liverpool's long night of the biennial

last thursday off i trotted to liverpool from manchester oxford rd armed with a hot chocolate to warm my hands and innards on what seemed the first proper winter day! after a drizzly start to the day, mercifully the evening transformed into a dry, sharp and decidedly cold night, perfect for a purposeful mooch about the city...

the long night of the biennial has been much advertised and to a latter day flaneuse or urban explorer promised a harmonious marriage of art in multiple for the promiscuous art goer with the nocturnal excitement of the city as backdrop. here's how it described itself:

WELCOME TO THE LIVERPOOL GALLERIES’ FIRST LONG NIGHT
The Long Night of the Biennial
Thursday 30 October 2008
Liverpool will be transformed as an unprecedented number of the city’s galleries will keep their doors open to the public, some until 11.00pm. A nocturnal feast of art, events, music, film and performance will give visitors a very special experience of the visual arts in Liverpool. Come straight from work, join in the debate, do the tours, wear the glowstick, eat & meet, watch it all happen, and enjoy Liverpool’s favourite and up and coming studios and galleries.

hard to resist such a seductive invitation - an abridged version of the entire art biennial! like a bag of revels without the coffee ones or the pick and mix counter at the cinema where you can simply leave out any sweeties not to your liking, guilt free...

the biennial this year is big, more so than i recall from other years, and though i've nipped across more than once i still havent seen even half the festival, made my way to all the venues that have something on offer, visited all the must-see exhibits - but that's the beauty of it, that's the nature of art as it encounters the city and the realm beyond the traditions of the gallery format, and the long night is yet another way of dipping into the events and activities, one offs, walks and talks, in something of the spirit of the derive.

of course not everyone finds this enjoyable - for a very different view of a biennial encounter, do read this account in the guardian recently.

in it alfred, our not so intrepid explorer, states in a curmudgeonly rage -

for the sake of brevity, and in the interest of saving shoe leather, guardian.co.uk/culture intends to make it round the entire exhibition in an afternoon: pointing out the highlights and issuing warnings about horrors to avoid. You don't want to spend hours trawling through Liverpool's industrial wilderness only to be rewarded with an origami orange. I did, and I can tell you, it wasn't worth it.

perhaps a meander on the long night instead would have helped. or made it worse...there seems to be no pleasing some people. the end of his trek through the city finds alfred 'headed back to Lime Street, finding it hard not to conclude that an arduous trek around the biggest Biennial so far had ended fruitless.'

but for me an occasion such as this is just the ticket for re-engaging with a city you might simply be overly familiar with, those regular favourite haunts limiting your exposure to new treats or experiences. despite our best intentions we do tend to fall into patterns of behaviour in life, which spacially can be seen in the personal maps or routes we each carve across the places and landscapes we come to know intimately.

my evening began like alfred's at lime st station, where i headed straight to the former abc cinema, the visitor hub for the biennial. previously i havent bothered to pop in, preferring to find my own way round the festival but, determined to move out of my comfort zone, i step inside and ask fearlessly about the hourly torch lit guided tours. a perky young thing tells me that the 7pm tour is fully booked and to take a later one. i pop my name on a list and venture onwards to the bluecoat for a hot drink and a nosy at the musical offerings promised.

the bluecoat is busy and the bright new atrium is stuffed full of musicians making a noise, whilst across the way the cafe is doing stirling work keeping us all fed and watered. i listen to the band whilst nursing my hot drink, read my long night brochure and wonder where to start - well i have started but you know what i mean! i decide to take a mini route up to the hope st sound and light project, taking in whatever i might accidentally encounter along the way and end with my 9pm tour, which should deposit me handily at lime st for the train ride home...

warmed up, i head towards open eye gallery where my own contribution is part of a series of one day only events, and im curious to see how my essay works in the context of the newspaper and what the other video, film and photographic projects will be. i'm rarely disappointed with open eye so i walk along with renewed vigour!

inside, the compact little gallery has been transformed from its current installation into a one-off series of videos and short films, whilst near the counter and bar (handily set up with snacks and drinks and welcome hot toddies) stands a tower of newspapers and a cosy chill out zone for taking it all in and resting awhile.

