleyoke; played Magnotron and concentrated on trying to move a magnet through the maze with instructions from miss_newham and pippaalice; tried to think of words that have more vowels than consonants; read about making cats from empty toilet roll tubes and then hiding them around your house; laid in a tent and looked up at the patterns; contemplated playing the game where you collect 100 cobwebs with your face; sat inside a strange construction and read a book by Yoko Ono; put elastic bands around letters to try to form words while playing Typemine; wore big gloves and clapped my hands which caused a photo to be taken.

Went to darklily and captainmcdan's engagement / 40th birthday party and caught up with some excellent people from NaNoWriMo.

Wore Totoro tights.

Visited Croydon Airport.

Ate bright purple taro cake.

Finished a cross-stitch of Zool.

Slid down a slide to get to the bar in Ticketmaster's office at a UXPA event on "Everything you always wanted to know about design".

Saw great views across London from Tower 42 and the Trellick Tower; visited the cathedral of sewage (Abbey Mills); wandered on a disused platform that has a garden on it, with cabbage and tomatoes and bees at Barbican station; wore a hard hat and fluorescent jacket and walked on the roof of the new Pudding Mill Lane Crossrail station; saw brutalist architecture at the Trellick Tower and the Embassy of the Slovak Republic; visited a synagogue for the first time; wandered down into a large air raid shelter, underground in East Sheen; stood inside the Kilmorey Mausoleum; learnt about expressionist architecture at the Rudolf Steiner House; and went inside a hotel room inside a sculpture that looks a bit like a robot.

Visited the following during Open House Weekend:

1. Tower 42
2. Guildhall
3. Barbican Platform Garden
4. Abbey Mills Pumping Station
5. Pudding Mill Lane Crossrail
6. Trellick Tower
7. 37A Leamington Road Villas
8. New West End Synagogue
9. Embassy of the Slovak Republic
10. St Leonard's Air Raid Shelter
11. Kilmorey Mausoleum
12. Rudolf Steiner House
13. Antony Gormley's ROOM at the Beaumont

Comments

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

Just as a completely unrelated aside, because I keep forgetting to ask when I meet you face to face:

Is the UXPA actually worth it? From the outside it doesn't seem to be up to much except as a way for agencies to get work, but people stay in it, so presumably it looks better from the inside...

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually a member, just went to one of their events.. I expected it to be questions about tricky design issues, but no, it was mostly just about how to get a job or how to hire UX people, which was not of interest to me. So, it seems your view of it is spot on.

I was disappointed and am not sure that I would go again, but I did enjoy the event for the sole reason that I got to go on a slide that went down to a bar. :)

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

That is a sign of both a) a good slide, that it leads to a bar and b) a good bar that has a slide leading to it.

Shame about the UXPA, though - our profession needs more decent "meet, learn, vent" events.

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that I won't be able to make it to Shoreditch. I booked tickets for my friend and myself, but Real Life caught up with both of us.