Skyberries and Voidmelons or Voidberries and Skymelons

I stumbled upon a mystic symbol on Archway Road, painted onto a pavement pockmarked with gum. ruudboy identified it as a piece of Ben Wilson's chewing gum art. I kept seeing patches of chewing gum that had been painted bright colours all over the pavements around Archway after that, everywhere I looked. Apparently, in 2004, Ben Wilson was intending to paint discarded chewing gum found in Barnet to the West End of London, so there must be a lot of painted gum out there. I'll keep staring at the pavements.

Photos on Flickr: Chewing Gum.
More photos on Flickr, by Rahid: Ben's chewing gum art, and one sculpture.

A talk at the ICA on the 29th of February: Fun and Games: The Gallery as Adult Play Centre

I've hung upside down on a climbing frame in an art gallery in Amsterdam and I know that many people played on the slides at the Tate Modern in London, so when I heard that the ICA's founding president, Hubert Read, described the ICA at its inception as an "adult play centre", I was inclined to agree that art galleries can be thought of that.

The talk at the ICA included various speakers, including curators from the Tate Modern, and a number of interesting points were discussed, but no conclusions really seemed to be reached. A video of Oh What a Lovely Whore was shown and then Sebastian Boyle spoke about it. Oh What a Lovely Whore was an exhibition, which looked more like a party really, that happened in 1965 and seemed to involve people getting drunk and smashing up pianos to turn them into new forms of instrument. Tino Sehgal's 2007 This Success/This Failure exhibition was also talked about, which simply involved a gallery full of actual children playing.

A few notes:
- "Play is crucial in sublimating aggression" - Read.
- "Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays" - Schiller.
- What happens when participation is forced?
- Being subversive by not playing.
- Invigilators at art galleries hinder play.
- You are not allowed to be delirious.
- Playing is not the same as gaming.

In the forest, there are tiny islands, each made of only one tree. They appear to be floating through the rivers, but their roots twist and cling tightly to the riverbed. Leafless branches sway in time with the ripples in the water and my hair begins to swirl across my face as I try to peer at their reflections.

gevurah and I imagine ghost trains trundling along the dismantled railway that we begin to walk the route of near to Slap Bottom and towards Sway. I sip rhubarb wine and wonder where my destination would be, if I was on that train.
--

Sunday, ephoscus and I visit an exhibition that "explores what it means to be human in today’s world", at the Bargate Gallery. We tiptoe around encyclopædias covered in white dust and projected video speckles and then stare at photos of Bournemouth beach that look like an alien landscape,

At Mayflower Park, we dangle our feet towards the seaweed, while watching the water twinkle at us, as if glitter has been daubed across it. Southampton's elusive "beach" is also in view: the tiny metre of sand, where a fisherman stands, and even that seems somehow magical in the bright sunshine.