the blurb on open eye's webpage describes the work - the Memory Conspiracy is an installation exploring the relationships between stillness and movement, loops and progress, climax and repetition. Still Cinema 6: Light-speed travel - a series of short artists' films that explore physical movement and the recording of journeys. it also features Claude Lelouch's cult film C'etait un rendez-vous (1976), an eight-minute drive through Paris in the early morning at breakneck speeds (and inspiration for Nancy Davenport's Liverpool Biennial commission at Open Eye Gallery). and Future Visions of History -throughout the day a specially-commissioned free newspaper will be distributed on a series of mapped routes in the city. In it, artists and writers offer an alternative view of Liverpool’s past and its future - collect your copy on the night. Co-ordinated by Liverpool-based artists Penny Whitehead and Daniel Simpkins.

my personal favourites include a gorgeous, moving 'still life' of a vase of flowers which slowly explodes leaving shards of glass, petals and pollen cascading to the floor in an endless moment of stillness, a patagonian journey viewed through the tiny porthole of a little boat, and the painting and repainting of the side of a battered block of flats by an optimist with a long handled paint brush...

reluctantly dragging myself away i nip over to fact for fiction@fact, a night of poets and performances in the cafe. the foyer is predictably crowded mainly it seems with young film makers for fact.tv, so i make my way up to the cathedrals for the launch of the hope st project, a light and sound installation, two lasers linking those giants of the liverpool landscape, one visibly cutting a beam of light into the night skies whilst the other transports a stream of voices and conversations high into the air. walking around hope st is always a highlight of any trip to liverpool - its a beautiful route, endlessly fascinating, and this project is a veritable ariadne's thread drawing you in and onwards into a symbolic journey across the hearts and hopes of the city.

after this dazzling diversion i stop at the everyman for some soup and spend an interesting half hour reading the future histories newspaper for some welcome critical centent, made sharper with the knowledge that the shadowy company who now seem to own the newly regenerated public realm of the city centre, have forbidden the distribution of all flyers and papers in their new kingdom. aah, the never ending democracy of urban renewal...

eager to take to the streets and join in public activities whilst they are still allowed in this newly privatised liverpool, i hurry on to my torch lit tour, suddenly aware that my evening is fast drawing to a close.

the tour starts at 9pm, taking in as many of the artworks along roscoe st as possible. beginning with the macabre yet comic annette messager's la derniere seance in the derelict auditorium of the old abc cinema, mesmeric and strangely fitting for a night fast filling up with halloween-goers, we forge onwards crocodile style up the road. a friendly camaraderie develops amongst us as we weave our way from one location to the next, sharing a sneaky giddiness that we are doing something rather foolish on such a freezing cold night instead of being clever grown ups at one of the grand previews currently in full swing across the city. after a stop at a forlorn paint shop for floor upon floor of gaudy artworks ending with a claustrophobically voyeuristic but beautifully shot video in tryptych, we peer nervously through a series of suggestive slits cut in the street hoardings at manfredi beninati’s empty apartment, a modern day marie celeste of aspirational urban life - a newly invented liverpool.

the final stop is the auditorium 'rockscape' created by atelier bow-wow, which seems more in its element that i've witnessed before, awash with sound from the dj set, its multi level seating transformed into a urban crow's nest for looking out over the noctural life of the city, lit up, floodlit and thronged with people. cold, tired and filled with the sights and sounds of liverpool embarking on a typical weekend, i wander back to lime st for the journey home...

my long night was acually not long enough - unlike alfred i had an enjoyable romp using the structure of the activities on offer to mooch around the city to my hearts content, observe and participate in some harmless group voyeurism and indulge in a little flaneurie.

undoubtedly the biennial, like all before it and those to come, is fraught with contradictions and difficulties. the year of culture and the festival is fast drawing to a close and with it will follow the usual post mortems and debates about what if anything can really be achieved by these cynical marketing ploys masquerading as culture...

but for one night only i indulged in suspending my disbelief to take pleasure in a city that i love and admire for its faded beauty, architectural grandeur and indomitable character. no matter what happens i'll return, hoping that despite the many changes still in the pipeline, the charm, gnarls and bunions of this lovely city survives to tell its everyday stories.

on language and owning ones voice...

