Economy Artbiscuit's dissertation in book form!

A very interesting and informative read :P

Relational Art?

A Venture into Relational Aesthetics...

The book we have produced from our journey is now available to buy in all good bookshops! (Actually just on Blurb at the mo...)

Our blog is finally back up again...

So, thanks blogspot for putting the blog back up..... it has taken far, far, far too long.

We have an exhibition on 2nd of June, details here..

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133120716716675

:)

Croatia!

we are in croatia, is our blog working?

Lithuania to Poland today.... Possibly as far as Romania...

Late start today....

Totally confused by the currency, Litas... I keep thinking people are talking about liquid :(

Here's a photo of us in Latvia before we went to the beach :D

Estonia!!

We have made it to Estonia! Not without incident though, of course..... When we tried to leave the Finnish gallery Boris' clutch did not work, he had totally run out of clutch fluid. Thank you Boris for getting us safely to the gallery before the clutch died. Also thanks to the Finnish people who helped us out and gave us clutch fluid :) When we were back on the road we were off to Helsinki with the resident artist from Saksala, Pedro, hitching a lift. Netley and I had a nice relaxing day shopping while we waited for the ferry, they have a whole shop dedicated to Moomins!!

When we finally got onto the ferry it was highly amusing as it seemed to be totally full of drunks, one guy was so drunk he couldn't put his pin number in to buy the booze they were still selling him at the bar, he managed eventually on the 8th attempt, with the pin pad held about 2cm away from his face! He was later to be found sleeping while his friend was seemingly holding down an interesting two way conversation with him!

Fun, fun, fun in Finland! :)

Today we flew kites and rode bicycles in Finland... There was suprisingly little wind for the kites but we got them going a couple of times.

We went to the shop and made a fail :( Sawdust menthol and solid old sweets :(

Then we went for a longer ride on the bicyles and stopped after getting stuck in the snow for a rest. It was all lovely until after about 7 minutes the hounds were released from the farm we were apparently on... I plopped a bit! We saw and heard them coming and sped off, I didn't think it was possible to break the sound barrier on a bike!

All is good and we have internet for a while to work on important dissertation stuff.

Thanks to Marja for the lovely dinners we have had here at Saksala.

Finland and mist from the melting snow...

Boris had a turn for the worse when we got over the border into Finland...

It wasn't too bad, and we are now at the Finnish gallery, the sky in Finland is beautiful :)

We are in the Arctic Circle.....

Lappland, Abisko! Currently watching the Northern Lights.... Indescribable!!

We drove up and through mountains to get here and it's very cold but so worth it!!

Next stop Finland....

:D

Quick update....

We are half way to Abisko, is white as far as the eye can see.... Here is a photo of the weather about 300 miles before where we are now, the recent pics are still on the camera..

Made us a lush curry for dinner, warmed us up but my nose is still running!

Once again thanks to MISL for funding this project, it is gaining more recognition each step of the way!

Sweden is lush.....

Sweden is exactly how I imagined it, apart from no Moomins came to visit me in the night while it was snowing. We woke up this morning to a blanket of snow.... Netley was very excited, I just said "meh!". Snow is cold.... But Sweden is soooo beautiful and the trees and frozen rivers and lakes make the cold totally worth it. :D

Our first stop off point after Tapper Popermajer gallery was a layby (not the place Netley was most excited about visiting in the whole itinery because we missed the turning!) and as laybys go it was paradise!

Spot the ambulance....!

Then we drove for a few more hours and stopped for the night in a truck stop/garage... again, pretty awesome view wise. We had English pie (quiche - which if I'm right is actually French isn't it?) and then went off to the ambulance for bed. It wasn't anywhere near as cold as we thought it should be and we are hopeful for Abisko where it is probably around -14!

Video footage....

Here is footage of yesterdays day at the Tapper Popermajer Gallery in Teckomatorp, Sweden. Thank you to the gallery and Hans Tapper for your hospitality, sorry for leaving so abruptly..... We thought we had best get going to save time to deal with the next daily disaster when it happens!!
Also, thank you to the person who left the gift tied onto the ambluance door last night, when we can get our rubbish CD player (nice one Argos :@ ) to work we will appreciate the music!
Next stop, layby on the E4... next to a lake... little chill time (if no disaster stresses us out)!

Can't work out how to embed the video, only got a little internet time so please click here!

