Dr. Kate's Arty Facts

I am taking a break

2007-08-30T09:28:00.000Z

from the blog for a while.
This has nothing to do with
the RAE
Coming from from holiday and feeling paniced about email deluges and washing
Research grants and their ephemeral quality
house hunting in Sheffield
Floods
paper writing panic etc etc
but it might have to do with being interested in this blog and wanting to focus on this project for a while.
I will be back!
Thanks for reading the blog.

Meanwhile here is Bleecker street in New York.

all the women my age

2007-07-30T16:51:00.000Z

in new York have gray hair.
This is a revelation.
We came in on the milky Hudson (pictured)

and wandered around Greenwich village, West Village and the meatpacking district.
We were very popular in Princeton and Kiara was so sad to see us go she got in the car (pictured).

Even better is working with the Princeton teachers on their artifacts of identity project.

I am off

2007-07-22T19:08:00.001Z

To New Jersey, and then New York, working with Jennifer talking to teachers and writing.
It is tense in our household as some of us are on the last chapter of Harry Potter 7.
Isabel grew up on Harry Potter, it was the book she read before it was famous, age 7 and it is very sad to see it go.
While I am away you can watch this.It is brilliant.

The relationship between

2007-07-05T15:31:00.000Z

artefacts and personal identity is often described in sensitive ethnographic studies of home artefacts such as here.
However, when we were in the wonderful Leeds based education collection Artemis yesterday, I also wondered why we attach such significance to objects.
For example, in this project, people often lost artefacts, or didn't know where they were.
For example, these shoes in this picture came from the museum, as the original shoes (in which money was hidden on the way home from New York) had got lost, being last seen on the cellar steps.
Rather than talk about Materializing Sheffield, as here,
perhaps we should talk about De-Materializing Sheffield.
Just a thought.

Mud and floods

2007-06-27T12:53:00.001Z

of every kind can be seen here here
and here
and here.
This movie of The Wicker is particularly affecting.
I love The Wicker and go there ALL THE TIME.
Hurrah for hot baths.

The kid is back

2007-06-26T19:57:00.000Z

Luckily thanks to the ever faithful BBC we can TRACK her progress.
She can be viewed here,
here
and best viewing here, where you have a really DETAILED view of the dancing girl amid the mud.
Stay with it and you see her SEVEN times.
Frankly we are bored with Glastonbury, as we have now moved on to the FLOODS in Sheffield and the experience of the travelling academic amid the torrents.
It is a poetic thought.

The Glasto kid

2007-06-22T17:34:00.000Z

pitched her tent in the rain at 1 in the morning last night, is on a slope and emerged to find a torrent, has danced in the rain to punk gypsy bands, was pissed on, changed and is now gearing up to the Arctic Monkeys and The Coral.
She is in heaven.
More about this here.
Meanwhile, we are going to buy this house.
Hurrah.
Dr Joolz is advising us.

Today I thought about

2007-06-17T17:40:00.000Z

complex writing and the relationship between meaning (what we want to communicate) and materiality (how we communicate it).
This was prompted partly by going to this exhibition and seeing the blocks of colour and how they shifted meanings in the gallery, as we walked around orange and yellow shapes hanging in the air.
Also in the environment box project (something I am researching) a group of children have been creating boxes that describe a particular environment.
Here it is the arctic or 'the polar'.
I have looked at the way that the affordances of the box, its ability to house igloos, ducks or baby dolphins, creates new kinds of talk.
I am about to do something on how visual and spatial stuff shapes linguistic meanings.
How does a focus on colour, shape and design create different kinds of talk?
Any advice gratefully received.

Today was the day

2007-06-14T14:51:00.000Z

my bid was due in and thankfully it is now in here, and will wend its way across the desks of thousands of weary academics.

Watch this space

I am now free to work on this course and this course and enjoy the fantastic weather, also to live in the shadow of people attending this festival and going to this exhibition.
I am also going to write my bling article for this journal, which is why we have the gold swan.

It is so sad

2007-06-05T14:50:00.001Z

The way you go on holiday and you come back to a squillion emails and by day 2 you are a wreck of your former self, crawling amongst the emails like a demented ant.
It does not help that I have to get this form in here for the 14th June.

Never mind, there is this conference to look forward to,
this book to recommend to Dr Joolz
and these photos of Scotland.
As you can see, the weather was excellent, we swam, there was nobody on the beach and it was like the Greek Islands.
More footage of Islay can be found here.
Happy viewing!
I recommend the gold eagles as they are very good.

Angel of the north

2007-05-25T16:07:00.002Z

I am blogging while ON THE TRAIN!!!
I had hoped to go from an image of Anthony Gormley, taken from Waterloo station on Monday to an equally riveting image of the Angel of the North, taken from the train.
Sadly my attention was diverted at the key point (chatting)
and I missed the shot.
I am unable also to upload you the Anthony Gormley.
I did manage to capture, however,
Newcastle
Alnwick and, here,
Berwick on Tweed.
We are now in Scotland!
Time and space are brought together in new and interesting ways, through Blogger 2 software, an epistemic presence in the writing of the blog, as Nigel Thrift says so interestingly in this marvellous book.
I am listening to this CD so you have all the modalities.

Moving around

2007-05-19T08:32:00.000Z

I have been here to this seminar where I heard that deixis was one of the most common links to other pages on blogs.

Greg gave a very interesting paper on irony in links.

I have some news

Dr Joolz is back.

Check it out.

Hurrah!

Weston Park Museum

2007-05-10T12:17:00.000Z

Is my favourite place right now.
I love the bees, real, buzzing, and the city section and the txting girls doing their Queen Bess dress up.
I go there all the time as we are putting in our bid to work with them at the moment.
Cross fingers and think of me as I write the Case for Support.
Here are some brilliant projects they have already done:
Burngreave voices
Ourselves our place
My favourite object in the museum has to be the polar bear however.

Chesil beach

2007-05-03T12:06:00.000Z

has been blogged by Litrate and written about here.

Here is the website.

We will be there this weekend.

Hurrah!

Words and images

2007-04-30T16:11:00.000Z

Check out these great research projects.
Moving Manchester
Beyond the Book
Writing British Asian Cities
we are all on the move.

ferham families

2007-04-23T13:58:00.000Z

is now live.
It can be found here:
I have been saying this for months, but this time it is for real

A great new blog

2007-04-17T17:48:00.001Z

can be found here.
Who said blogging is dead?

I have never seen the point of

2007-04-15T18:17:00.000Z

royalty.
But this receipe will keep you going for when you have nothing in the cupboard and need something utterly delicious and it is from Tom Parker-Bowles.
Here it is:
1. Fry garlic and a pinch of chili in some olive oil.
2. Add 2 tins tomatoes.
3. Add some balsalmic vinegar and a bay leaf.
4. Bubble for 1 hour on a low heat.
5. Season and serve with spaghetti, parmesan, some rocket salad and good olive oil to drizzle.
PERRFect!
Sadly it is back to work here, writing my report for the AHRC.
Sasha keeps me company.

lunch boxes

2007-04-11T17:33:00.000Z

are the bane of my life.
I am therefore impressed by Mimi Ito's photostream on Flickr.
You can read about it here.
and see it here.
Roll on school dinners.

High Stoy Wood

2007-04-10T14:48:00.000Z

Hot spring sun. Here are Molly and her friend.
Here is Sasha who liked Dorset but not the cows.
Meanwhile, the others were here.
Happy Easter!
P.S. The Easter recipe is Dr Joolz' favourite risotto.
Take 2 red peppers and fry in olive oil with some garlic.
Add a tin of tomatoes.
Puree with whizzer or blender.
Add vegetable stock
Fry onion in some oil.
Add risotto rice.
Stir.
Add the stock slowly until the rice is cooked.
Then add some parmesan, and butter. Season.
Serve with Feta cheese and rocket.
Comes courtesy of the Thyme Cafe in Sheffield.