i am not a writer. i'm an antiquarian, an archaeologist with a classical background and a trowel in my back pocket who seems to have moved inadvertently into the realm of the contemporary and find myself trying to make sense of the civilisation of today with the tools of my archaic trade - the theories and methodologies of archaeological theory and practice. archaeologists work with the physical, material remains of human culture and where better to find this than in the modern landscape - the built environment and surroundings of my everyday life. the advantage of this present day archaeological enquiry is that the clues, the traces are in the main still extant and the protagonists, the producers and consumers, are all around us, are in fact us. its just a matter of deciphering this wealth of materiality, this profusion of stuff.

archaeologists deal with material and visual media as their primary source rather than the written word, usually the preserve of the historian, though obviously there are many instances of overlap. my instinct therefore has been to make straight for the source of the material culture i am so familiar with when excavating the past, to help answer tricky questions about the present. and so increasingly i find myself in the company of those crazy, free thinking mavericks and rebels (or so they and we who stand in galleries puzzling at their output like to pretend) the contemporary art practitioner. it is unknown territory and i often feel out of my depth and unqualified to be in their company, slightly apart from their caste and alien to their specialised metalanguage.

i am not an artist either then, rather an undercover agent or some sort of cultural voyeur, an intruder if you like. i'm operating on the peripheries of several disciplines and modus operandi, trying to find my own little path, create a dialogue with others who might want to respond to or collaborate in this undertaking, this uncovering or delving into the 'now', this labyrinth of the present. archaeologists and historians try to make sense of things in the material or written record by examining all the sources at their disposal and presenting their findings in reports, articles, exhibitions or weighty tomes destined for the library or an obscure shelf in waterstones. but for this new territory, a junction between the destinations of art, archaeology, even perhaps anthropology or cultural geography, i find myself with something of a dilemma....how to communicate with others in this emerging field or praxis in an accessible, immediate and relevant manner?

writing this diary then is an experiment, a tentative way of resolving this challenge in a new medium; a cusp, a gulf between recognised forms.

with it comes inevitable risks and miscalculations - not least that of ridicule, misunderstandings or rejection by any potential audience. after all, i am not a writer, artist or creator but am presuming to create a voice or methodology somewhere on the edge of these established discourses. just what is the purpose or aim of this journal, this diary of inanities and who on earth is it for? i ask myself this and similar questions on a daily basis...

my recent forays into the public eye, both at the manchester blog awards recently, an interloper in the company of real writers, and again in the liverpool biennial writing for an artwork in the form of a newspaper, an imposter in the real artworld, only heightened this uncertainty.

then along came stephen fry. by now something of a national treasure, he is a modernist in a cosy wrapping of anachronism. his addiction to technology is well known and this veritable encyclopaedia of arcane knowledge and voracious reader of wodehouse, waugh and wilde, almost subversive in his wilful unfashionableness, loves nothing more than to play with the latest gadgets and communicate to the world on his very own blog, the new adventures of mr stephen fry

todays posting provided solace just at the most opportune time, a guardian angel to the beleaguered wordsmith. of course i am in no way using the erudite mr fry to endorse my clumsy journey into the tangle of language, but his words were soothing and offered temporary respite. its a long article but worth a look if you have an interest in language and the debate about the evolution of english and how we find our own way with words, our own style or brand of communication. that we are inevitably in our 'parole', our particular brand or utterance of the vernacular, the sum total of our lives, our past, our journeys and interests. we are an archaeology, a stratigraphy of our lingual influences...

this excerpt resonated particularly for me and i offer it to you here to enjoy. perhaps consider me more kindly when happening across this little journal of a bluestocking;

I can attempt to disguise my language, I can dress it up into even more elaborate and grandiose orotundity, prolixity and self-consciousness, Will Self-consciousness you might say, or I could dress it down into something stripped. Stark. Bare. Simple. It would be hard to dress it down into something raggedly demotic without it being a patronising pastiche of a street argot to which I quite evidently have no access and in whose mazy slang avenues I would soon get lost, innit? In a sense I am typecast linguistically and although I can for fun try on all kinds of brogues and dialect clothes, my voice, my style, my language is as distinctive as my fingerprints.

My language (as the sum of my discourses, as linguistic strata that betray my history, as geology or archaeology betrays history) is my language and it is a piece of who I am, perhaps even the defining piece. In my case it is in part a classical ruin, inherited boulders of Tacitus and Cicero bleaching in the sun along with grass-overrun elements of Thucydides and Aeschylus … not because I was a classical scholar, but because I was taught by classical scholars and grew up on poets, dramatists and novelists who knew the classics as intimately as most people of my generation know the Beatles and the Stones. Without knowing it therefore, heroic Ciceronian clausulae and elaborate Tacitan litotes can always be found in the English of people like me. In part classical ruin, then, my language in particular has also mixed in it elements of my three Ws, my particular world wide web, my w.w.w, Wodehouse, Waugh and Wilde, three writers who greatly excited my imagination and stimulated my language glands like no other.

friendly faces

today i opened my diary to find a couple of pleasant surprises!

a widget has appeared proclaiming that a kind soul has 'followed' my ramblings on these pages...how lovely!

of course they may simply have looked at it and moved away quickly in horror or boredom but some trace of them has survived to which the lovely people at blogger have alerted me, so i have added this new fangled device in an effort to keep up with the times and improvements in technology.

anyhoo the beautifully entitled is there anything wrong with plastic rosaries is the kind inquisitive soul in question - so hello out there bethan and thank you for reading even once...

peculiarly its not a blog i have come across so far so this is a splendid and exciting bonus. theres the piquancy of eavesdropping, the thrill of pseudo-voyeurism, the pretence of opening a private journal or manuscript. i now know that bethan loves jonathan creek, catholic iconography, lives in manchester and attends university whilst writing her blogs and for various publications. i already want to read more about her views and the manchester she inhabits and i suppose mentally i have added her to a growing coterie of marvellous females that i consider to be modern bluestockings and for whom i feel a cyber fondness....find out more about her at is there anything wrong with plastic rosaries.

sometimes i feel as if i come from another planet when trying to navigate my way across blogworld and facebook, meeting kindred spirits and gaining access to fresh ideas and new perspectives from the comfort of my laptop...and then i remember that its just that i come from another century!!!!

oh yes, here's that second welcome surprise...

one of my last entries was a curious and poignant story of an urban wildscape, repository of literary bones and treasure trove of victorian social mores and architectural vernacular - the english cemetary in florence. it's a tale dear to my heart and should be for any urbanist, since an analysis of the city which ignores the disposal and status of the dead does so at its peril.

cemetaries are central to an understanding of the values and preoccupations of successive generations. in previous times and perhaps still in many countries apart from our own, the dead have always left an indelible trace in the living landscape as well as the metaphysical one. for me a visit to any new place includes a trip to the local cemetary. here the city reveals far more about itself, its past glories and aspirations, its darkest deeds, its ups and downs more fluently than a perusal of newspaper archives or grandiose civic totems.

but lately they have moved ever outwards into the hinterland of our social landscape, become peripheral, invisible almost. there is both pleasure and regret for an old archaeologist like myself in this current state of affairs. sadness that we live in a society busy denying its own mortality and that the everyday insights and beauty that can be afforded by a daily walk through the neighbourhood cemetary have been marginalised into a morbid or fanciful affectation. happiness that they offer seclusion and almost rural escapism for city dwellers like myself and a place to spend a sunny afternoon with a book and a picnic in blissful tranquility...

anyway back to my real point - the florentine cemetary in question faces desperate uncertainty despite the dedication of a small band of devotees, gardeners and scholars, led by the remarkable latterday bluestocking julia bolton holloway, whose blog and efforts i referred to about the dangers facing this little guerilla gardening project. imagine my delight to find a reply and update in my comments box by the lady herself! here is what she said -

Thanks from another bluestocking!But I'd rather you be in the library than in the cemetery! Am dreading the loculi to be installed in January. At least they are in the ground. And I've won the battle to keep them away from the centre aisle and all its wild irises, Florence's lilies.

the internet, it seems, once again reigns supreme and brings people a little closer together than would otherwise be possible. and once again i would ask you, dear reader, to visit her blogsite and perhaps add your name to its petition to secure the treasures of the little cemetery and the ongoing work to restore and reclaim it for the benefit of many.

and that reminds me - i really must nip to ardwick cemetery and do something about the terrible state its in...