RPA

From UoWiki

I was invited to the Cambridge Open Art Fringe events in July by a work-mate who opened her house as a art gallery for 2 evenings. Another work-mate stated that 'art' is an over-statement as some of the "Recycled art and mixed media" work was just pages ripped out of magazines ! I thought that this was the best bit about it but there were some quite sophisticateed sound sculpture which was watched by a camera sensor and a computer which generated electronic beats whenever a set of dangling balls suspended over the stair case were fondled by passers by - as well as live poetry which all comers were invited to contribute to - both written and visual. all in all i thought the event was like a Neoist Apartment Festival and the human interasctions were the most esciting and fun part of it all.

there were pother events at the Mill Road Social Centre which was also begining to work too much like a ah uh apartment festival, with squat residents getting pissedd off with party organisers who were starting to use the place like a doss house. The Mill Road squat is a pretty heavy venue - with some mad events like boxing, dancing, therapy, painting and roller-blading going on. again the discussions are good - about life, work and tesco. they also provide free tea if u go by there and its an ok place to chill out and meet people. unlike the Labour club down the road that is a private members club and even though its only £1 for a years membership when i went there i couldn't go in join as there was no-one from the committee there to sign me on or sign me in. i still don't really see the difference between a social centre and a community centre though...

another event i went to was the RPA (Romsey Psychogeographic Association) which was part of the fringe. i went on sunday and met the psychogeoraphers and offered them a bit of beer. they refused saying that saturday we get pissed - on sunday we get mellow. they offered me some of their spliff and we talked about the attack on psychogeography by the states 'anti-social behavoior' laws and also on the recuperation by bourgeois scum like will self and 'national psychogeographic'.

we agreed that it was necessary to push psychogeographic praxis symeltaneously forward into asger jorn's situgraphy as well as back to lettrist hypergraphy. as a n exapmle the RPA had created a situgraphic installation mapping the local area.

as a parting comment one of the psychogeographers added that the local community groups were going to wrest control from the government. i countered that they could only do so by linking up with the world wide workers. wicked!