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Blog entries from 2008

  1. Intellectual Insecurity and the Art of Writing

    Tue, 01 Jul 2008

    NB: The following is a book review I wrote for a forthcoming (2008) issue of Embroidery Magazine (UK). The failure of the book lies in the writing, particularly the lead essay by a professor at Goldsmiths College, London, a teaching institution where obfuscation and gerund creation seem to…

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  2. sleep shed

    Sun, 29 Jun 2008

    Commission: sleep shed

    sleep shed is a site-specific work commissioned from recent graduate Callum Bell for installation (August 2008) in my small walled back garden at Admiralty House. I commissioned Callum on the day I saw his installation Home at the 2008 University of Plymouth Degree…

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  3. The Case for Spectacle

    Fri, 02 May 2008

    An expanded excerpt from the Arts Strategy (April 2008) I wrote for Devonport (England) as part of my commission from Devonport Regeneration Community Partnership and Plymouth City Council.

    It seems illogical, but sometimes spectacle can be so bad it’s good. And when that happens it becomes…

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  4. Castro for President

    Wed, 23 Apr 2008

    I wrote the following in March 2006. It was first published on the BA Hons Art, Design and Environment website, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. A few changes since it was written: Sarkozy won the French Presidential election and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was…

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  5. Call, response, create!

    Tue, 22 Apr 2008

    Call-and-response is an African tradition of democratic communication and participation. It translates into all areas of culture and is international in its spread. Musicians interpret it as a series of “phrases” – usually four bars - played and exchanged between musicians who comment,…

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  6. Websites and the Science of Happiness

    Wed, 09 Apr 2008

    The designers of this website are happiness merchants. Ok sure, they don’t call themselves “happiness merchants”, it’s not on their business cards, but that is indeed their primary line of work.

    Happiness is the difference between feeling good (e.g. eating chocolate), and doing good (e.g.…

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  7. The first day at Admiralty House, Devonport

    Tue, 25 Mar 2008

    On March 4, 2008 I was handed the key to Admiralty House. Not the key to the front door, but the key to a self-contained 18th century two bedroom cottage in the east wing. This will be my temporary part-time residence until sometime in late summer. My living room window looks south across…

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  8. Small but smart

    Fri, 21 Mar 2008

    Small is central to my work. Small already is or soon will be important for you too. In Little and Large for Blueprint Magazine I wrote “The gigantic has its plus points. It represents infinity, the exterior, the public. But the gigantic also has an unavoidable capacity for…

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Recent blog entries

  1. Intellectual Insecurity and the Art of Writing
  2. sleep shed
  3. The Case for Spectacle
  4. Castro for President
  5. Call, response, create!

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Ma.gnolia bookmarks feed Recent Ma.gnolia bookmarks

Paying at the Pump, in a Big Way - New York Times
Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare tells the story of the rabbit who naps during the middle of a race confident she can beat the turtle. She doesn't. The cost of diesel fuel in the US has risen five times in the last decade. There are plenty of losers, but who wins? Boat and barge travel. More efficient fuel burners than trucks, trains or lorries, barge business is booming. Slow travel wins.
Tycoon may ditch golf resort plan - Regen Daily Bulletin - Regen.net
Donald Trump once famously declared "make no little plans." If Trump were going to build a small scale golf course that respected the landscape and avoided pesticides, then maybe his plans for a new course in Aberdeenshire should be approved. But Trump does nothing by halves. The scale is wrong and the environment will suffer. For those reasons alone I hope the public enquiry sends Trump packing.
Is There Such a Thing as Sustainable Golf? - LIME
Creating a lush green fairway in an inappropriate landscape (e.g. Crete, Arizona, California) is environmentally unsustainable. Donald Trump wants to build a mega-course in golf's birthplace - Scotland. This article questions whether there is such a thing as a sustainable golf course.
Upton Sinclair, Now Playing on YouTube - New York Times
The assigned reading list in my high school English class included Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". An expose of the Chicago meatpacking industry written in 1906, this novel (combined with my mother's move to vegetarianism) changed everything for me. No meat, no animal testing, and against the industrialisation of animals.

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  1. Plymouth Arts Centre Celebrates 60 Years

    11 Jul 2008

    Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth

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Denna Jones | | +44 7930 463185