Thank goodness

2007-04-01T13:08:00.000Z

We have our tickets for Glastonbury which is now sold out.
It has been a nailbiting morning.
Even Sasha was nervous.
Luckily I can sit in the comfort of my own home and watch it on TV.
The relief.
And Isabel can see the Arctic Monkeys live.
Also a relief.

dialogic objects

2007-03-25T13:03:00.000Z

Inspired by Gaby's visit, (Gaby came from Germany where she teaches socio linguistics to hear about Charmian's project in Tower Hamlets)
I am thinking about the way that objects speak with two voices.
For example, quilts in Pakistan can mean one thing, that is, warm coverings for wearing in the winter.
In Rotherham, quilts become duvets, they cover you at night in the cold Rotherham winters.
The object is the same, but has different uses and meanings in different spaces.
Here is our textile case in our exhibition (still on at Rotherham Central Art Gallery till 14th April).
The cotton was also grown in Manchester, but from our informants, was grown in Pakistan, on the farm.
It too has a dialogic quality and like Bakhtin's texts, speaks with two voices.

Living normally

2007-03-15T08:04:00.000Z

is something I try to do, and I was pleased to find this book which celebrated ordinary homes.
What I love about normal homes (as opposed to 'styled' ones in magazines)
is the way objects and artefacts are acrrued.
People give you stuff, and even if it is faintly tasteless, it stays, as a trace of the giver and also as an acknowledgement of the messy realities of daily life.
Even better, cats, children, playstations, clutter up more of it.
There is even a website dedicated to people's homes which you can find here.

Travelling

2007-03-09T17:16:00.000Z

This week I have been here, here and to talk to the people at this project here.
You ofcourse should go here to see the wonderful exhibition.
My knowledge of the UK rail network has now reached doctoral proportions.
I am hoping to offer an online doctorate in the manner of this marvellous course with modules in
GNER studies (including reading on theorising "trans" status objects and the death of the train company, with Derrida thrown in for free)
The Midland Mainline module will include sedimented literary theorists such as Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart as it has an old school Marxist feel.
Virgin meanwhile will include a whole section on risk theory (Beck ofcourse) and include theorists such as Bev Skeggs on class while my favourite module will be,
Northern Rail which will have wonderful sections on children's popular culture, girls talk and ethnographic positionality.
Suggested dissertation topics:
Visual cultures
Viewing cultural spaces
Criticality and the train
Travelling and tourism
Must start the e-forms now.

Ferham families

2007-03-05T10:04:00.000Z

had its grand opening on the 3rd March at Rotherham Art Gallery and the opening party was a great success.

All sorts of famous people came.

I was very excited by our gold case

our wonderful wall placards

and by the elephants.

This quote is from Jaan Khan and I think it is very poetic.

Here are some advance pictures of the exhibition but really, you have to be there.

On until April 14th so you have no excuse.

online shopping

2007-02-27T12:56:00.000Z

is what you do when you are doing a really hard thing like writing a report for this organisation about what you did in clear and accessible language.

Obviously this is too hard so you have to go shopping.

Dr Joolz likes to shop here and so I take a look.

Daughter has just bought a tunic dress from here
(note: for those over 30, tunic dresses are to be worn WITH CAUTION).

However, I like these websites:

Tulip and Nettle are very arty, off beat and CHEAP.
I have told you before about this addiction, I think it is now beaten, thank god.
This website was picked up as my favourite by Literate it has fab dresses but is not cheap.
For reliable surfing and good in sales go to Toast and Boden.

Beware however, going too floral, purchasing halterneck tops and

embracing wholeheartedly the peasant look as it is NOT GOOD on older female academics.
But I have some quirky interests.
Kittens
Dolls
Gypsy caravans.
You have been warned.

Hopefully someone will write about online shopping which will be v. useful.

I have been haunting

2007-02-25T19:56:00.000Z

Art Galleries this weekend in excited anticipation for our big event next weekend (3rd March Rotherham Art Gallery BE THERE).
First off is Ellen Bell at Leicester Art Gallery whose dictionary models spilled over when it came to the word home and went into Punjabi when the word marriage came up making me think that my idea of dialogic objects really makes sense.
Then Art into Abstraction in Sheffield which was wonderful, full of hanging lights and movies of Miami skyscrapers
I am also loving this album which was kindly given to me by one of our Professors
and this book which is preparation for my forthcoming visit to New York.
Can I also tell you I think this is a terrible blog. (But really funny).

By popular demand

2007-02-18T09:51:00.000Z

Dr Kate brings you the latest information on Fashion from London Fashion Week and also
Top Tips for your Spring wardrobes.
First off, is tulip skirts.

See the illustration here.
Men may hate them, this is not the point, they are in fashion.
You wear them with high heels and opague tights.
For more information see marvellous Jess Cartner-Morley explain all here.
Fabulous.

Mine is a grey one (Selfridges sale right at the end when everything was 70%) and I love it.
Next, puffy sleeves.
Again, not popular with men, just ignore them as these are key.
I have a Peter Jensen dress which has huge sleeves which is excellent.

This is the actual dress as shown on the catwalk above.
Grey or neutral dresses is another key trend.
Luckily I have a grey and neutral one so I am relaxed on that score.

I hope you all follow my advice.

There are also some trends you should ignore at all costs.

Futurist dressing

Yellow, and

Minis

You have been warned.

There is something thrilling about

2007-02-14T20:17:00.000Z

blogging on the train.
It must be the heady combination of Leonard Cohen and this wonderful book which is so inspiring.
Dr Joolz and I are madly publicizing our new course.
We have contacted these organizations:
NIACE
The Basic Skills Agency
The National Literacy Trust
RaPAL
UKLA
Skills for Life

and they are all happily helping us.
This reminds me of when I was a literacy outreach worker in Hammersmith.

Who would be a spy?

2007-02-09T17:58:00.000Z

Molly will.

This is her list of Gagets and Acsores.

It is part of her computer game but it is good to see she has her career already PLANNED OUT.

Also, it is part of my ongoing fascination with the nature of narrative and how narrative is changing as computer games drive spatial design of stories.

Also, have you read Clarice Bean?

You should.

It is all happening

2007-02-05T19:57:00.000Z

here at Sheffield.
First there are all these marvellous books everyone keeps bringing out.
Blink and you miss them.
Jackie Marsh's book with Eve is packed with wonderful chapters and
Colin and Michele's sampler is really enticing.
A must-have purchase, especially since me and Dr Joolz are devising the most exciting course ever.
It is an on-line course in new literacies and will be profoundly cutting edge.
Taking our cue from the ever hip world of craft it will invite students to fill in a patchwork quilt which is our map of knowledge and gradually make a wonderful sedimented pattern of meaning.
Wow.
This remind me of my article to be published here with Jennifer on sedimented identities in texts.
Our on-line course will ofcourse be a trace of identity.
Everywhere you turn there will be
handbags
Tecky stuff
beauty tips
and ofcourse us, in glamorous poses.
Can't wait.
PS I am writing this ON THE TRAIN.

it is difficult not to get obsessed by

2007-01-30T16:39:00.000Z

our new kittten who is now a boy.
Luckily lots of other bloggers are too.
here is one.
Flickr has millions of kitten pictures as here.

Molly of course is his favourite.

The myths we live by

2007-01-21T13:51:00.000Z

was one of the key themes I took from the wonderful Domesticity conference, held at Sheffield.
I have decided to go back to Raf Samuel and Paul Thompson's book, where we learn that,

We need as historicans to consider myth and memory not only as special clues to the past, but equally as windows on the making and remaking of individual and collective consciousness, in which both fact and fantasy, past and present, each has a part.
(Samuel and Thompson 1990: 210. )
I also learned abour ritual in house building and how inscription could be woven into the very fabric of the house. I liked thinking about how values and practices could be inscribed into the fabric of the house. Ritual mediated this experience.
I also learned about ritual by reviewing this book, which argues that we need to re-think the category of ritual as a sensitising concept for thinking about classroom discourse that falls into a regular pattern, such as the question and answers involved in learning German.
I was able to see how our data on 'knocking through' fell into the category of inscription. People re-made their own houses, and, in doing so, inscribed their identity into the fabric of the space.
I was also interested to note that tidiness is associated with Facism and also with South African Germans and their racist ideologies.
Very cheering as my house has been utterly turned upside down by the new kitten.
Dr Joolz' paper called 'Chilli - stylists' own' about Flickr and domesticity was particularly inspiring. I learned about fridge doors as a site for meaning.
I also did lots of thinking about my new research project, of which more in the future.
Thank you to Karen Harvey and Susan Reid who did all the work.

today we went to collect

2007-01-13T16:32:00.000Z

our new kitten, Sasha. This is her.
Martin wanted to call her taxi because then he could call 'taxi'! to the neighbours.
We felt after 2 weeks of silence and the sad demise of the hamster that our house was too silent.
We needed somebody else to cheer us up.
She is currently asleep by the fire.

Home is where the heart is

2007-01-05T09:39:00.000Z

is our working title for our paper for this conference.

We hope you can all come.

Andy and I have realised that homes instantiate complex emotions.

This is how he puts it more eloquently than me:

The home and the house are at the centre of family life. Running from the family are these connecting identities between the family’s identity leading to these objects and artefacts which are imbued with special meanings of the family. They tell stories of intergenerational significance, which, if they can be deciphered, paint a picture of whole family and individual identities.

•These household items are visual triggers for oft-recounted tales which, through embellishment, over time, have taken on mythical status, with shared family legends, which, when unpicked, reveal a great deal about that particular family’s values and its individual members and the broader culture of which they are part.

•Narratives bound up in ornaments, décor, artwork, clothing, jewellery, reveal the traditions, values, mantras, passions, challenges, faith, that forms the basis of that family’s past present and future existence.

(Andy Pollard)

This is so good that I don't need to add anything.

I have however been reading Bachelard The Poetics of Space.

In there I read:

A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions
of stability. We are constantly re-imagining its reality: to distinguish all
these images would be to describe the soul of the house; it would mean
developing a veritable psychology of the house. (Bachelard 1958:17)

I like that idea, that houses have souls.

At the moment, our house is in mourning for our cat, Lizzie, whose shadow is everywhere.

Even the fish is off its food. The hamster is quiet.

As Molly rather heartlessly said, 'One down, two to go!'

Our cat

2007-01-02T19:39:00.000Z

died today. She was 17 years old, same age as my daughter is going to be on Sunday.

Obviously I am very upset.

This is a picture of her.

She was, however, old and much loved.

Happy New Year!

Top tips for women academics who happen to live and work in different cities (in no particular order)

2006-12-21T08:34:00.000Z

1. Always buy tickets on-line for example here.
2. Grants that pay travel are good.
3. Doncaster and Wakefield Westgate are very very cold stations. Therefore,
4. You need to purchase hat, gloves and scarf in triplicate for when you leave them on the train.
5. But the worse thing is once you have used to living this half life of station coffee, train announcements, ticket barriers and coach B is when it ALL SEEMS NORMAL.
So here are more warnings.

YOU KNOW WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN ACCULTURATED WHEN:
1. You tell outsiders that the number 14 bus from Meadowhall to Rotherham is your favourite bus.
2. Your Ipod has Cat Power's 'The Greatest' overplayed by 74 times each day.
3. You read every single woman's magazine EACH MONTH (even Woman and Home ha) because you like the pictures.
4. You can tell which Midland Mainline trains have electric points for your laptop from a 50 yard distance.
5. You head for coach B by reflex because THAT IS THE EMPTY ONE.
6. You are addicted to the M and S at Sheffield station and can find your way blindfold to your favourite sandwich.
7. You are on first name terms with the lost property lady at Sheffield station.
8. Midland mainline staff know you so well they are forgiving when your web booking is muddled and you are sitting on the Sheffield to London train rather than the London to Sheffield and your ticket goes the other way.
9. Your rucksack is packed and ready for the next trip within 10 minutes of getting home.
10. Your children are unclear as to what your function is, exactly.

However, there are compensations. These are:
1. Your ethnographic distancing is excellent and you can always withdraw from the field.
2. No one knows where you are, exactly, ever.
3. You are invisible to both home and work. You could be, frankly, anywhere...
4. You are very good at adjusting to local conditions. Meadowhall to you is 'local' not global.
5. When people ask you where you live you wave vaguely and quote Clifford Geertz.
6. Appadurai is your bedside reading because you are always SOMEWHERE ELSE.
This could be here:

or here:

These are actually pictures of the THREE CORNERED HOUSE
viewed between Market Harborough and Kettering and one of the best reasons to travel London- Sheffield on a regular basis.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Sitting

2006-12-10T18:19:00.000Z

in Swinton Library, we were working on the relationship between narratives and identity.
Our exhibition uses artefacts to mediate the relationship between the two.
It is going to be opening on the 3rd March here and you are all invited.
We have several cases:
Gold
Travel
Textiles
not forgetting
Shoes
and wedding dresses.
The Women's Art group at Rotherham Central Surestart are finishing off a huge photomontage of the Ferham Area this Tuesday along with our textile self portraits.
Mine is terrible as I never learned to sew at school.
Watch this space.

which story to tell

2006-12-04T13:35:00.000Z

is always a problem for a researcher.
Journalists tell stories, and I was interested to read a journalist's account of of the women of Afghanistan here,
and I found it very moving
but when we hear multiple perspectives on the same thing, that is children, teachers, artists, all telling their own stories, it is difficult to privilege one version.
So I am going to tell them all.
Where shall I start?
above?

or below?

random presents

2006-12-01T15:19:00.000Z

are all I can manage this year (sorry folks) or those heavily subsidised by the recipients.
Molly is going halves with me on this, as I have told her I can't afford it.
I have bought people random books from here, but they are mostly ones I want (hint hint).
I have also been here and bought candles in such abundance I think I need to start a ritual event in order to justify the expense.
I don't know what to do about Christmas.
Might be better to raid the local Museum Shop.

Objects and artefacts

2006-11-27T13:48:00.000Z

in the home include computers, we are finding in our research project on artefacts in the homes of the Ferham families.
Here is Molly's image of a computer, which we found amongst our miscellaneous piles on the kitchen table.
You can see on the right hand side she has written

bloger

also

intanet Molly School Friends

down the side of her computer.
On the bottom left hand side she has put

Gamrer

On the top left hand side is a drawing of a dog.
I wonder why?

We are thinking about

2006-11-22T11:01:00.000Z

space place and identity on this course
and so I have just bought this book
and this book
to help me think this though.

Tracing

2006-11-20T12:11:00.000Z

the epistemological unconscious is one of my favourite things to do.
The phrase comes from Bourdieu, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology and it means that you have to interrogate what is within your own epistemological unconscious in order to encounter others' works.
Therefore, I need to look at my own arty ways in order to situate myself in research projects.
Tracing social practices in texts is something Jennifer and I like to do and we are writing about it at the moment together
(this requires obviously an urgent trip to New York).
Tracing is also what we are doing in our wonderful new Women's Art project
for our website and we are tracing photos of ourselves and then
sewing them onto material for the backdrop to the exhibition here.
it is all very material.

I have just ordered my cards

2006-11-17T14:04:00.000Z

from here as ofcourse I have to be like Dr Joolz who has some and also other senior members of our department which is v. fab.
I was going to give them out when I went to Chicago but alas our symposium was rejected which is strange as it was on Bourdieu and Literacy Education and had lots of wonderful people in it and our discussant was Allan Luke.
AERA do not know what they have missed.
Nover mind, I can read Clarice Bean with Molly in Dorset
Clarice Bean is utterly my favourite ever person right now.

Coding

2006-11-12T17:46:00.000Z

data is about creating patterns, looking across multiple interviews to find ways of understanding the links between objects and narratives.
This post also honours Clifford Geertz who died on October 30th and was the anthropologist who wrote about thick description and that 'man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.' (Geertz 1993;5)
Every Tuesday I am doing the fieldwork for this project, as well as coding and analyzing and it is Geertz who cheers me up.
He tells me that,
'Culture is public because meaning is.' (Geertz 1993:12) and that,
'Doing ethnography is like trying to read.... a manuscript - foreign, faded, full of elipses, incoherences, suspicious emendations, and tendentious commentaries, but written not in conventionalised graphs of sound but in transient examples of shaped behaviour. (Geertz 1993:10)
At the moment, I am reading transcripts and trying to turn them into other kinds of texts, ones that link across different texts and have different kind of headings and organisation.
My focus is on the objects and the creative patterns they make over time, and how their traces can be followed across diasporas and time frames.
So here are some of my patterned objects:

shoes

sewing machines

China

elephants....

The domestic space

2006-11-05T18:31:00.000Z

is one that continually fascinates me.
When we went to this exhibition the images of the interior of people's houses, their mess, cats and unmade beds were as powerful as the barricades of Paris and the images of streets.
I also like seeing people's mess in images.
We spent the whole of yesterday tidying up and there are still miscellaneous piles in place.
Dr Joolz is writing about Flickr as a site of images of domesticity, like here.
This is Molly's image of our house.
Lots of stairs.
Here is a book about the home.

Happy Halloween!!

2006-10-31T14:36:00.000Z

Happy Halloween!!
Originally uploaded by catmadogma.

I love the way Flickr and blogging are so NOW.
This was uploaded about 3 hours ago and now it is on my blog.
And I haven't even taken too long away from my scarily hard article writing
I love this image.
Andy has my camera so luckily you can't see Molly's new witch outfit.

A Whole year of blog writing

2006-10-30T14:41:00.000Z

is always something to celebrate and although I am not nearly as good as Dr Joolz and Guy for keeping up with my blog I am pleased I have got to this milestone.
When I started, I wrote much more and more frequently.
Now I lazily HURL things at the blog in a spirit of WHO CARES beset as I am by the RAE, HEFCE, the AHRC, SVUK and other NAMELESS THINGS in academia coming to haunt a neighbourhood near you ....
(yes it is Halloween tomorrow and there will be THINGS ABOUT).
Last week I went to Bath Spa which was BLISS and here which was even more bliss.
If you click on that last link you meet a new and exciting blogger.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Moving Manchester

2006-10-18T16:42:00.000Z

is another diasporas migration and identities project
and I found out about it yesterday.
You can read about it here.
Meanwhile, we have gone live as case study 1
on the diasporas identities migration website.
So exciting.
Also our paper is here.
I am off on another train ride now.

the pile of books

2006-10-16T09:39:00.000Z

always reassures me when I am feeling slow, or uncreative or generally Monday morning-ish.
This week I go here to give a talk
and then here to give another talk not to mention thinking about this project and this project.
So what do I do?
I have a pile of books.
First off is Sensible Objects which Dr Joolz lent me.
This is very useful as I have been thinking about ways of describing clothing items that are not found in England, such as a certain type of blanket worn by men in the Pashtun speaking area of Pakistan.
In this book, we learn that

there are cultural models of naming practices
naming that occurred when a complex weaving of emotion sensations, and dispostion activated the practice

(Guerts and Adikha 2006)
There there is this old favourite where we learn how,

the experience of the next generation "sediments", falls out, into expectations and dispostion

(Holland et al 1998:18)

I have decided this book will make me feel clever.
I have not yet read it.
Julian recommended it.
He also recomended this, which I AM reading.
It says that,

meaning making...operates within material conditions and given or inherited formations of sedimented or textual beginnings.

(Willis 2000:4)
Have I heard this before?

Bling

2006-10-09T09:18:00.000Z

has been seen as negative as Wikipedia helpfully points out here.
But in my research I have found out that it has many good qualities.

First it is sparkly and shiny.
That cannot be bad.

Second, you can do it cheaply with Gold Spray.
Think about it.
Thirdly, it would be WONDERFUL in a glass cabinet and that is exactly why we like museums ...

as they are full of bling, especially the crown jewels.

Also, it can go with you when you travel and can instantiate your identity in amazingly positive ways.
I rest my case.

Creativity

2006-09-29T13:52:00.000Z

Is a fairly meaningless term in my view, and I prefer to talk about Instances of Practice or art practices, which I am beginning to theorise for this seminar series .
But it is a great word to get people together.
yesterday I went here (only a bus ride away tra la) and met Pat from here who knows everyone in Sheffield.
I learned that this organisation is wonderfully open and vague and muddly (Yes!)
The blog also says good-bye to the wonderful Amy who SINGLE HANDEDLY has been running Creative Partnerships in BDR for MORE TIME THAN I CAN REMEMBER (this is getting tearful but it is Friday).
I also met with someone who is also interested in socially engaged artists (my current research obsession) and has worked with these two which is amazing.
And this week I managed to get the JeS form in for this scheme with Steve
and he wants to DISRUPT our practice if he gets it.

Now I have to start writing up my findings for this project and thinking about sustainability and what it actually means when teachers and artists work together.
Now I just have to work out which way to go.
I think I will have to ask Pat.

Everyday life

2006-09-24T14:50:00.001Z

Inspired by Dr Joolz's post on the eternally improving television we have and bored by endless media views of Other People's Perfect Lives and in an eternal quest for ephemera I went in search of the mundane.
I found it here, lovely Flickr.
I also found it here ( I have ordered one yippee) and you can find all about this magazine here.
All this activity is to avoid doing my tax.

A score for a hole in the ground

2006-09-23T08:40:00.000Z

Today the blog celebrates this project.
It is interesting that it should have been done down a mine.
Due to logistical problems this didn't happen.
It has been created in a wood in Kent.

THis is what the artist says about it:
The original idea was to use a found hole; a mineshaft, a well, a natural fissure, an old bunker . . .
The idea was to use the hole to make a noise, like a Tibetan bowl.
You can see more about the actual hole here.
My mother is going to see the REAL THING tomorrow.
I am so jealous.
Also, I am celebrating the role of art in shaping thinking which is what Steve and I have been working on all week as well as wrestling with this dreadful system.
I think there should be a Support Group for all those who have had to do JES this week.
Horrible.

Transforming objects

2006-09-15T14:54:00.000Z

has always been an interest of mine.
So I was excited when Zahir showed me how this Church had been tranformed into a mosque in the middle of Rotherham.
Can you see the Crescent moon on the Church spire?
I was there for the launch of ROAR - ROtherham Arts Renaissance which is a brilliant project and involves the Open Minds Theatre Company which is also amazing.
here is the Church again.

Did I say Church?
I meant Mosque.
I was also doing fieldwork for this project.
Watch this space.
PS Dr Joolz and Vic would love this.
Go there now.

From a different eye

2006-09-11T10:05:00.000Z

Elsa
Originally uploaded by herongirlz.

I loved Elsa's pictures of Greece.
Mostly they showed things on the ground like
menus,
buggies,
luggage,
or parents seen from below, squinting tiredly at the sun.
They remind me of the children whose images I am studying, who look at pavements, slides, trees from below and small domestic objects.

Autumn listening

2006-09-09T13:58:00.000Z

I have been at the BERA conference with Dr Joolz which was notable by the extreme strength of my hangover.
Everyone was very Kind.
Musing on the train back, I decided Cat Power had got me through the experience.
Also, the kind advice of the person I sat next to at the conference dinner, that Modern Times is actually quite good.
So here is my Autumn list of favourite music to get you through till Christmas:
Lou Rhodes Beloved one. Cheesy but brilliant
Lucinda Williams Essence I love her
Ali Farka Toure Savane The Estonia must listen experience
Jose Gonzalez Veneer
not forgetting the lovely Laura Cantrall.
I feel better already.

new courses!

2006-09-05T11:40:00.000Z

When I was at a meeting here yesterday, Adrian from this marvellous organisation was saying how hard it is to find arts professionals who understand working in communities but also have an intuitive concept of what they do.
Obviously I immediately thought we should run an MA in being an intuitive arts professional alongside the new exciting course we are offering this year called Working with Communities I am running with Anita, Michele and Jennifer.
This got me thinking about other new MA courses we could run which could supplement our existing ones and bring in new and diverse students
(always a good idea).

Here are my suggestions:

1. An MA in understanding and using the Midland mainline website, together with additional modules on: Trainspotting, Industrial Landscapes and Arts-based related work in railway carriages: an ethnography.

2. An MA in how to navigate complex department stores while not spending too much money. Includes optional modules on Make Up buying without pain and orange foundation, Fashion without feeling guilty, and, Contemporary ethnographies of craft and needlework.

3. An MA in surviving the school holidays while appearing to work. This could include modules on Ways in Which to Multitask effectively, Delegation skills and a module on the Ethnography of time, space and motion in domestic homes, an internal economy of small domestic objects (pictured here).

Any more suggestions?

Invisible buildings

2006-09-01T15:30:00.000Z

Inspired by Dr Joolz' post on East Berlin, I have begun to muse on invisible buildings.
That is, huge buildings which nevertheless, the local inhabitants simply do not see.

They are unmarked on maps, have no signs attached and remain invisible to those who live amongst them.
The collective farms in Estonia were invisible yet every five miles or so we would spot one and the cry would go up 'Collective farm' and we would photograph it.
When we asked our Estonian friends about them, they said they were invisible because they were not part of Estonian History and therefore meant nothing.
But they then revealed they had spent time working on them as students, under Soviet occupation (illegal).
Now they littered the landscape, rusting and broken.

Ofcourse, I wanted to immediately apply for a European grant and get massive funding to do a cultural geography of collective farms, with narratives of identity, and make a cutting edge new museumology exhibition of narratives of identity, or resistence (in Estonian terms) and the buildings of the collective farms.
Now I just need to find a partner.

Today I want to

2006-08-30T07:31:00.000Z

Lie under trees and look up at this view.

Instead I have to do a million and one things including:
1. Do washing
2. Tidy up
3. Write (finish writing) paper for BERA
4. Send final version of article (not yet revised) for Encyclopaedia thingy deadline end August.
5. Send final version of chapter (not quite done) for book deadline end August.
6. Send 2 reviews of articles for Language and Education off (not done) deadline end August.
7. Read at least 7 MA student dissertations and comment in intricate and profound ways by end of today.
8. Notice that children exist and wonder what to do with them.
9. Feed children.
10. Get ready for meeting tomorrow and panic (do not feel at all ready).
11.Wonder what will wear for meeting (readers please help is it Autumn yet?)
This is called Going back to work after the holidays and luckily I think we all feel the same.
Good luck everyone!

free Estonia

2006-08-15T17:19:00.000Z

is the theme for the blog today and with that I remind you that the blog will celebrate Estonian independence day on 20th August.
However, being interested, as I am in cultural geography I became obsessed with the Estonian collective farm.
More about them here.
From 1944, when the Soviets illegally took over Estonia, until glorious independence in 1991, much of Estonia was covered with collective farms which looked like this:

Note the 1980's brick and state of total neglect.
Being a dissident kind of blogger, I would have been sent to one, and so I became fascinated by them and our journey (Tallin, Tartu, Parnu, Muhu island, Saremma, then Tallin) became a spot-the-collective farm experience.
All of them were nameless and fallen into total disrepair in stark contrast to the loved restored Estonian farm buildings.
Our friends in Tallin told us they were invisible parts of the landscape.
I thought, ofcourse, of South Yorkshire, of the mines and the foundries, now closed down.
I thought also, that I have moved from objects to landscapes.
I have become a cultural geographer.
This explains why Andy and Zahir and I decided to move our focus for this project from objects to houses, buildings and landscapes.
They reflect changing identities and shifting cultural and social ideologies.

PS Dr Joolz is right.
The whole world lives on Flickr.
See more on Estonian life here.

Teepees

2006-07-31T15:03:00.000Z

I am sorry I didn't blog last week it was mainly because I was sulking that I couldn't download the amazing pictures of Molly in the Sheffield fountains in the heat last week
from my mobile phone to my lap top (advice please)
so instead we have Molly in our new teepee in Dorset.
Yes, here we have our own hippy festival.
Happy holidays!

Check this out

2006-07-24T08:49:00.000Z

here. It is hot in London and sweaty on the tube.
Molly and I are going to Sheffield and then to Rotherham today, which will be fun.
We will take the tram to Meadowhall.
My favourite place.

affordances and constraints

2006-07-21T13:47:00.000Z

affordances
Originally uploaded by larisaflicksitall.

Guy's post today made me think about affordances and constraints.
I recently argued in an article here that affordances can be culturally as well as materially shaped.
I see affordances as what can be done with a particular sign, its possibilities, but I think that the way we consider the sign is so culturally shaped it is impossible to actually just see it as material.
That is why artefacts in homes are so linked to narratives, they are shaped by the stories we tell of them.

Footprints

2006-07-20T10:59:00.000Z

I like the idea that we will all be issued with a swipe card where we can record our carbon imprint.
I read it here.
I will be wonderfully smug being a train user who practically lives on Midland Mainline.
Whoops I forgot San Francisco.

Lift Off

2006-07-17T08:38:00.000Z

Lift Off
Originally uploaded by Green Destiny.

We have lift off!
Thanks to Green Destiny for this photo and Zahir for his hard work on this site!
We have gone live!
The photo also reminds me of this exhibition which we went to on Saturday.
One of my favourite short films was of an event in upstate New York with strange animals and balloons.
Very celebratory.

Miscellaneous piles

2006-07-13T18:51:00.000Z

are the bane of my life.
They are everywhere in my house.
There is a great division between those who think it is important to tidy up piles
and those who just look at them.
I am afraid I look at piles and wonder what it is in them.
Here are a few in my house.
We start outside Molly's room and wonder what these are.

We proceed to the Bratz cache,

before going to our living room where the piano is unrecognisable because of all the piles,

(truly appalling)
finally we get to my study where there is a long stretchy pile reflecting the struggle I am having doing this project

and a nice flippy pile reflecting the fact that tomorrow morning I start work writing about this project.

But I think I am still a messy thinker.
Here is one solution.

Wikis

2006-07-10T10:38:00.000Z

I love the word Wiki.
It sounds so subversive, somewhere between a witch and a wizard but definitely not too institionalized.
So I was interested to read this survey here, brought to us courtesy of Sheila.
I have been thinking about Vic's talk at this seminar on civic participation and I liked her take on it that you can insert your identity, as people do on Wikipedia, in these multifarious ways.
Civic participation is a word which normally makes me want to go to sleep, but Vic made it exciting.
I think it was because she made it more accessible, something that teenagers and women could do, not just men in suits.
It involves taking photos with your phone and being active in a kind of street, portable, web-engaged kind of way.
Some of the men in the audience (not all) didn't like her definition of civic participation but I think it was because her definition was a bit subversive.
Just like Wikis.

THis image is from Dr Joolz who is the ultimate Wiki person.

on-line and off-line

2006-07-07T08:26:00.000Z

does it matter what it is?
Like home and school the lines between the two used to be important, now they increasingly blur.
Jackie Marsh (who is speaking today here but alas I cannot go as I am busy finishing this project) talks about seepage between the two domains.
This a bit watery but nice I think.
Guy and I talked about this on Wednesday, at this seminar and he showed in this post here, how the two are intertwined, as the blog and the reality dip in and out of each other.
Here is a watery image.

Postcards from the edge

2006-07-06T19:50:00.000Z

The discussions yesterday at this seminar series were so exciting.
Some wierd and wacky thoughts from our discussions include one discussion about postcards.
Dr Joolz never sends postcards (nor do I) but we thought maybe blogging was the new postcard?
When Dr Joolz was in New York we could catch up with her through her extensive posts,
and likewise Digigran's trip to the Galapagos was fully covered here.
I meanwhile have such an exciting holiday destination.
I am going to this house on this island here.

How romantic is that?
So remote and UNUSUAL.
PS The house actually looks like this.

That was the postcard.

Provenance

2006-07-03T07:45:00.000Z

Is an interesting idea.
I have always worked with the idea of texts as traces of social practice, and then considered the 'inventory of traces' that lies behind the text.
So I have worked with the idea of inventory.
The original quote is from Gramsci, and then quoted by Said, in Orientalism, that we can talk about the way in which an ensemble of texts is made up of what he calls 'The personal dimension', which is the idea of knowing theyself, 'as a prodocut of the historical process to date, which has disposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory'
Said then insists that Gramsci said in the original Italian, that it is therefore imperative to compile such an inventory (Said 1978:25).
I wrote about this here.
Provenance comes from the work of Kress, and is connected to the history of a multimodal object.
I am interested in work that unsettles the concept of provenance, and disrupts it as here.
I am also interested in tracing provenance in visual and linguistic artefacts, and trying to find out their origin.
Where was this picture taken?

Writing a blog is ofcourse an activity where provenance is disrupted.
This picture came from my friend Alison, on a conference trip to the Tyrol, and she knew I liked fashion and sent it.
But how could you know unless you ethnographically knew me and my friends?
PS The link to the Tate comes from her too.
Another trace within this text.

Shhh....the Guerrilla girls

2006-06-30T08:32:00.000Z

are a group of women artists who are protesting about the under-representation of women in art.
Go here to find out more about them.
Dr Joolz will love their web site it is very girly.
The article I read about them here says they are on at the Tate Modern this Saturday.
Their next target is Hollywood.
Watch out boys.

shells

2006-06-29T08:21:00.000Z

'sh' words are the theme for the blog this week, and yesterday's Guardian had a great shell chart which Molly put up on her wall.
Molly always makes gardens in the sand with shells on beaches.
Here is one of them.

Molly also surrounded her garden with found objects, and I found this interesting, a sort of ephemeral sculpture.

I have always been interested in found object art as here.
Part of my interest is the transformation of one thing into another, but it is the narrative behind the transformation that I am interested in.

Here is another potential art object.
What could it become?

Shoes

2006-06-28T08:21:00.000Z

is the subject of my post today.
And we think ofcourse of this project and hope their event went very well.
This is a wonderful site and well worth exploring.
I adore this site and think it is very stylish.
When I was 14 I longed for a pair of wedgy shoes.
My mother, ofcourse, thought I should wear Clarke's flats (she was so sensible and right).
In the end, I got them, from Sacha at Snob and they were marvellous, they had suede sides and a blue top.
More memories of Sacha shoes here.
Imagine what I felt when I learned that they were being re-marketed and they were over £100 to buy.
What a shame.
Platform shoes were also very in when I was a teenager and we all longed to have tartan trousers like the Bay City Rollers (the shame).
Now I mostly wear flats and I rather like my black ballet flats which go with everything.
But once in a while I break out.
As here.

I wonder if it is secretly to rebel against my mother?

A life of crime

2006-06-25T15:41:00.000Z

is not to be recommended, and my encounter with a ticket bus inspector got me thinking about what is or what is not wrong.
(Obviously this blog does not condone crime in any form but likes to muse on the subject).
I have just got the Banksy book from Captain John and I was interested in the way in which he had been positioned, not as an artist, but as someone to be seen as illegal.
Yet as he says in his book,

Graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Despite having to creep about at night and lie to your mum it's actually the most honest artform available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on some of the best walls a town has to offer, and nobody is put off by the price of admission.

Certainly my children love to spot a Banksy as we live where he lives in Hackney, North London, like this one, five minutes from where we live.

Banksy
Originally uploaded by Alex Donald.

Banksy makes our lives better, not worse.

Like this one, on our local bus stop wall where we sit and wait.
Banksy goes further than saying that what he does is not criminal he says that
The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl their giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff.

Whose shoes

2006-06-23T15:32:00.000Z

Is the name of a blog I am involved with. Go here to experience its true zaniness.
Hilda will love it.
What I like about it, is that Year 8 pupils are recording their experiences of shoes and narratives, and music and sport have come up as key issues.
This reminds me of the museum shoes at Clifton Park
and the record player.

We might be able to use these for our exhibition but we could put in more stuff as well.
What should we include?

Misinterpretation

2006-06-22T09:58:00.000Z

Can be creative or something else.
In Isabel's statistics exam (today) they asked:
Why is a sample better than a census and her reply was that a census was more irritating and a sample is better as it is more random.
I think this is a very good reply and I hope the examiner likes it.
Also, yesterday I went to Topshop after a very exciting day in Rotherham and bought a dress, which, it has to be said, was too young for me (alas).
Luckily it was re-interpreted as being for Isabel.
Sometimes, mis-interpretation can go well, as in me being in China (see below), other times it can confuse the person.
We in Museum Studies love misinterpretation.
It disrupts the provenance of things, and makes them unsettled.
It takes away fixity.
One of my plans in this project is to ask the children to write the labels for this object.

What will they write?
PS if you have any time today, go here. It will cheer you up.If you are Dr Joolz, this is a compulsory task.
Isabel found it.

Working in China

2006-06-20T12:56:00.000Z

Martin Hughes announced today that I was working in China and while I had thought I worked in Sheffield, and possibly Rotherham, I could see what he meant when I thought about this.
yes, glass cabinets research.
This is also, ofcourse, cultural geography as it is about emplacement.

Filo parcels

2006-06-18T14:51:00.000Z

Yesterday we made Filo Parcels
(with thanks to Mr Seabury who teaches here).
You start with feta cheese

which you mix with parsley

filo pastry
which you cut in long halves
you then put the feta cheese mix on the filo pastry, in small quantities

on one half of a triangle like this

fold it over in a triangle shape (maths is important here)
and keep folding until you have a triangular parcel
brush it with oil

then bake them in the oven for 20 minutes

until they are brown.

Delicious!
Back to Leeds tomorrow so on the road again.

Migration

2006-06-17T12:45:00.000Z

Migration
Originally uploaded by NYC Comets.

was the subject of my two-day research seminar which was here.
It was on Language, Migration and the Re-theorization of Sociolinguistic Space.
You see, that, despite everything, I had to be there.
The Who are playing at the student union this Saturday which is exciting.
I heard Anna talk about from space to spatialization in border crossing narratives,
Stef and Jim do an amazingly interesting talk on from neighbourhoods to networks in their research on multilingual spaces, and Joan from Barcelona talk about Immigration in Catalonia: Marking territory through language.
I missed Ulrika on Madagascan music but I believe it was fantastic.
I love this stuff. We are all, in a sense, migrants.
Leeds is where I practically live, I might move there as I am also there on Monday for a workshop on this project, which is also about migration.
GNER is my new camel, and even Dr Joolz is able to track my movements, due to a serendipitous meeting on Thursday here.
I was there for this project but at least I could talk to David about blogging.

Forward planning

2006-06-15T09:14:00.000Z

I have just had a very good planning meeting with Dr Joolz and I feel very efficient about what will happen next (sometimes this is hard).
In this spirit I will urge you to now start PLANNING your Autumn wardrobe.
Here is Molly in her Autumn outfit.
It is big mistake to think it is summer and also soon the sales and therefore buy more gypsy skirts.
This is in fact absolutely wrong.
There is more on that crime here.
Instead you should be going to the shops in search of:
Trouser suits
Capacious heavy skirts with crinolines (I have just bought mine yippee)
Sailor jackets, heavy blue wool.
You can see here what I plan to wear in the Autumn.

DIstractions

2006-06-12T17:16:00.000Z

are sometimes welcome sometimes not.
Last week it was pigeons in the exam hall.
This week it was the extreme heat.
Dr Joolz has some wonderful pictures of women in Sheffield enjoying the heat.
I have been thinking about the role of blogs in my life and I think they act very much as a distraction.
Is this good or bad?
I think mostly good, as they are a way of enjoying digital practices and play which is what this blog and seminar series is all about.
ALso, distraction slides into work, as with my reflection on Vic's blog that we turn our interest in customizing into research.
Doodling is a wonderful form of distraction.
This is Molly's computer doodle.
Likewise Dr Joolz and allotments.
In fact, I think distraction is a very creative activity and is probably where our best ideas come from.

Congratulations

2006-06-10T17:43:00.000Z

all those who have survived Science, History, English Maths GCSE this week plus the parents (it was so hard and such a long week),
and also those who survived this afternoon's non-world cup watching experience.
The streets were strangely deserted, leaving lots of time and space for those who wished for peace and quiet.
As I promised, this blog offers a world-cup free space with lots of interesting activities suggested instead of TWC, including:
Playing The movies game (Barney is playing it now v. g.)
Catching up on Bridget Jones (She is having her baby -so exciting catch up here)
Watching Walk the Line (popular with Dr Joolz) with the curtains closed
Becoming a textile designer (why not? All that free time, so creative?)
The list is endless.

Soundtracks

2006-06-06T09:26:00.000Z

I like Guy's idea that you have a soundtrack to the day.
There is a peculiar silence in the street when the entire 16 year old population is taking GCSE English.
A kind of low humming.
I think it is turning into a rap.

The World Cup

2006-06-05T12:40:00.000Z

Reading Dr Rob's post as part of my intensive research for my module for this marvellous course ( I will finish it today Dr Joolz I promise) I found his observations on driving interesting.
As we drove back to London from Glasgow yesterday
(my narrative of migration for the day)
I observed how bad the drivers were.
The worst ones had England flags sticking out of them.
This led me to my scientific discovery.
There is a proven link between bad driving and football.
This also led to the following important statement.
This blog is a World Cup Free Zone for the next month.
Instead of anything about football we will have an alternative menu of excitement, with daily THEMES which will actively promote non sport watching.
Ideas please.
Tomorrow I thought we could start with handbags.

Ersatz

2006-06-04T18:44:00.000Z

is when something is something it is not.
It is a kind of substitution, offering something of an inferior quality to the apparent reality which is apparently glorious.
I learned that on Islay when visiting my great-uncle Donald's farm, Rockside (this is to prove I have a connection with Islay) and they had a Visitor Centre, newly installed, with produce in the shop that was from Devon.
The shop could have been set in Cornwall and just happened to be in Islay but the idea of heritage was the same.
Wierd.
One is an essential tourist.
However, I have tricked you on this blog.
This picture gives an impression of heat.

Ha.
It was freezing cold.
Ersatz again.

Lucky Bleaders

2006-06-03T14:41:00.000Z

That's you.
Blog readers are called bleaders according to this source.
I read this on the boat this morning, as we pulled out from Port Ellen.
Actually lucky bleaders is us.
Here are a few of our holiday snaps.

Obviously boiling.

Anna and I sometimes drank whisky on the beach.

I swam in the sea.
Now we are here.
Shopping!
Luckily it is my birthday today so I have an excuse.

last post for a while

2006-05-25T11:44:00.000Z

just to say this is my last post for a while as I am off here and here and even better here where the internet cafe is extrememely FAR from where we are staying and even worse it is right by the WHISKY distillery so if I blogged it might be a bit muddly. (Or Muddy? Both probably).
Note the extensive programme on the Islay website including the Whisky tours.
But I leave you in the capable hands of Hilda and Anon who are blogging oh so well.
Anon has opened my eyes with this image.
I also leave you with a research task which is to look in myspace and find out about it as a literacy practice.
According to my daughter, it is where everyone meets up and hangs out, no need to have real meetings or friends.
Again, cultural geography is where it is at.
My new discipline.

Very misty.

Today we think about

2006-05-23T08:18:00.000Z

GCSE's.
Yes it is that time of year.
The eldest went off this morning to do English.
I have decided I am an expert on revision tips.
These are:
1. You have to watch a lot of Green Wing. This helps concentration.
2. Purchasing dresses also helps on a regular basis.
3. On no account should the examinee have to do anything stressful like housework as this is too hard. They should just eat and sleep.
4. Another idea is to be the person you are doing the exam on. Yesterday, my daughter was Latino (Spanish) today she is from the Deep South of America. (To Kill a Mockingbird). Then you don't actually have to read the book, just be in it.
This idea is actually excellent and applies to Molly who is today a Viking and has gone to find out about Viking boats at the National Maritime Museum.
Here is Molly dressed as a Viking:

I would make a great Viking Mother.
I would produce artefacts and make dresses.
Another possible career without the pressures of the RAE.

Tying threads together

2006-05-22T09:21:00.000Z

I am trying to collect threads about blogging together so that my students can think about blogging.
Sarah's blog is very good - thanks Dr Joolz, as she is using her blog for her students.
Here is a brilliant blog about shoes - watch this space as this is a Creative Partnerships project I am involved in.
These two blogs are also about the processes and practices of artists who have a residency in museums in Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley - read about their artistic practices here and here.
I like the way Sheila's blog has random photos and I will do random photos this week to encourage you to put pictures up.

And here is a warning - watch what Jennifer did which is to create a blog, write the first post and sit back and wait.
She got 28 comments.

Blogs as spaces

2006-05-20T15:29:00.000Z

for invisible thoughts.
I realised this when I read Dr Joolz's excellent post on creative jamming.
Your blog is often the place you go to try out a new idea.
Mine is something I said on Thursday, which was unusually profound, as, dear readers,
my mind is FILLED to the brim with ephemera, mess and trivia in particular these dresses which are a MUST HAVE purchase,
which is that meaning tugs learning along.
This is because I am fuelled with a desire to follow the trails of meaning across domains, much like Barton and Hamilton did when they talked of people's ruling passions.
But it makes a difference WHAT the passions are.
It is the intersection of materiality and meaning that makes the difference to an object.
So we know these are Celia Birtwell second time round, but our first time memories of Biba are different right?
Blogs are the places where you can put these random across domain thoughts.
A reason I like the idea of Sam Taylor Wood's invisible cello which is on here
it that it precisely describes the way ideas sometimes are invisible, and there is a silence at the heart of them, and they only open up in unexpected ways.
Guess where this is?
It is where I will be in one week's time. Heaven.
Clue: Travis and Franz Ferdinand come from there.
It is the best space for invisible thinking.

What are the affordances of blogs?

2006-05-19T08:21:00.000Z

I wrote about the different aspects of blogs (links, sound, pictures and words) here and here.
Also, go here for a really good reflective blog about blogging.
Links are very interesting and they can subvert a blog as you link the meaning to something completely different.
Images are next - I am not so good as people like Dr Joolz who use Flickr as much as blogger for their on-line identity work.
Sometimes Flickr is more important - like with Litrate's blog.
Words can often be shared - I often write about something someone is following on another blog.
Memes are games you play across blogs, see here for more about them.
Blogging is exciting, time consuming but it changes all the time.

blogs: a spatial guide

2006-05-18T11:32:00.000Z

In my new role as geographer (see post below) I thought I would give my students on this course a chance to sample some interesting blogs.
First off is this new blog which looks interesting, brought to us by Guy, whose blog is always interesting.
He posts everyday and for that he should get a medal.
He disagrees with the eminent Dr Joolz about whether blogs are affinity spaces or not.
Perhaps the students could help us decide?
There are lots of literacy practices blogs out there.
Colin and Michele are very generous with their thoughts and I also always enjoy a visit to Anya's page as she surfs her virtual games and presents us with complex thoughts on identities and blogging.
Finally, a new entrant: Sheila from information literacies is blogging away in the same University.
It makes me realise that we need a map.

Would it be aerial or would it be a kind of from the ground representation?
Cartographers, please respond.

I have decided I am a geographer

2006-05-17T09:39:00.000Z

I spent yesterday in the new inter-disciplinary department of worn objects, discarded objects and artefacts and narratives of migration currently based in the Coffee Republic until more suitable premesis can be found.
I have new books to read and exciting new colleagues to find out about.
I even go to new research seminars with different visiting Professors and sit in different buildings.
I can talk about post-colonial identities and art with more exciting people and make marvellous links across departments with new experts.
I have learned to think spatially.

sculpting with no objects

2006-05-15T18:34:00.000Z

This week I am going to think about worn objects,
also about no objects.
David told me about these two and about sculptors who do not produce objects
as part of their practice.
We wondered what a post-object society would look like,
and following Braudrillard, what happens when objects cease to be signifiers.
If you look at the work of this architecture practice, you can see what a non-object based architecture practice could look like.
This exhibition is about fear, and fearful objects.
The next thing, ofcourse, for all us bloggers, is to think about the web as a place where objects disappear and vanish.
One of my students once asked me about old blogs.
Where do they go when they stop being used?
So obviously museum curators think this is the most important heritage dilemma.
Curating new media turns out to be the latest thing.
Look here for more about curating new media.
So, how would you curate a blog?
Is it a disappearing object?
Answers on a postcard please, to this address.
What are these objects?
Are they real?

Intermission from Fieldnotes

2006-05-14T17:26:00.000Z

I have decided to create a brief mini break from Fieldnotes, the blockbuster novel (earning, remember, a 6 figure advance at least)
in order to create futher suspense
(will Artemis get on with Kevin, worse, will she leave Hope and find a New Partner in Ruffield?
Will she learn to like football? Oh terrible thought.
Will Karen embrace San Paradiso Life and end up in the Castro? etc etc)
and focus on identity in blogs.
Guy is talking about this, and so were the students on this course
this weekend.
Who are we when we write our blogs?
obviously I am a mix of Artemis and Karen but not
(I hope) Stan but I am ultimately Dr Kate but who is she?????
ALso, who am I???

Is this me?
Will I get to see this film, this week or will I simply not have time?
Will I buy a dress from here?
TO BE CONTINED....

Artemis in Ruffield

2006-05-10T14:22:00.000Z

Was fine.
She had discovered a spa where she could get her manicures and pedicures also
thankfully one place that served salad.
In the morning she jogged all around Sunmore which after a while the residents got used to, and even her ipod no longer attracted stares.
Abdul's cousin Rukshana had promised to take her to the Laura Mercier Lipstick Counter at Selfridges when she next came to London and also wanted her to meet her cousin Yasmin who was doing an MA with this lot and wanted to do a Phd on the on-line blogging habits of teenagers in Ruffield and thought Artemis would be a fab supervisor (Artemis was thrilled).
The only mystery was a Kevin Grand, who kept emailing her insisting they met to discuss regional networks.
Artemis didn't understand regional networks.
One morning in the staff room she turned round to find Stan looking intently at her silk chiffon summer dress.
'Artemis' he said 'Settled in alright?'
'Can I have a word?'
TO BE CONTINUED.....

At the Drinks Party: Karen in San Paradiso

2006-05-08T19:06:00.000Z

Hannah offered Karen a sushi roll and a glass of Sapa valley white and surveyed her carefully.
She was wearing some kind of night wear, accessorised with high heeled round toed purple shoes.
Maybe English Girls dressed like that.
Hannah, resplendent in khaki jumpsuit and combats, could not understand it.
Hannah's work, until she had been Dean, was on ethnographies of teenage communicative practices.
She had hung out with the girls on North Beach, and watched as they flirted with their mobile phones and texted their friends while vintage clothes shopping on Grant Avenue.
(Pictured here. Photo courtesy of Dr Joolz.)

Hannah had put her wild days behind her.
Once known for her femme fatale tendencies, she had gone Urban Guerilla in 1999 and had risen steadily up the ranks of faculty of San Paradiso.
Now she ruled the roost.
Her new ambition was to have the greatest vineyard in the Sapa valley.
Nothing would stop her now.
'So honey' said Hannah nicely to Karen.
'Where DO you buy your lipstick?'
TO BE CONTINUED.

Girly stuff: Artemis in Ruffield

2006-05-07T18:46:00.000Z

It was Saturday, and for once, Artemis did not have a football match in Ruffield.
She sauntered down the most supposedly fashionable street in Ruffield, which had borne the brunt of Kevin's Regeneration in the mid 1980's and now was called the 'Cultural Industries Quarter' which included El-Salaam university, a Green Dome and the unsual Gap etc and the department store, Cole Brothers.
Artemis had high hopes of Cole Brothers.
She had enough lipstick, but she needed mascara, some nice blusher and a tube of foundation.

Would it do?
She pushed open the green and white doors in hopeful anticipation.
Immediately, a strong smell of musk
wafted towards her and Artemis trotted forward thinking...
Stila?
Laura Mercier?
Bobbie Brown?
Chantecaille?
All she could see was women looking anxious with too much foundation on.
Nervously she approached a counter.
Marlene looked at Artemis.
Artemis looked at Marlene.
'Um, do you have mascara?'
asked Artemis
'No!' said Marlene with joy.
'An American!'
'Come and see Doreen'.
Doreen hurried over.
'Oh love, where do you come from?'
'San Paradiso' said Artemis'
'My FAVOURITE PLACE' said Doreen Marlene and co.
Soon, Artemis was surrounded by women.
She was being given free samples of everything.
They hung on her every word.
'And do you have spas there love? like the old baths we have here?
Artemis told them about Laura Mercier. About Stila.
About Saks Fifth Avenue.
She warmed to her theme.
The thing about Laura Mercier is they do cookie flavoured lipstick'
'No!' said Marlene.
Sensation in the lipstick counter at Cole Brothers.

Girly stuff: Karen in San Paradiso

2006-05-05T18:04:00.000Z

Dressing for the Dean's party was exciting, but stressful,
thought Karen as she surveyed crumpled clothes emerging from the inevitable squalor of her suitcase.
Her mini student apartment (with bathroom)
deep in the Pinewoods looked out over the bay.
The sun was still bright in the sky.
Freshened by a nap, Karen felt ready for anything.
She pulled out her new Ghost dress (green embroidered, cut on the bias as described here), her Karen Millen heels (round toes, so contemporary) and put on her new red lipstick, bought in Cole Brothers but quite shiny, brushed her hair and looked at herself approvingly in the mirror.
The Campus sparkled, and Karen looked once again at her invitation.
'Dean's office' it read.
A huge Italianate building glittered in front of her.
In gold letters it read:
'San Paradiso University Dean's office'.
Nervously Karen stepped up to the front door (Embossed, huge) and pushed it gently...
TO BE CONTINUED....