6 countries in 2 days......

and only 5 disasters!
We missed the ferry because of an accident on the way!
When we got to Amsterdam it was total chaos, I am totally confused as to why anyone likes the place! Stoners!! The road system is madness, I nearly killed a cyclist and then drove down a tram line and got flustered into driving down the left side.... I wanted to cry and am never going back again.
Next we were in Germany and Netley wanted me to pull over at a truck stop, it was very late and we couldn't find a place to park and so I pulled onto the grass.... oops! 3.1tonnes and wet grass don't go together very well..
We tried to ask truckers for help but they did'nt understand us just laughed at us. We had to wait until the morning and we asked some Polish truckers who still didn't understand us but they didn't laugh at us until they saw how badly stuck we were.... It took 10 truckers and an articulated lorry to push/pull us out! Go team Poland!!
Then after driving for about 30 minutes a mental pulled out in front of me doing about 50 and I was doing 70 so I had to swerve to avoid him which made the drivers side wheels leave the road and the ambulance nearly tipped over.. :(
We filled up the tank in Denmark and OMG!!!
We have also both lost our bank cards.
On a lighter note Sweden is awesome, very friendly people, some of which had come miles to see us... People even bought our work. We now have 800 krona for 4 ceramic heads, we have no idea how much that is worth!!

It wasn't an April Fool after all!

I drove 7 1/2 hours straight, we still missed our ferry and had to get the next one 5 hours later, it was ok, I cooked a nice ratatouille and we sorted our things out a bit...
We got on the ferry and had coffee and a cold, cold nap :( At the end of the journey in typical Do My Bidding! style we couldn't find the ambulance! We didn't think about remembering which level or which colour section we were parked on, so many embarrassing minutes later we were off again. Belgium is apparently populated by no one apart from truckers, I have never seen so many trucks in all my life and the roads are shite..
At the moment we are in an internet cafe in Amsterdam, I am highly traumatised by the ridiculous road system. I nearly killed a cyclist, I drove down a tram lane which I then had to reverse back down and 3 point turn out of and after that I drove down the wrong side of the road because I was flustered :( The sat nav told me to go down and it is such chaos here that I assumed it was a road too... :@
I want to cry, we spent at least an hour and a half driving round looking for a parking space only to find it is 5euro an hour to park. A quick poo and coffee and we are leaving!!
Got ourselves some nice cake to calm me down later though..
We are heading off to Teckomatorp next, keep watching the chaos unfold.
P.S To all the people I April fooled;
I am not sorry!!!
:P

Leaving party...

TOTAL SHAMBLES!

I went away for 10 minutes and when I came back there had been a mini riot and the police were just taking away the drunken mentals that caused it....

Obviously the rest of the night went just as well, but thank you to those who did turn up and endured the obvious pain of having to stay!!

:)

The countdown is on!

We are on 3 days to go, and counting!

Organisation is a sepia nightmare!! ;)

We are having a photo taken for the Evening Post tomorrow and getting the ambulance out of the garage with fresh new (safe!!) breaks ready for you all to check out at Monkey bar tomorrow night at our leaving do... Please come along if you can, you will regret it when you start to miss us if you don't! :P

Thanks to everyone who is supporting us!

DO MY BIDDING!!

Postcards, t-shirts, business cards...

Got these in the post today....

Feel free to use the address you can see to post wonderful, or not so wonderful stuff to...

No padded envelopes of poo though please ;)

Technology hates me :(

Why doesn't anything work?

I think I have an electromagnetic field, my superpower....

Netley's map....

Really important stuff....

Myself and Netley have been working ever so hard today.....

A few thank-you's

We are throwing out a few more thank you's....

Thank you to Lush in Swansea for providing us with the stuff we will need to stay beautiful (;P) while we are away....

Thank you to John Abell, who is an awesome printmaker, for doing my bidding and donating me The Wave (loved it forever!) which will accompany us across many borders!

Thank you to Thom O'Sullivan for the totally useful sugar tongs which shall be used with a stiff upper lip on many a tea fuelled intercontinental occasion!!

And finally, but most importantly, thanks again to docscanning.co.uk.

Please come and send us off with a good night!

Fundraiser/Leaving do!

New Elysium Building....

We went to check out the new Elysium Gallery building today and sort out our space for the opening exhibition... We have a whole floor dedicated to us, it's huge. We found a hideous artefact of the buildings previous use...

Here are a few pictures of the space we will be using which we are quite excited about.....

One last thing, some douchebag has keyed one of our windows quite deeply. Whoever it was a little message to you; Jealousy is a nasty thing and it's only going to mess you up inside. Chill out and try to focus on improving your seemingly sad life, it's not hard to think positively and to respect your fellow humans.

More rushing around....

We seem to be fighting a losing battle trying to get everything sorted.... The main problem being that I have 4 kids and so limited time to do stuff before they need picking up from school. We are plodding along slowly sorting everything out, just not as much as I had hoped.....

If you are in Swansea Metropolitan University tomorrow expect to see me underneath the ambulance attempting to tighten the handbrake cable!

So today's photo doesn't have Netley or myself in it looking stupid, it is of some of the things we have had to buy today...

We will be checking out Elysium gallery's new building on Friday morning, there is a possibility that we will be able to drive the ambulance into the building (through doors, not smash and grab style) for the exhibition, which I am quite excited about! A quick spin around the new building until I get the ambulance firmly wedged in somewhere to become a permanent exhibit!!

I was right, today is another day!

To wash or not to wash, that was the question!

The answer we decided on was; "Aye!"

We scrubbed our little hearts out but to our dismay she still looks as grubby as before...

Smells a lot better now though! :)

We have also completed some other bits and bobs too, honest guv!

Embarrassing pictures numbers 2 and 3:

So much to do, so little time!

According to Sod's Law, section 6, paragraph 3 we were forbidden from doing too much today!

Having had the internal lights left on inside the ambulance for 2 days by my kids we were off on a mission to buy jumper cables!

Back at the ambulance all went badly until I realised I had the cables attached to the wrong battery, silly me! so half the day wasted we popped off to Dunelm for (totally essential) retail therapy....

Got ourselves the things we needed and had an embarrassing photo taken for your perusal because I'm sure you all want to see everything we do!!

Tomorrow is another day and I am certain we will be more efficient then!!

One more little thing, if you are ever in Victoria Park in Swansea you can see this....

;) Has been there a good year now.. see if you can find it, Do My Bidding!

Tactile Bosch!!!!

WE HAVE BEEN OFFERED A SHOW IN JULY OF THE CULMINATION OF THIS WORK IN TACTILE BOSCH!!

So, some people having been asking where we are going....

Clearly I am not very good at this blogging thing yet as obviously I should be letting you all know where we are going! Div :P

Starting off late on 31st of March we will be leaving Swansea for Harwich where we will get the ferry to Denmark....

From Denmark we will drive to Sweden where we will be working at our first gallery, tapper-popermajer. Next we go to Saksala ArtRadius in Finland. The next gallery, Sabot, is quite a drive, it's in Romania! To get there we will go through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. From Romania we head to Serbia and Elektrica and then we go to Croatia's Labin Art Express (the place I think Netley is most freaked out by!!). From Croatia another long drive through Slovenia, Austria and Germany to Belgium, we are still waiting for ultimate confirmation from this gallery as the dates have changed,Gallery-Gabrichidze. From there it is through to France and then back home where we will be exhibiting the entire work in Elysium Gallery's new building.

So, now you all know where we are going. For Netley's sake if you don't hear from us in this blog after each country (dates may or may not be posted here soon - bad memory, will forget) send out International Rescue... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

Oooops, this should've been the first post!

Many thanks to our sponsors docscanning.co.uk

Luckily for us (and him because he now has a very good job) the managing director of the company went to university in Wales and was therefore willing to fund our project as we are promoting Wales across Europe, also probably because he is a well educated man he has a great appreciation of the arts!

Hum, so I was contacted by the paper....

The Evening Post called today, I gave an interview over the phone. It was most embarrassing as I used words like "discourse" and other anal art talk. I did however make my view on art/artists known.... (if you know me then you will know I think it's pretty much mainly bullshit).

So keep those peepers out for the Evening Post so you can read all about my inability to communicate properly!

Will let you know when we will be featured, start saving your pennies to buy your copy!

Stage 1, Procuring a vehicle....

So, off we go to Weston Super Mare by train (thank you Swansea Metropolitan for the tickets) to collect the vehicle that will be our home for a month from 1st of April 2010.

An henceforth it shall be done, we go off into the realms of mystery and intrigue...

It has been decreed by a power almighty that we are to journey off into distant lands to bring a message of joy and goodwill to all people.

Europe...

Do it!