Warp x Tate, 6 December 2014

How could you not be excited by Warp x Tate? Pioneering electronic music label teams up with top UK art institution for a night inspired by Jeremy Deller’s 'Acid Brass'. What a setting for a party. What a perfect way to see the re-hang of the newly refurbished gallery. As the day drew nearer, it became obvious that I was not alone. Twatter and Facewaste were abuzz. Asking around, it seemed that everyone was planning on going. This had the taste of a big rave, albeit it likely to be an above-board and respectable one.

By Friday afternoon @Tate was sending out cautionary tweets about limited capacity. I bolted out of work at 5.30pm on the dot, raced down to Vauxhall and hurried over the bridge. By 6pm the queue was already snaking around the block from the ramp to the lower ground, while the front steps were littered with groups of people. We made it in by quarter past, dodged the secondary queue for the cloakroom and headed up the stairs to see what was going on. 

The lights were out in the busy central hall with projectors casting Warp videos onto the walls. At the far end, a blown up version of Deller's Acid Brass spider map filled the space between two colossal columns. In front of this, Patten was onstage, emitting disjointed noise and geek cool. Unless you were crushed into a fairly small sweet spot at the front, though, the sound from two tiny speakers was quiet and echoey: lost in the cavernous hall with drinks queues longer than Mark Wallinger’s 'State Britain'. Instead we set off in search of Warp installations dotted around the newly rehung galleries.

First stop: Hudson Mohawke's 'Summer of Love' in the 'The Chapman Family Collection' room. It's packed with people wandering between the faux-African Macdonalds sculptures, chatting and posing for Instagrams, as an oil wheel projector casts psychedelic swirls onto the roof above. A short loop of ambient electronica pulses through a couple of small speakers on the floor. It’s a playful environment, which works well, but Hud Mo’s Dazed video made to preview the installation does a better job of evoking the spirit of 1987.

Just outside the door, a studio light has been set up to illuminate Deller’s original Acid Brass spider diagram, hung in a corner next to a colossal Peter Doig. Here we can read about the original 1996 performance, which saw a brass pit band playing acid house anthems. The diagram describes links between the two, tying the rave movement into a wider cultural context of pit strikes, electronic dance music and the North. I love this piece and can’t wait to hear the embodiment of it later. The rest of the room contains some Wolfgang Tillmans photos, a Fiona Rae painting, a rather nice black and white Keith Coventry and some large panes of crushed flowers which appear to be leaking down the wall. On behalf of the old Tate, I'm slightly shocked. This bodes well.

Having lost my friends, I leave the 1990s and time travel back towards the 1980s. I’m immediately be blown away by a Bill Woodrow junk sculpture, a life-size elephant head on the wall with AK47s for tusks, standing guard over a village-meeting-style circle of smashed car door windows. Its ears are maps of Africa, torn from large-scale Atlases. Rejoined by the group, we pose for photographs with the epic wall trophy and follow its sad gaze across the room to Mark Wallinger's ‘Where There’s Muck’ - the word ‘Albion’ spray painted in giant Tory-blue letters directly onto the wall, over a tableau of burnt wood, with a worker figure on the central panel. The date is 1985. Exciting stuff. We pose for photos with Barry Flanagan’s ‘Leaping Hare’. It lends itself well to narrative.

Floating further back in time, I'm drawn by the sounds of electronica, past a startling late Francis Bacon triptych and Richard Long's photograph of 'A Line Made by Walking', into a room of 1960s collage and bricolage sculpture. Anwar Jalal Shemza's 'Chessmen One', 1961, is a revelation of Islamic modernism. I love the Paolzzi, as always, and Burra's drawing-cum-photomontage 'Keep Your Head'. I didn't even know he made them. Through a doorway, Henry Moore's shiny, domed 'Maquette for Helmet Head' pulls me towards it like a magnet. I thought I knew Henry Moore, but this whole room is a physical rediscovery for me. Over the years his work has become flattened in my mind, by successive 2D reproductions and sketches. This is a powerful space to be in though, with all its myriad angles, air resonant with form and the ehoes of vintage synths from next door. Modern British sculpture might have it's associations with Britten at al but perhaps it should be displayed more frequently with early electronica in the background.

The 808 and 303 tribute room runs parallel to this one and features the two legendary synths on plinths at opposite ends of the room. They're not plugged in, but the plinths have movement sensors on them. Someone tells me that every time you pass one you add or remove a layer to the track which loops through the speakers on the floor. I never work out the exact configuration. Around the room are black and white photographs by Chris Shaw, one of the few British contemporary photographs still making good work in this tradition. Each is scrawled with their own quirky title in black pen. They're juxtaposed with prints from 1960s Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama, whose impressionistic blurs of Tokyo nightlife have enjoyed a significant reappraisal in the West of late. The gritty aesthetics complement the raw sound. 

By this point we’re gasping for a drink so we decide to try my luck at the slightly quieter downstairs bar. There's still a huge queue outside, trickling through a barrier of security guards in ones and twos. One half of The Blessings (as I discover when I speak to him later) is playing some pretty tasty off-kilter beats next to the bar. He gets a few people moving, but it's hard to galvanize a dance floor bisected by a 15min drinks queue. Unable to take our drinks anywhere else, we elect to re-watch the Dazed videos in one of the screening rooms.

Back upstairs, we head in search of Melancholy. I find myself in Martin Creed's light room, which for some reason has a crowd barrier running through it. Taking the right fork I find myself channelled, in slowly strobing light, towards a closed door in the next room. A group of people is sitting in my way. I step over them to duck out of the channel. Later on I find out that this was the queue. Apparently, at it's peak people were waiting for Creed's light to go out and trying to push into the queue, only to be caught in the act as it flicked back on again. 

The last stop on the installation trail is Rustie, in the Turner wing. I find it by accident, following the sound while misdirecting a friend towards the 808 tribute room. It's the best sound I've heard all night. It draws us down the corridor lined with Turners and into a room with two speakers. There are no beats; only resonance, high and bright. People are sitting, walking around or staring intently into oily sunbursts and thickly textured rural scenes. When sound in our room fades, I realise it's getting louder in the opposite alcove. We migrate accross. There are another two speakers here. A group dressed in black, some with beards, join me. I head back into the corridor between the rooms, sound washing between them, and watch 'Hannibal Crossing the Alps'. The music is reaching euphoric cresendo. In the room I've just come from, a large man with a serious beard throws his arms into the air in semi-ironic elation. He's framed by a huge golden, greeny-brown painting. It's beautiful. We keep chasing the sound down the corridor. It's 10 channels in total, split between 5 rooms, in and out of which we wheel and glide. I could spend all night here, but it's 9 now and time for the main event: Jeremy Deller's Acid Brass Band. We head back to the main hall in anticipation.

Halfway towards the front we hit a wall of people and pause to drink newly acquired ciders, which we’ve now realised are cheaper than beer. It's as crowded now as it was at the start. Eventually, a figure in baby blue suit jacket pops up onstage, folllowed by another, and another. All carrying shiny brass instruments. The crowd whoops and cheers. As they strike up, we start to dance. We've been waiting all night for the opportunity. On the grand stone walls around us, scenes of dancing crowds in warehouses strobe and flicker. The people around us are fairly static, so we form a chain and start snaking towards the front. Reaching a impasse by a roped off artwork we stop and introduce ourselves to the people who's space we've invaded.  They're much more lively. It's all smile and grins as we groove through the set. The band are clearly having fun too, especially the conductor, whose manic grin and enthusiasm remind me of that guy who always climbs up on the speakers at the front to really let loose. 

When the set ends someone near us starts a joky chant of "One More Tune!" But it's all over. We drift out of the cavernous hall, out onto the grand steps, littered with people smoking and donning coats. Out into the night. The iron railings around the building are plastered with bikes, strapped on at jaunty angles. Waving farewell to my friends I weave through groups of fellow ravers over the river and back towards the station. I catch the eye of the guy boarding my train with me and we sit next to each other to loudly compare notes on the night. It feels like 5am in the morning. 

I get home and go to bed with the ghosts of artworks flashing on my retinas in the usual place of hi-hats and synths echoing in my ears. It’s 11pm. 

Wrap Up London

Every morning last week I set my alarm for 5.30am and arrived at Waterloo station two hours earlier than usual to volunteer for Wrap Up London. Why? We were asking fellow commuters to give us their coats. Not literally the clothes off their backs - although a few generous and impulsive souls did just that - but old coats, unwanted ones, long forgotten winter warmers, tucked away in the backs of wardrobes or buried beneath layers of new fashion.

We spent two days telling people the plan: you donate unwanted coats on the way to work, we pass them on to London's most vulnerable so that they can keep warm this winter. It's an easy ask. All you have to do is spend five mins rummaging when you get home, then the next day carry your toasty treasure halfway to work. If you forget on Wednesday, you've still got two more days to remember. Many people got involved, often bringing bags full of ski-jackets, parkers and overcoats which they'd collected from house-mates and family members.

It's a great system. The ask and action are both simple and tangible, while the small lift of feel-good achievement experienced by donors is quite palpable. The whole transaction feels like a kind of magic. You can spot the givers in the crowd.  They're often carrying an extra bag or just moving towards you with purpose. You meet their eye and smile as the bundle is trust toward you. There's often a look, either a smile of happy benevolence or a quizzical 'is that it?'. This is the point at which I think it's my responsibility as a volunteer to convey gratitude on behalf of those who will be unable to do so themselves.

In a way it's all quite detached, because none of us meet the people who benefit at the end of the chain, but as the cold, wet weather sets in it's good to know that there are over 10,000 coats now ready to be redistributed to London's most vulnerable in shelters and refuges across the capital next month. This is all thanks to Hands on London, the organisation which manages the 100+ volunteers for Wrap Up London each year. It's a great way to volunteer because it's rewarding, it's flexible and you don't need any qualifications.

When I speak to people about volunteering, many don't know where to start. Others cite lack of time or a need to prove experience as barriers (unpaid volunteers should never require a qualification). Talking to volunteer managers, the biggest problems are often retention, finding the right people for the role and reaching new groups.

I joined Wrap Up London last year after a colleague told me about his experience. Since then I've been volunteering one evening every other week with my local Mencap. Hopefully some of the thousands of people who donated coats last week might now be inspired to look up Hands On London and give it a go.

handsonlondon.org.uk

Un dépaysement à la mode

“How was Burning Man?” Everyone keeps asking me. “I bet it was epic…” 

Well, yes, it was thank you. Especially the 24 hour journey to get there; the nine hour queues in and out; the seven days living in a dust bowl; the incredible landscape; the amazing art; the music; the dancing; the people; and, of course, the giant burning spectacle at the end. But it wasn't just epic. 

When people are asked about their Burning Man experience, “I can’t put it into words” is a common response. For those who haven’t been before, this might imply smugness akin to condescension – ie. “If you’ve not been, you just wouldn’t understand” - but I think that’s rarely the intention. In fact it's often quickly followed by a string of fantastical stories. We want to share, not out of boastfulness, but because it’s human nature to tell others about our experiences out of the ordinary. 

So what is this experience that’s so hard to explain? It’s hard to say. It’s different for everyone. It’s different every time. It’s not just one experience, but the culmination of months of preparation, days of travel and a whole week of living in an extremely beautiful, yet exposed, natural environment, as part of one of the most creative and thought provoking social ecologies that you’ll ever be part of. It’s a festival guided by principles which permeate every interaction and experience that you will have there. It has its ups and downs. It is what you make of it. 

The most intimidating barrier for many people thinking about going to Burning Man is its location in the kind of environment that most of us would look to avoid rather than spend any length of time in: a flat dry lake bed in Nevada known as ‘The Playa’. The heat and dust take their toll. There are no natural structures for shelter. The alkaline dust coats everything you can see with a fine film and somehow manages to work its way into everywhere else too. The desert sucks the moisture out of you. Water and shade are the most valuable resources. On top of this you’re expected to practice radical self-reliance. You are responsible for your own water, food, shelter and survival. You have to take all this with you, or at least make provision for it before you arrive. 

If this all sounds rather off-putting, it’s because I’ve missed out the most important factor in the environmental equation: people. We’re social animals. The best way to do the festival is to join a theme camp, or to find a group to start one. You don’t have to get through life alone, and you don’t have to survive Burning Man alone: we do it together. That’s right at the core of the experience, and, to bring out the best in people, there are a number of guiding principles in play.

One of the most widely known principles of Burning Man is the gift economy. This means that you cannot buy anything there, with the notable exceptions of ice and coffee (both luxuries definitely help). The mistake people make is to think that this means it’s a currency free economy of barter and trade. It’s not. It’s a gift economy, which means that you are encouraged to give freely to others without expecting to receive anything in return. What can you give? It doesn’t have to be a ‘thing’. It can be a skill, a story, some food, shelter, time, friendship, compassion. Of course people take some incredible gifts, creating moments of magic as you give or receive the unexpected or the essential. It could be just what you need: a bloody mary, an ice cream, a toothbrush, a tampon, a shoulder to cry on or ear to bend. In fact the best gift can often be yourself. The attitude to adopt is “What can I do for you?” and the more thought you put into that, whether before, during or after the festival, the more you’ll get out of it. 

So we’re all responsible, not just for ourselves, but for the experiences of those around us. We’re all participants. Nothing exists in Black Rock City unless it’s taken there or created by us. There’s no such thing as a punter at Burning Man, there is no separation between the crew and the audience. The crew is the audience and vice-versa. Although there are plenty of opportunities to spectate, there are just as many chances to participate, to help make something happen. You're encouraged to express yourself and to be creative, to open yourself up to others, whether through art, interaction or discussion. You're given the freedom to be yourself, and the opportunity to discover who you could be. If you want to do it, say it, or make it, then go for it. If you don’t know what you want to do, then help someone else. 

To counteract any impulse to judge all this self expression, there's the principle of inclusion. For those who think that Burners form some strange clique or cult, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Everyone's welcome. You just have to take part. The desert could be a lonely place, especially if you're caught out in a dust storm or have an arguement with your camp mates, but the willingness of others to invite you in often redresses the balance. Don’t sit over there on your own, come and join us. Let’s be sociable. Let’s do this together. I’ll help you. 

The upshot of all this is that it creates an open and engaged social environment that is quite different to the privacy and detachment of our day-to-day lives. Throughout the week you’ll find yourself depending on others you’ve never met before, supporting strangers who need you and talking to new people about things you’ve never even told your close friends. This will all be happening in an atmosphere of riotous creativity, fantastic costumes, incredible artworks, wonderful performances, surreal moving sculptures or art cars and wild music played at earth shaking volumes. It’s an inspiring place to be and many of the experiences and conversations you have will continue to inspire you for some time afterwards. 

Such an accepting and free environment is, as you might expect, conducive to the lowering of inhibitions. Certain by-products of this attract more attention, in the way that the slightest hint of titillation excites most people, but what inhibitions you chose to lower are entirely down to you. You don't have to take all your clothes off and run around naked, but no one's going to stop you if you want to. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that while it’s a great place explore your boundaries, you still need to respect those of others. Going to Burning Man doesn’t mean abandoning your consideration in a hedonistic free-for-all. You won't make many friends if you act like a dick and you won't find yourself popular with your campmates if you don’t pull your weight. 

But then work, with the right attitude, doesn’t have to be a chore. Contributing to the domestic well being of your camp can be one of the most rewarding forms of participation. The principle of immediacy encourages you to cherish every situation, even the washing-up. See a bad luck as a challenge, see a mistake as a learning experience. 

Like responsibility to others, a responsibility to the environment is built into the mind-set. 'Leave No Trace' or LNT is a constant mantra. No litter is to be left. Everyone in attendance has a responsibility to collect Matter Out Of Place (MOOP) whenever they see it. This is good practice at any festival, but it's more of a challenge when all waste, including water, must be taken home with you. You have to plan your disposal and recycling, which makes you acutely aware of just how much you generate (toilets are thankfully provided, and kept in great condition). With water in limited and precious supply, you realise just how much of it you normally waste, and how little you can get by with when you have too. It’s perfectly possible to have a body wash instead of a shower, and if you do take a (solar) shower you’re mindful of how much grey water you might be producing. Once the festival’s over, it’s your responsibility to clear your own camp, which you’ll be graded on by the crew who stay onsite to sweep the whole area of any human trace. If only every festival crowd could be so conscientious. 

So how was my Burning Man? 

Well, it was my honeymoon. I proposed to my wife the last time. The experience inspired to embark on life's greatest adventure with her. Our plan this year was to make sure that we enjoyed everything together and we did. 

As in 2011, we joined The Fireworks Collective, a group of fire performers formed each year from the UK to take part in the fire conclave before the man burns. It was the first year the collective has created its own theme camp, Albion - quite a feat for a group of people who live at opposite ends of another country. The camp experience brought the group closer together, bonding through shared endeavour, and we performed some of the best fire shows I’ve been part of. 

Although we helped out at Albion, setting up camp, cooking meals, training and hosting an English Tea Party together, Danielle and I actually camped with our long-term playa family at Pink Heart. Now one of the most recognised landmarks on the Esplanade, the inner circle of camps around the man, Pink Heart embodies the ethos of the festival. At its most simple the purpose of the camp is to provide shelter - shade, cushions, sofas – and to gift water – ice cold and flavoured with refreshing cucumber, which we serve to all comers 24/7. Whilst it might seem seem simple, the gifting of the two most essential commodities in a desert environment is immensely rewarding. The interaction opens you up to the whole festival, as people arrive seeking respite and stay to talk about their experiences, to share their stories. Through these conversations I find that I experience far more than I could ever manage on my own. Oh, and three afternoons of the week we also gave out vegan coconut-milk ice cream. A whole truck-full in three different flavours. You've never seen so much joy.

I’m sitting out the front of Pink Heart one evening talking to a Belgian guy who I’ve just met. In front of us the dark expanse of the desert is animated by a thousand neon lights. All manner of possibility is out there. "This really isn't like any other festival," I declare. “Why do you think that is?” “I don’t know the word for it in English”, the Belgian guy replies, “but in French I guess we’d call this a 'dépaysement'. A relocation to a place that gives you a different perspective on your life.” A change of scene, but also a change of mental state. And that's the part that's hard to explain to someone who's not been here. But I realise that the people who inspire me the most are the ones who don’t only make amazing things happen in the desert. They take what they find here, apply it to their lives and introduce it to the lives of others. That's really what this is all about.