Making an exhibition of yourself at the Royal Exchange

There’s an argument that says being part of a social networking site, writing a blog, or having a Twitter account is all about self-promotion, developing the ‘Brand of Me’, or at worst, self-indulgent naval-gazing. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people say ‘but what’s the point of it all? Why do you spend time telling the world what you had for breakfast?’

Personally, I rarely mention what I had for breakfast online (I tend to focus on dinner), but I do enjoy the glimpse sites like Twitter give into people’s everyday experiences. If my train’s delayed in Manchester, I find it strangely comforting to discover that Dave, the guy I talk to about blogging on Twitter, is suffering the same fate in Devon.

But then, I’m interested  in the everyday. I once visited the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, and ignored the tanks and films and interactive stuff, preferring to gaze for hours at the contents of a typical WW2 soldier’s backpack.

A new exhibition at the Royal Exchange Theatre is focusing on exactly that kind of minutiae – creating an exhibition about the private displays we make in our own homes. And, if you’re feeling brave, you could be part of it.

The Royal Exchange team have put together a list of activities they’d like people to complete and submit to them by 10th December to help them assemble the exhibition.

Here’s the list:

MAKE A MAP – make a map of your room, flat, house – any kind of map – a map that shows on it the things that matter to you.
YOUR LISTS – collect up some of your old lists – shopping lists, reminders, to-do lists etc.

YOUR DOOR – take a photo of your door (could be a back door, front door, your room door).

CORNERS OF HOME – examine three corners of your home. Draw them, photograph them or write about them.

DREAMS – write or draw a dream.

NIGHTMARES – write or draw a nightmare.

YOU CAN PUT YOUR CONTENT INTO THE COLLECTION BOX AT THE ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE’S EDUCATION LOUNGE, OR SEND IT VIA FREEPOST TO: EXCHANGE EDUCATION, ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE, FREEPOST (MR8027) MANCHESTER M2 8BL.

The resulting exhibition will be on display at the theatre on Thursday 14th & Friday 15th January 2010 – 10:30am-7:30pm, and Saturday 16th January 11am – 8pm.

 

Competing for the People’s Millions

My inbox has been deluged with information about the PEOPLE’S MILLIONS project this week. It’s the TV show that distributes Big Lottery funding to community projects. Each night during this year’s voting period, two shortlisted projects will be featured on the local ITV regional news (in our case Granada Reports) between 6-6:30pm, then they’ll face a telephone vote to determine which of them receives that day’s funding.

Tomorrow, Manchester’s own Longford Park will be up against Windmill Hill Primary School in Runcorn, two garden-creation projects battling for support.

The project’s website http://www.peoplesmillions.org.uk/regions/granada/ allows you to view the @peoplesmillions Twitter feed, and you can register your details to support and endorse your chosen project, but that’s NOT the same as voting for it, which has to be done by phone during the voting period.

Is this as good a way as any to distribute funding – does it give people more say? And does it depend more on the ability of the individual projects to market themselves and mobilise support for their bid? After all, nobody wants to suffer the same fate as Jedward did on Sunday, now do they?

How far would you go to join a social network?

How far would you go to join a social network? When you signed up for Facebook you might have spent a fair amount of time filling in fascinating information about yourself, where you went to school, the bands you like or the places you’ve worked.

Opening a Twitter account probably entailed several minutes’ deliberation over your username, and Flickr requires you to sit and upload or tag all your photos, which can admittedly take some time.

But would you go as far as having your membership information tattooed on your body? That’s what the arts organisation Ultimate Holding Company is asking of one hundred volunteers to do for a new exhibition at Chapel Street in Salford.

On the face of it, Ext-Inked is simply an exhibition of drawings illustrating the one hundred most endangered species in the British Isles. The drawings, which feature everything from a red squirrel to an ‘erratic ant’, went on display at Unit 108, Chapel Street, Salford, M3 5DW on 12th November, and will be on show 10am – 6pm every day until 1st December.

But between 26th and 29th November, the exhibition takes a twist, and becomes a groundbreaking social experiment. With help from expert tattooists from Ink & Steel, the drawings will be converted into tattoos, and a hundred ‘ambassadors’ will volunteer to have the designs etched onto their skin for posterity – to form a very exclusive social network of representatives for the endangered species.

Tattooing will happen live at Chapel Street over the weekend of 26th-29th November, beginning at 7:30pm on the 26th. Volunteers can sign up at any time during the exhibition’s run, but the species are being assigned on a first-come, first-served basis, so if you’ve got a particular fondness for a fungus, or a long-held wish to be tattooed with the likeness of a lizard, you’d better move fast…

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

JOIN THE EXT-INKED FACEBOOK GROUP

 

 

DaVinci the Genius hits Ning…

Another great project in Manchester today – and we’re still with the museums sector. MOSI – the Museum of Science and Industry down in Castlefield have created a whole site to support the Manchester leg of the Da Vinci the Genius exhibition which is on show at MOSI from 14th November 2009 to 13th June 2010. They’ve built the site using Ning.com, where you can create your own social network around anything you like.

There’s loads of information and links on the Manchester Da Vinci site – a discussion forum, lots of links to interactive content, and a whole range of Da Vinci-related videos and images. You can even take The Genius Test to find out if you’re as clever as Leonardo himself. I, unsurprisingly, am not..

Looking for Women Like You

So I’m resurrecting the MyManchester editor’s blog. Jess, the former editor has moved on to pastures new (Vancouver, to be precise), so I’ve taken over – I’m Kate, and you can catch me on kate@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk

The plan is to use this blog to highlight great stuff going on in the world of social media, especially in Manchester and the Northwest, and to shout about the Community Reporters’ programme and other goings on here.

First up, I’ve just found out about a brilliant social media-based project that the Pankhurst Centre and Manchester Art Gallery are putting together. Women Like You. The aim is to produce the first public art to celebrate women in Manchester. It’s simple – all you have to do is visit the Facebook group and upload a photo of a woman (or women, I guess) that has inspired you. It could be your Grandma, the Queen, or Lady Gaga.

You’ve got until 30th November 2009 to get your pictures in – if you don’t want to upload via Facebook you can also drop them off in special collecting boxes at the Pankhurst Centre, 60-62 Nelson Street, Manchester M13, or at Manchester Art Gallery or Manchester Central Library between 1st November and 1st December (be aware that pictures can’t be returned, though).

Once all the images are in, artist Charlotte Newson will use them to create a huge portrait of Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the suffragettes. The portrait will appear on the billboards across the city, and at Manchester Art Gallery to celebrate International Women’s Day, then from 6th March – 9th May 2010.

I’m off to find a really good pic of my Grandma to contribute – quite fancy seeing her face on a billboard…..even if it is part of someone else’s face in the end……

Kate

Community Reporter’s Photos of the Guerrilla Buskers!

Couldn’t figure out how to embed the slideshow, but it can be viewed here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38896015@N02/sets/72157618954262138/

Enjoy!

Guerrilla Buskers Footage

Here’s some of the footage from our Community Reporters of the Guerrilla Buskers – thanks so much for all your hard work guys!

More from the day can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/SingleCellCollective

Why Bother With Social Media?

There are few things that irritate me as much as the phrase ‘World Music’. Trudging down the endless aisles of ‘Rock’, ‘Pop’ and ‘Indie’ until you reach the sorry-looking section at the back of the shop where four dusty shelves are dedicated to ambiguously-titled ‘Best Of the Continent’ compilations would be laughable if it wasn’t so totally desperate.

What, exactly, would go on a ‘Best of Europe’ compilation? Who, exactly, decides what 15 tracks best represent over ten thousand years of Africa’s rich musical history? And just when, exactly, was it decided that the music coming from the vast majority of the world’s population would be lumped together under Rest of World – as a kind of sub-category to ‘Real Music’ – as if samba players in Brazil had anything at all in common with Bangra musicians in India.

It is a desperate situation not just because of the huge sea of ignorance in which it is swimming, but also because it has the tragic result of silencing the sounds made by millions of people. How much ‘World Music’ are we actually exposed to? How many of us are guilty of buying a ‘Best of Afro-Funk’ compilation, but have absolutely no idea who Fela Kuti was? How many of us could name 10 ‘World Musicians’?

‘Western’ musical culture is but a fraction of an infinite, timeless musical pie, yet probably represents over 90% of the music and musical history we are exposed to and understand. And intentional or not, this is the direct result of the workings of the record industry, and the huge sums of money thrown at just 10% of the world’s musicians. And so those are the sounds we hear and the voices we listen to.

This is much the same problem as has been created by the media industry. I would guess that 95% of the world’s population (‘World Population’ – reduced to 4 dusty shelves in the Democracy Shop) take no part whatsoever in the conversations created by the global media, and perhaps only 12% of the population in any given country – including this one – make their voices part of their local or national media. And just as the musicians we hear help us form an opinion and understanding of what music is, the voices we hear in the media help us form an opinion of what is going on in the world.

Are we really going to rely on 5% of the world’s population – undoubtedly those with money and power and vested interests – to tell us how we should interpret things? Or do we want to make our own minds up?

The internet has done nothing less than provided ‘World Musicians’ and ‘World Population’ with a platform to shout from, and the tools with which to shout. P2P file-sharing and sites such as Last.Fm and MySpace have had a massive impact in spreading knowledge and understanding of musicians from all round the globe; social media – blogs, Facebook, YouTube, internet radio and the like – has given people an ability to take part in the conversations that are trying to figure out what’s going on in the world, and, more importantly, what we should do about it. And crucially, as long as you’ve got access to the internet, you’ve got as much chance as anyone else – regardless of money, power or vested interests – of taking part in that conversation (- for the time being at least – look up Net Neutrality – )

People’s Voice Media exists simply to teach people the skills they need to get involved. So get involved!

NB All statistics in the this article have been completely made up, but feel plausible and are based on very intelligent and educated guesses

Community Reporters do Guerilla Busking!

PVM’s Community Reporters are going to be out and about this Friday documenting Single Cell’s / Futuresonic’s Guerilla Buskers.

Raising money and awareness for refugees and asylum seekers, a whole range of Manchester artists are going to be playing in secret locations all around the city centre – and we’re going to be following them.

Look out for up-to-the-minute footage on Single Cell’s YouTube channel as the day progresses: http://www.youtube.com/singlecellcollective

And best of all, we want your footage as well. If you’re going to watch any of the acts, or just happen to stumble across them on your travels, and feel to take some pics or record something on your phone, then we want it! Send what you can to jess@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk, or get in touch for Youtube account info.

Here’s to hoping for a sunny day!

Comedy Compeition Winners!

Congratulations to Euna and John, who braved the cold winds of Manchester to go out on the streets and get your jokes! They’ve each won a pair of tickets to the Frog and Bucket comedy club on Oldham St. While the majority of people they asked ran away screaming, some of you were brave enough to face the camera. Here’s the results: