Max Oldenburg – ‘Green Air Bags’

Sponsored by London Overground, this work at Hoxton Station evokes the adrenaline rushes implicit in the anticipation and disillusion of travel. This quote from the artist’s statement on Platform One says it all: “The random inflation and deflation of the bags evokes the capriciousness of our transitory expectations. The green rictus grin below the platform level is a symbol of the wafer thin veneer of civilisation that prevents society from imploding.”

Mandy Long – ‘Mud Tribe’

This scatological statement by Mandy Long confronts our vicarious relationship with dirt. For many city dwellers the countryside is little more than a theme park and means of production. Each footprint was actioned by a rural artisan wearing urban fashion trainers during a house & garage performance hosted by Dr XOX.

Helmut Beuys – ‘Faith Shroud’

This is one of many pop-up ‘reliquaries’ by Helmut Beuys dotted around Hoxton over the next six weeks. The precariously clinging shroud is a metaphor for our inability to keep faith when tested, and each notch represents our self-flagellation for failing.

Nigel Judd – ‘The Pinnacle’

Nigel Judd’s totem in Threadneedle Street will be under construction for the duration of the Biennale. In his Culture Show interview, Judd neatly summed it up thus: “The Pinnacle is an uncompromising attack on the coiled inner ego of the outer id.”

Ella Creed – ‘Work No. 679’

Ella Creed continues to push the envelope on the thin red line that divides the prosaic from the extraordinary. Sponsored by Polyfilla, this bold installation consisting of 1000 sustainably sourced plywood boards asks important questions about the legitimacy of individual expression in the age of generic communications frameworks such as Facebook, Twitter, Entourage and iPhone.

Sophie Andre – ‘Enclosures’

Sophie Andre divides her time between studios in Shanghai, Los Angeles and Shoreditch. The concrete poetry on the left of the installation introduces the theme of owned and shared space. The fixed red post and moveable boards invite and inhibit us, signifying the tension between disputed emotional territories in the urban psychopathy.

Cicely Baldessari – ‘Three tickets’

The numeral 3 is a constant theme of this artist’s work. In her ‘Manifesto Tertiary’ she observes: ‘Three is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Three Tickets is a trenchant comment on the sequential terrorism of dualism.”

Dylan Emin – ‘CCTV phallus’

Dylan Emin has made a specialisation of labyrinthine explorations into Freudian theory. This is one of a series of site-specific works about castration anxiety suffered by alpha male commuters, triggered by fear of being degraded and dominated in the workplace.

Zanussi Rothko – ‘No: 56 (Beige and Pink)’

Zanussi Rothko has done more than any other artist to visualise bipolar disorder. In this piece sponsored by Platform for Art, mood swings are represented by nebulous manifestations of the bipolar spectrum. Note the assertive cross that represents the struggle to overcome the tyranny of adversity and conflict in childhood and the mother / father figures on the left.

Bert Koons – ‘Bonus Culture’

This vivid collision of glamorous fluff and freebasing squalor is a profound statement about the symbiotic relationship between hedonism and denial. Visitors are invited to climb into the frame and experience an ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ volte face.

Reg Hirst – ‘Gum Disease’

Reg Hirst’s visceral polemics tell us much about our obsession with oral placebos as our complexes about breast-feeding. Hire the audio-guide and get a complimentary branded memory stick containing the seminal track ‘From the nipple to the bottle’ by Grace Jones.

Tony Lucas – ‘Chair Shag’

Tony Lucas’s work is as sexually provocative as ever. It reiterates just how much his surgical perception cuts deep into our subliminal consciousness. It is one of twenty works commissioned by the Hoxton Biennale on this theme. Lucas says of this exhibit: “It’s my two fingers statement to the fuck-you culture.”

Jennifer Goldsworthy – ‘Solar System’

This poignant juxtaposition of opposites attracting is loaded with a finely tuned tension. Goldsworthy is exceptionally eloquent on the subject: “Each one of us is a miniature solar system orbiting around others and our cosmic orientation is decided by the strength or weakness of our charismatic gravity.”

Jill Miro – ‘Self Portrait – London, England’

Jill Miro has created self-portraits from objet trouvé in many locations around the world. In her long awaited autobiography she explains the essence of her art. “A self portrait is actually a portrait of the viewer. I merely create empty vessels which they fill with perceptions of themselves.”

Tim

Cover by Mark Hearld and Emily Sutton

Any day now, the first edition of Random Spectacular will be flying through the postal system to homes around the country. Designed and published by St Jude’s, this occasional journal promises an exploration of the visual arts, literature, nature, travel and much more. A sneak preview here suggests there’s a visual treat on every spread. Typophiles should find much to savour. I’m also looking forward to immersing myself in the words when my copies arrive. All profits from sales will be donated to Maggie’s Centres.

At a time when many design and culture magazines are struggling – Grafik magazine closed last week, for example – it’s heartening to see a new title, especially one that has high production values and a confident approach to the sheer enjoyment of creativity. This magazine is all about reading for pleasure.

Its randomness is a sensible strategy; there’s no requirement for the publishers of such an epic collaboration to be defeated by their own promises of regularity. Besides, there’s something rather tantalising about not knowing when a magazine you enjoy will appear next. As an aside, I’m hugely impressed by the people behind Eye magazine, who have somehow managed to publish a stunning issue regularly since 1990, come hell, high water, recessions and the proliferation of design blogs.

Talking of blogs, my contribution to Random Spectacular is an interview with The Gentle Author of Spitalfields Life. In fact, it’s the first interview the Gentle Author has given. I think my subject is one of the most interesting writers in Britain today. The interview discusses aspects of east London life, and of a writer’s life. I start by drawing out the surprising background to the extraordinary promise made on the blog, which says:

Let me disclose to you the hare-brained ambition I am pursuing, which is to write at least ten thousand stories about Spitalfields life. At the rate of one a day, this will take approximately twenty-seven years and four months. Who knows what kind of life we shall be living in 2037 when I write my ten thousandth post?

A Typoretum typographic print accompanies Tim’s interview with the Gentle Author.

Buy the magazine to read why the Gentle Author felt compelled to make this commitment. To promise a story every day is the opposite strategy to that of Random Spectacular, but it also makes sense. The web has enabled this writer to form a consistent connection with the reader. And by imposing a daily deadline the writer is forced to produce; forced to create the momentum that will transform thoughts into words that can be shared. Even slow writers can become prolific when there’s a meaningful deadline hanging over their head. The Gentle Author has written more than 700,000 words in 2 years.

Prolific publication is made possible by the web. Indeed, Spitalfields Life is an important counter-argument to the ridiculous but common notion that people don’t like to read online. Many of the daily posts are more than 1,000 words. Some much longer. Even friends who rarely touch a printed broadsheet tell me they consume the Gentle Author’s post each morning. People will read online if writers write well for them. The greatest obstacle to better writing online is the miserabilist mantra that attention spans are shortening and ‘web readers’ can’t understand anything unless. It’s written. In very. Short. Sentences.

It’s partly the variety and unpredictability of the subject matter in Spitalfields Life that keeps people hooked. Each story is a surprise, like a gift. One day we are taken up a church tower normally off-bounds to visitors, the next we’re with bunny girls in Wapping or inside a small factory on the Hackney Road. Spitalfields Life is always somewhat random, quietly spectacular.

Tim

I discovered that curating a show like WORDSTOCK requires a kind of pragmatic theatricality. Communication is all about conveying information but the way you tell it must be dramatic. People will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. 26 is packed with extraordinary people who have broad terms of reference. Once the word was out, offers to facilitate events poured in and the WORDSTOCK programme began to firm up: A writing workshop exploring the crossover between words and music; A discussion around linguistic analysis, metaphor and brands; Two best selling authors on the dynamics of agents, editors and publishing; A group therapy session for timorous Tweeters; The launch of a new 26 project inspired by litter; A case study of 26 Flavours – a Cornish festival of food and language; Advice on how to keep the inspiration bubbling faced with looming deadlines; A smorgasbord of activities investigating music festival nomenclature, song lyrics and memories provoked by golden oldies; A performance around verbal seduction and how to make yourself a more attractive proposition to potential partners – business and pleasure.

Come the big day, the halls were decked with weeping willows, mountain ash, ivy clad pergolas and autumn leaves. I have never experienced such drive from a group of people so determined to make something extraordinary happen. I’m increasingly convinced that authentic change is not achieved by grandiose schemes, but by incremental interventions that gather momentum through sticky enthusiasm: Conjure up a loose framework that bristles with opportunities, stand back and watch the sparks.

So here are my 12 Top Tips for designing and running a fruitful festival.

1. CONSTRUCT & DECONSTRUCT. Create an ambience of heightened awareness around a fixed timetable allowing plenty of room for idiosyncrasy.

2. FOCUS & CONTEXTUALISE. Create themed centres of attention with a few signature landmarks, and set the scene with inveigling temptations.

3. INVITE & ENGAGE. Begin with a chaotic icebreaker that inspires participants make their own marks and establish terr

4. FASCINATE & PROVOKE. Provide concurrent choices of speakers and events offering challenging content and thoughtful interaction.

5. STROKE & EVOKE. Provide counterintuitive encounters that inspire people to turn abstract meanderings into tangible experiences.

7. REFLECT & ABSORB. Give participants the time and space to explore themselves and bring back even richer gifts back to the table

8. OUT & ABOUT. Break the day with a blast of fresh air and an ambulatory workshop to trigger pollination and serendipity.

9. IMAGINE & INTUIT. Draw upon rich veins of subliminal memories and amplify them in Technicolor.

10. HARMONISE & BOND: Create magnetic attractions that dissolve inhibitions.

11. LIBERATE & ANIMATE. Peel away years of socialisation and encourage all that visceral stuff to emerge.

12. ASSERT & EXPRESS. Fuse the new empowerments into triumphant expressions of lusty joy.

Tom

So, the installation you can see in the image above is by Joseph Kosuth, and you’ll find it in Southwark. The words are from the closing chapter of Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers. It lights up at night, but I rather like the darkness of the daytime version. The letters have been there for some years now and are nicely weathered. A ‘the’ has gone off for a walk too, perhaps down to the marshes of Kent. The full piece reads:

There are dark shadows on the earth but its lights are stronger in the contrast. Some men, like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. We who have no such optical powers are better pleased to take our last parting look at the visionary companions of many solitary hours, when the brief sunshine of the world is blazing full upon them. CD.

Here are some more words from Dickens to be found living on the streets of London. In this case it’s an excerpt from a piece he wrote for a magazine he co-owned, Household Words. You’ll find these in Spitalfields Market, adorning what used to be an electric power substation. During the day the text is intriguingly subdued – white on white. At night the writing box lights up, and its warm, glowing colours lure in passers-by as they move through the otherwise empty market space. Seb & Fiona created this piece of public art with design agency Imagist and architects Jestico + Whiles. It’s certainly a great way to turn a functional bit of a building into a delight, and I like that the words they have chosen are relevant to the context and full of the personality of the writers. Here’s a view of the construction from another side, this time with some writing by Spitalfields author Jeanette Winterson. I’ll try to photograph the remaining sides, which carry words by Samuel Pepys and Peter Ackroyd.

Tim

I was rather taken with a poem they have in the window – a characterful piece of DIY brand writing that says so much about the history of the shop and the attitude of its owners. I imagine one of the modern Verbeeks sitting down to write this, their hands still stained from a hard day’s pursuit of the perfect colour. I love the final line – can’t imagine many corporations having the confidence to make such a claim. Here are the words:

The family Verbeek is here, foremost, to serve you,

So please don’t let waiting your turn unnerve you!

What you choose will be up on your walls forever —

So rush, haste and impatience are useful…. Never.

They put their whole hearts in their work, it’s clear —

And Delft is more lovely because they are here.

Some more colourful language is to be found when you visit the shop’s website. Here’s my simplified (and probably simplistic) edit of a basic translation – I’m sure the original is far more rich, nuanced and bawdy:

If the majestic plane trees of Delft could talk, they would tell wonderful stories… About the farmers on Thursday, clapping and herding their cows and sheep to the market. About the inescapable stink that rises from the thick layer of straw and shit on the roads. About the lascivious, short-skirted girls from the treacle factory, who call out to the horny men passing by… And about the heady smell of linseed oil, turpentine and beeswax that wafts out into the square when the door of ‘the cheap paint shop’ is open.

Tim

If you go down to the Southbank today you’re in for a big surprise. The huge wedge of the embankment between Waterloo and Hungerford bridges has been transformed into a celebration of the 1951 Festival of Britain and asks the question: Who does Britain think it is in 2011? The four-month summer fete is the vision of Jude Kelly (Artistic Director of the Southbank) who has done so much to integrate this jumble of cultural bunkers and open it up to the public.

I was commissioned to help the festival find its voice by Shân Maclennan (Creative Director, Learning and Participation) who coordinated and focused the designers, curators and consultants. The brief was to honour 1951 and explore contemporary British-ness through installations, environments and exhibitions. At first, no one was sure what role the words would play other than delivering a narrative. But as our understanding of the scope evolved, the language became a fundamental element.

The festival is loosely structured around four ‘LANDS’ borrowed from 1951: PEOPLE OF BRITAIN, POWER & PRODUCTION, THE LAND and SEASIDE. After meeting the other participants, I put together a presentation reflecting Jude’s thinking, Festival of Britain literature, documentaries and press reports. Then I added observations from British writers, artists and musicians on the struggle for creative identity (William Blake, Ray Davies, Tracy Emin, Tony Harrison, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Christopher Reid), and these perspectives began to suggest possible routes.

I proposed that we should use rhyme and rhythm, symbolism and allegory. The language should be evangelical, heroic, and encourage visitors to become part of the drama. We should echo the happenstance that occurs when millions of people converge on a public space, and we must amplify the creative spirit of the Southbank. These criteria triggered discussions around 21^st century vernacular. Could feral language such as texting and Tweeting, lyrics and slogans, sound bites and catch phrases help us reach audiences who never use the Southbank?

Festival of Britain 1951: The Way To Go Round

The 1951 festival recommended visitors follow a proscribed route – ‘The Way To Go Round’. But today’s Southbank is so porous on so many levels we decided the narrative should be deconstructed. It would run like a ribbon throughout the site, signalling the contents of each LAND and prompting visitors to tell us their own stories. I emailed batches of texts to the designers and they bubbled with responses for look and feel and substrates. We needed high visibility vertical beacons that would act as landmarks and carry the graphic identity, map and streams of information. But we also required lateral sequences of words to define and contain the Southbank canyons. Budgets were extremely tight so options were limited, but eventually we decided on zinc plated spiral tubes for the beacons, and printed fabric for the horizontal wraps.

To see the words writ large and knitted into the architectural infrastructure is thrilling, but the big buzz is watching people interact with them. In The Marketplace, lovers pose to be photographed by phrases that say something about them: BRAVE HEARTS / SERIOUS FUN / FIND YOURSELF. The behaviours of families on the Thames Beach are subtly influenced by messages tied to the railings: BUCKET AND SPADE / WISH YOU WERE HERE.

Words trigger emotional reactions

Groups of friends gazing out from the Riverside Terrace have no idea they are underlined by emotive phrases: MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN / ARE WE THERE YET? Picknickers sitting amid the flowering shrubs on the Container Staircase debate whether they have ANALOGUE OR DIGITAL personalities. Every visit reveals another performance. It’s a theatre of collisions. A word close by lines up with a word far away and they merge into an unholy alliance. It’s an encapsulation of the creative process: when ideas are let loose they develop a life of their own.

A theatre of collisions

Words had to travel beyond the Southbank site and sell tickets for Ray Davies’ MELTDOWN, Tracey Emin’s LOVE IS WHAT YOU WANT at the Hayward Gallery, Lang Lang’s piano workshops, and events from April to September.

Spreads from the Southbank monthly diary

The factual stuff can speak for itself, but the festival needed a linguistic framework to leave an indelible impression on websites and posters. It had to tickle people’s curiosity, and carry a wide range of emotive references. I played around with the FESTIVAL-OF-BRITAIN structure and found that using the ‘OF’ as the link, I could generate unlimited couplets that conjured up different aspects of British-ness and the exhilaration of creativity: HEARTS OF OAK. BAGS OF ENTHUSIASM. LEAPS OF IMAGINATION. LEG OF LAMB. FLURRY OF KISSES. LOADS OF MONEY. TEARS OF JOY. ALL OF YOU. LOTS OF LOVE. CUP OF TEA. Accessible ideas with strong rationales allow other contributors to express themselves, and Southbank staff dreamed up wonderful variations for different communications. The solution was not to create rigid language guidelines that had to be complied with, but a series of springboards everyone else could leap off.

Words provoke curiosity: Buds of May - RIP

The stream of consciousness below is one of many texts that emerged from countless conversations, and helped us all articulate the festival content.

PROPAGANDA OF THE IMAGINATION

The Festival of Britain emerged from the ashes of a tempest. World War 2 had blown everything apart; physically and psychologically, emotionally and sensually. But despite the sorrow and trauma, the people of Britain found the strength to envisage a future where freedom of expression, free healthcare and education would be an inalienable human right. The jamboree was dreamed up by the Labour government, hungry for a cultural awakening. It was to acknowledge Britain’s contribution to the arts, sciences and technology. After so much suffering, the British needed a party and they declared it ‘A Tonic To The Nation’. Bright young things demobbed from the services were hired to design the future on a bombed out bend of the River Thames. Its mission was to reach out to the shiny shopping precincts, frothy-coffee bars, community centres and model council estates of the burgeoning welfare state.

Throughout the summer of 1951, eight million people clicked through the Southbank turnstiles. Millions more experienced local events across Britain. Four Festival of Britain Routemaster buses kitted out with displays and information desks toured Scandinavia and Europe. The festival ship – HMS Campania – chugged around the coast visiting Southampton, Dundee, Newcastle, Plymouth, Cardiff, Belfast, Birkenhead and Glasgow. The idea that humanity could unite for good – as opposed to ill – was a cause for rejoicing. This was such a huge shift of emphasis – from the aggressive masculinity of war towards warmth, playfulness and inclusiveness – the organisers dubbed it ‘Propaganda of the Imagination’.

Explaining the educational choices of the Welfare State

The Festival of Britain opened to storm of media hyperbole. It was a “flight of surrealist fantasy and a mirage of hope”. All 22 acres bristled with “zig-zag patterns, jazzy murals, café society and foreign food in exotic restaurants”. You could “dance through hanging gardens to salsa combos in the shade of the Dome of Discovery”. The illustrator Beresford Egan hated it:

“Husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and lovers were still being slaughtered in Korea which struck a discordant note in the symphony of jubilation. It must have been enormous fun wasting money on ineffectual frivolity. It suggested a skeleton wrapped in a Joseph coat of many colours, banging a tamborine with Salvation Army zeal.”

Dylan Thomas recorded his impressions in Quite Early One Morning:

“Here they will find no braying pageantry, no taxidermal museum of Culture, no cold and echoing inhuman hygienic barracks of technical information, no shoddily cajoling emporium of tasteless Empire wares, but something very odd indeed, magical and parochial: a parish pump made from flying glass and thistledown gauze-thin steel, a roly-poly pudding full of luminous, melodious bells, wheels, coils, engines and organs, alembics and jorums in a palace of thunderland sizzling with scientific witches’ brews, a place of trains, bones, planes, sheep, shapes, snipe, mobiles, marbles, brass bands, and cheese.”

The festival dazzled the populace steeped in rationed clothing, brown paint, fuzzy grey television and black & white movies. The installations were bursting with novel applications for light, glass, water, metals and plastics. Synthetic colours pierced the gloom of pea-souper London bringing puce pyjamas, day-glo laminates, purple loafers, saffron nylons, peroxide bee-hives and sky blue pink wallpaper.

60 years on, and the Southbank believes that the imagination is a powerful driver for building the future. Out of the rubble of memories, it has proved that art is a safe place to talk about dangerous things. Our 2011 festival is an opportunity to ponder what the next epoch might look like. If we had to fight for something about our culture – what would it be? The enduring symbol of the Festival of Britain is The Skylon, and this quote from 1951 says that no matter how much you talk about the purpose of art and culture, there is something beyond the idea of words; beyond anything practical: That by understanding what something isn’t…we discover what it is.

‘The Skylon has no purpose. It’s not functional in any way. It does not light the Festival, it burns with its own inner light. It’s not even a phallic symbol. Or a totem pole. It has no social significance. It does not stand for democracy, or future happiness. It does not stand at all. It could stand on the ground but it doesn’t.”

By understanding what something isn't, we can discover what it is

People of Britain

Riverside Terrace by the Queen Elizabeth Hall

We want this 2011 festival to become a hall of mirrors through which we can look at ourselves and each other. The arts speak a universal language that encourages people to cross cultural divides. When we are moved by a creative experience, it becomes a part of us and we pass that heightened awareness onto others.

The pavilion that portrayed British-ness in 1951 was called The Lion and The Unicorn. The lion symbolised bravery, the unicorn represented imagination, and

together they embodied liberty. Of course the lion is not indigenous to Britain and the unicorn never existed, but that was the whole point. Great Britain is a myth. Our hybrid identity has always been a hotchpotch of fairytales and contradictions. My red, white and blue blooded, Union Jack toting, Eastenders addicted, Arsenal devoted neighbours originate from Vietnam, Iraq, Chechnya, Serbia, China, Turkey, Somalia and the Caribbean. The British Museum is a cornucopia of stolen goods. Our Royal Family is a smörgåsbord of mongrels. British Airways, British Gas and British Telecom are owned by multinational pension funds.

English is a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up wonder

The English language is a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up wonder and the great leveller we all have in common. It’s a rogue virus that morphs into esoteric strains and thrives on idiosyncrasy, slang, tribalism and humour. We bend it, warp it, stretch it, mash it and stick our fingers up at it. But because of this it can condense lofty concepts into spiky axioms. Take these terms of endearment we use to describe each other: champagne socialists, feckless misanthropes, cowardy custards, chinless wonders, suburban guerrillas, stuffed shirts, love rats, moaning minnies and national treasures. Simply colliding two elemental words can unleash an explosion of expression.

The Land

Royal Wedding diaspora

For many city dwellers rural Britain is a theme park. Sunday drivers clog country lanes hankering after the perfect cream tea in the quintessential gingerbread cottage. Highways Agency road signs point us towards Health & Safety approved beauty spots where we devour Excalibur Cornish Pasties washed down with Old Speckled Hen. But back home in our semi-detached realities we feel mildly cheated, so slump in front of celebrity hosted nature programmes and get goose bumps over CCTV footage of gambolling badger cubs, oblivious to the urban foxes rooting through our dustbins.

New kid on the block

The snow flecked peaks and dappled dales on our kitchen calendars were never begat by Mother Nature. They have been manufactured over centuries by vested interests. Nothing is natural. The British rural landscape is as much a construct as Blake’s Satanic Mills. The shimmering copse where the cuckoo sucks was formed by an iron age smelting plant. The blasted heath where fallow deer frolic was once an oak forest that built the fleet that defeated the Armada. The quaint parish churches were instruments of repression. The Lords of the Manor were despots. The women and children were serfs. The young men were cannon fodder. Beneath the joyful harvest festivals and blithe spirits rumbled bitterly contested territories.

Everything worth something has to be defended

But the ploughing, tilling, furrowing and reaping invested our rural communities with an entrenched authenticity. Extended families survived poverty and famine through mutual support. These rooted places came to represent the cycle of life according to the seasons and the geological particularity. The customs and indigenous knowledge sprang from a direct response to the land. Animal husbandry, crop rotation and woodland management were passed down the generations; the lay of a dry stone wall indicates the characteristics of the mason – as well as the rock below. Everything worth something has to be defended. Traditions kept alive. Folk songs sung. Rights of way campaigned for. It’s up to us to decide what we want our children to inherit.

Power & Production

WW2 triggered an orgy of industry bent on destruction. The Festival of Britain demonstrated what the new production methods and materials could create. The welfare state directed massive investment into schools, hospitals and public housing. Peacetime invention went into overdrive, and designers, engineers and architects competed to build the brave new world.

Despite the horrors of Hiroshima, nuclear fission became a symbol of hope. Atomic motifs appeared on tea towels, curtains, coffee tables and lampshades. This Promethean method of generating energy promised clean and affordable power. But 25 years after Chernobyl, we are still in denial about the safety, cost and disposal of nuclear waste. Climate change is happening but still divides opinion. Industry is reluctant to act because reducing energy consumption to cut carbon emissions threatens profits. The power hungry countries of the BRIC economies feel that NOW their time has come. But we have to start working with the planet – not against it. Sustainable power and production does not have to be a ball and chain. Gobal energy consumption of fossil fuels could be cut by 75% without any loss of productivity or mobility if used more intelligently. Equatorial countries investing in extensive solar farms will become major power suppliers.

The white heat of technology

Over the last half-century, advances in technology, software and logistics have changed the way we produce. In the 1950s, just down the River Thames at Ford’s Dagenham plant virtually all the components for every Zephyr and Zodiac were made in-house. In 2011 a car is conceived and designed in Britain but the parts are fabricated in Taiwan, Korea, India and Brazil, then aggregated in China for assembly. Superstores like ASDA use containers as warehousing and have more muscle than manufacturers. Just-in-time-production enables companies to minimise costs by following the skill base. Container ships come to the UK bulging with cargo and leave full of fresh air.

The idea of ascension has always been at the heart of power and production – from raising standards of living to exploring space. The dizzying potential for power and production is so beyond our comprehension, it dangles the possibility that nothing is impossible.

Seaside

Are we there yet? Well we all like to be beside the seaside, but why? Escapism? Regression? The Big Blue Yonder? A rogue gene kicks in. Alter egos go bonkers. Sod the daily slog. Swap sensible for silly. Wrestling billowing windbreaks we morph into suburban Bedouins. Or snug as bugs in beach huts we snooze on wheezing Li-Los, our names spliced together in salty bliss: Will & Kate’s Love Nest. Pete n’ Jordan’s Shag Shack. Chez Nick & Dave.

But the seaside is not just KISS ME KWIK and candyfloss. Our ports once fuelled the British economy. In 1951, 70,000 registered dockers handled millions of tonnes of freight. Cruise liners, destroyers and aircraft carriers slid down the slipways of Tyne, Wear, Tees, Mersey, Forth and Belfast. Fleets of trawlers regurgitated mountains of fish for the metropolitan markets. The working classes boarded trains and flocked to the seaside during factory fortnight. But now the cash cows are the giant sea container-dromes, the nuclear power plants, and refineries converting oil into petrochemical miracles.

Vikings, Saxons, Romans, Normans, Frenchies and Spaniards couldn’t keep their hands off our coast. You can still see the Martello Towers that put the wind up Napoleon staring across the Channel. When the Nazi war machine licked its lips in the Pas de Calais, our beaches were blockaded with pill boxes and anti-tank spikes. Our resorts were press-ganged into the Defence of the Realm. Elegant hotels that hosted palm court tea dances became frontline hospitals putting soldiers back together. Even the saucy seaside postcard was recruited. But instead of wenches blushing at embarrassing bulges came steamy temptresses carrying the warning: Keep Mum She’s Not So Dumb – Careless Talk Costs Lives.

Our seasides are also places of solace and contemplation. We come to find and lose ourselves. Dunes and shingle bristle with lovage, santolina, hore hound and spiky marram grass. Every salt marsh bred seafaring folk who made ends meet through oyster rearing, winkle picking and samphire harvesting. Their descendents are the arcade proprietors, mobile home operators and B&B owners struggling to stay afloat. Paradise & chips. Utopia on toast. Shangri-La in a basket.

The Festival of Britain ran for five months. It was loved by most, loathed by a few. It was lambasted for squandering public money and diverting precious resources when Britain was crippled with post-war debt. After winning the 1952 election, the new Conservative government sent in the bulldozers. The Skylon – which represented everything Churchill despised – was hung, drawn and quartered, and dispatched to the corners of the earth. But the festival gave licence to an iconoclastic generation who changed the face of fashion, music, dance, poetry, painting, performance, sculpture, architecture, theatre, film, writing, graphics and product design in the 1960s.

And that energy still burns bright in the Southbank today. One of the biggest problems I have as a freelance consultant is persuading clients to be more courageous; to do what they dare not do. When clients reject the generic and take enlightened risks, the branding, campaign or identity still sparkles years down the line. Everyone I met at Southbank seemed to be driven by a fearless sense of collective creativity. There were no egos quashing rival initiatives or insecurities determining the outcome. Everyone just gave for the good the whole and the effortless integrity shines through.

Big thanks to Jude Kelly, Shân Maclennan, Alan Bishop, Steve Smith, Jon Norton, Colette Bailey, Clare Cumberlidge, Michael Marriott, Andrew Lock, Miranda Melville, Laura Pace, Natalie Highwood, Richard Parry, Roger Nelson, Cathy Mager, Laura Hough, Deborah Moreton, Susie Hopkinson, Bea Colley and Rachel Harris.

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/

Tom

So many different protest groups, so many different messages. By the time we had sat through a few speeches in the park it felt more like the search for an alternative rather than a coalescing of dissenters. Just one orator, speaking at a side event, managed to bring thoughts back to more fundamental questions – what power do opposition groups have, what can be done to make that power tell, and what next? He suggested that those unions and others who wanted to make a difference should go forward with a 24-hour General Strike, and that was probably the most powerful moment of communication: a call to unite on something tangible and weighty. It reminded me of a huge banner in Trafalgar Square – ‘Strike Like An Egyptian’.

Across town, masked anarchists were attacking banks and tea shops, an exercise in instant impact without long-term political consequences. Of course, stick-wielding youths with spray cans gave many in the media the content they were hoping for. Much better to paint a simplistic picture of angry young people breaking up property than discuss deeper issues about power and politics. The idea of TINA – There is No Alternative to market capitalism – is a corrosive rut that keeps many people from thinking things can or will ever be different. But as one elegant Trades Union banner reminded us: ‘Another World is Possible’. The festival of different perspectives that was March 26th has added a spring to the step of dissent, but it also showed how difficult it is to create momentum behind a true alternative. The next few weeks will be fascinating.

Tim

I have to admit, my next observation was both pedantic and, as it turned out, wrong. I thought they’d made a simple mistake in representing ninety-nine percent as a fraction. In other words, 9/9 = 100%, so why are they using 9/9 to represent 99%?

99% Campaign logo by Harry Barlow

I mulled  for a few seconds, and then it struck me that the designer had got it dead right, and had in fact managed to create a brilliant and meaningful level of compressed double meaning. While the 9/9 shouts out 99, seen as a fraction it points to the 1% who have been involved in serious youth violence. Working with that one is an important part of what the campaign does, along with telling people about the many. And the ultimate goal of the campaign is to end violence, so we all become one. Or as they capture it on their website:

‘Help us tell the story of the 99% who are not involved in committing Serious Youth Violence and show how the 1% can also be challenged and changed to be positive members of their communities.’

It’s very difficult to get a logo to start telling the story of a brand or campaign, but I think the people behind this communication have cracked it. I’ve looked at the 99% Campaign website in some detail and it continues the narrative in a clear and interesting way, making good use of Local Government Association (*), Metropolitan Police (**) and Greater London Authority (***) figures:

‘ “There is a tendency for the public to overestimate the scale of youth crime, the numbers of young offenders, the proportion of overall crimes committed by young people, and the seriousness (especially in terms of violence) of youth crime”*

In London, the total number of people under 20 accused of Serious Youth Violence in 2009 was 1336**. The under 20 London population in 2009 was 1, 868 457***, this means an actual percentage of 0.07%.’

So the 99% name is a memorable counterblast to contemporary scaremongering and crippling community anxiety around young people. Of course serious crime and anti-social behaviour happen in London, but too often members of the public and journalists lump all young people into the mad, bad and dangerous to encounter category. You could even read the / of the logo as suggesting a big, bold barrier between ‘them’ and ‘us’.

Having said that, it’s difficult to see which individuals or organisations are behind this campaign – a failing of ‘transparency’, in modern-speak. My guess is that it’s a friendly front for a coalition of public agencies. The term ‘challenged and changed’ sounds civil service-slick, for example. Indeed, much of the vocabulary in the website body copy is too smoothly correct in theory and tone to have come from a group of young people or concerned citizens, unless they’re doing a good job of impersonating public sector jargon (which is possible). Here’s an example:

‘The ‘We back the 99 per cent’ Pledge initiative aims to bring together organisations and groups to celebrate the 99 per cent of young people who are making a real and positive contribution to London and its diverse communities.’

99% Campaign website

‘Celebrate’; ‘initiative’; ‘positive contribution’; ‘diverse communities’; it’s soft, contemporary bureaucrat-speak. The giveaway is ‘real’, the use of which speaks volumes about a separation between writer and subject. Copywriters reach for ‘real’ when they’ve failed to penetrate to the specific quality of something. But such a ‘real’ lacks substance because it has nothing to push against. What would an ‘unreal’ contribution be like?

Of course, there really are lots of questions that need to be answered as the campaign unfolds into action. Exactly how will young offenders be challenged and changed, for example? What’s going to be different? Are there practical resources being put in place to support this work? How will the politics of austerity affect youth violence? Can the justice system be improved to help disrupt the cyclical process of marginalisation, crime, imprisonment and marginalisation? Why does marginalisation happen at all, and what can we do about it?

Putting concerns around politics, methods and vocabulary aside for one moment, the campaign seems sound, with a clear rationale and an optimistic agenda. While most government and quango-led campaigns try to scare us into adjusting our thinking and behaviour, with a nudge-nudge here and a heavy shove there, The 99% Campaign is attempting to counterbalance fear and loathing. Good idea, good design, good website; I hope the methods employed to address the issues match the sophistication of the logo.

Tim

PS While we’re talking crime, I can’t resist adding this snap, taken today. Looks like police have got to the bottom of this matter: