Disqus - Latest Comments for peteashton

Re: Concert Series Training - Warwick Arts Centre

Pete Ashton — Sun, 26 Jan 2020 12:39:25 -0000

Do we know who the support is yet?

Re: Birmingham: you get the culture you deserve

Pete Ashton — Sat, 17 Sep 2016 19:18:27 -0000

Okay, fuck it, I'll bite.

As someone who's been involved in a number of ill-concieved, boneheaded schemes in Birmingham, some of which were successful and some of which were absolute fucking nightmares, I can say no-one knows anything ever about anything. If you succeed then it's a fluke. If you succeed repeatedly at the same thing then you're probably doing something pretty boring. If you succeed and then fail and then succeed and then fail, that's probably normal. If you sell out two events and then then next one is empty, that's probably normal. If you want predictable patterns then get a proper job. If you want to do something new and special then expect nothing but the unexpected.

The biggest mistake anyone (myself included) ever makes is to assume that the thing you're doing will play by the rules of similar looking things that are run as proper (ie boring) businesses, despite you not having the backing or infrastructure of a proper business. If you're going to play by capitalism's rules (which most projects in Birmingham are) then you're going to have to obey them, and they don't include goodwill, local pride or any of that mystical bullshit. Until our society wakes up and introduces something sensible like Universal Basic Income it's borderline impossible for us to have anything sustainable that doesn't run like a business. The system just isn't gamed that way.

What I'd like to see in this city is a culture of telling people no, that's not a good idea, have another think about what you're actually trying to achieve and figure out a way to do it that's new and unique. Stop trying to do things "properly" at "proper" venues when the back room of a pub will do. Stop telling people they need to start a small business for their project when they probably don't.

But what I'd like to see is irrelevant because there are a million people in this city with a million ideas of what it can and can't be, not to mention the scores of immigrants and visitors in this gloriously fluid and mixed up city. None of you know what Birmingham is, or can control what it might be, and that's why it's so much better than those cities which are straightjacketed by a rigid identity stuck up their arses [coughmanchester]. Birmingham is great. Birmingham is terrible. Birmingham is whatever it is. Go live it.

And when your thing inevitably fails, don't blame anyone. Don't blame yourself. Just pull up your britches and bloody get on with the next thing.

Is one way of looking at it.

(Sidebar - Comments threads are so 2008 man.)

Re: City of Colours festival launches Kickstarter campaign

Pete Ashton — Sun, 24 May 2015 18:38:43 -0000

And the link to this Kickstarter?

Re: Historic RBSA launches first ever photography competition for autumn exhibition

Pete Ashton — Tue, 19 May 2015 19:31:44 -0000

"application packs can be downloaded from the RBSA website."

For the love of all that's holy, will you people please learn to link? It's not hard. You can find tutorials on the internet.

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 20:10:06 -0000

And you, sir, are the bomb. See also vk.com/putineveryday where someone's been posting the same picture of Putin every day for over three years!

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 04:44:01 -0000

Yeah, and that's the thing I'm specifically interested in, given that's the primary mode of reposting on IG. Definitely need to make that clearer in the next write up.

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 04:35:15 -0000

Amplification of social phenomena?

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 20:50:13 -0000

Reply lost in moderation due to a link. But in short, I'm interested in what The Awl called "The Triumphant Rise of the Shitpic"

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 20:47:38 -0000

Very much so. It's all about the "room" - the space in which the activity takes place and how its qualities can be experienced through passing something through it, in Lucier's case sound, in my case an image.

The link is tenuous, but it's just a framework for playing with and a way to focus on something more than mere image degradation. I have a wider interest in how images are used to communicate and this quirk of Instagram - where people screengrab to repost, thus leaving a trace of activity - allows me to identify that activity without resorting to tedious analytical, particularly when that data is locked away on proprietary platforms like IG.

For what it's worth using the Room framework was the final piece in making this piece, and it's really a work in progress, a sketch, towards something bigger. But don't worry - context is always the first casualty of online activity. (If only we could see how context degrades as a story spreads, Chinese whisper style...)

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 20:04:31 -0000

Yeah, it's a massive cliche. But it does provide a nice umbrella for exploring different methods of iterative entropy.

Although I started collecting examples the other day and couldn't find that many. Have listed them here: http://art-pete.com/blog/20...

If you know of any more I'd love to see them.

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 20:01:08 -0000

The reposting doesn't leave a border, although it's very hard to get it completely right. I'm interested in how every reposting is fundamentally a different image, both visually (albeit very slightly) and in the code.

Another explanation of the thing I'm interested in is this Awl article: http://www.theawl.com/2014/...

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 18:42:13 -0000

It does take a while, but in my defence I had a nasty cold this weekend so screenshotting and reposting 90 times was about all I was capable of.

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 18:41:28 -0000

It is. I hadn't gotten around to credit it as this was just an experiment which has accidentally gone (very mildly) viral before I had a chance to write it up properly!

Re: Experiment Shows What Happens When You Repost a Photo to Instagram 90 Times

Pete Ashton — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 18:40:27 -0000

Yes. That's the point. This is how people repost images on Instagram, leaving a digital smudge on each iteration. That's what I'm interested in.

Re: Twitter’s censorship policy: for humans

Pete Ashton — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:08:15 -0000

The positive thing about Twitter breaking their service (if indeed they have) is the Internet tends to route around blockages like this and some other system will emerge, hopefully less dependent on a corporate centralised hub.

Somewhat perversely whenever Twitter or Facebook do something to piss off their users I find it cheering.

Re: Network WM in URL Hell

Pete Ashton — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:01:35 -0000

Shame it's not deliberate. It does seem to be a natural progression from the instruction to "search for [brand name]". Especially given networkwestmidlands.com is such a terrible url to remember.

Now if only they'd promote the excellent http://netwm.mobi/ service instead of those ridiculously overpriced text shortcode things...

Re: http://www.macarts.co.uk//events/view/default.aspx?eventid=18646

Pete Ashton — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:08:28 -0000

Amazing. Can't recommend this highly enough (and I have a very low tolerance for theatre...)

Re: If I could delete one phrase from the social media vocabulary…

Pete Ashton — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:08:57 -0000

I wonder if it's a hangover from "In The Media..." as if The Media is some monolithic, single thing.

Re: Danny Smith: On the buses

Pete Ashton — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:42:50 -0000

I looked into the 45/7 "every five minutes" claim and it's true... during peak hours. So if you're working 9-5 then you can benefit from this but if you're not then you're stuck with the worst main-line bus route I've experienced in Birmingham.

Moan, grumble, bitch...

Re: Danny Smith: Winterval starts here

Pete Ashton — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:55:07 -0000

Whenever I see the German Market I always think "this could be so, so much worse".

At least it's not sponsored by a budget airline or affiliated with Heart FM. At least it's a different style of cookie-cutter tat. And wooden stalls add a nice bit of variety to the glass, concrete and plastic high street frontages.

Never bought anything there though.

Re: Fukpig

Pete Ashton — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:30:44 -0000

Ha! You're a load of fucking shite, Ralf!

(Am I playing this game properly?)

Re: The Twang for ArtsFest

Pete Ashton — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:47:27 -0000

As I understand it the stage will be facing `away from the REP with the crowd alongside Symphony Hall. Broad St will be closed from Gas St to Alpha Tower.

Re: Spread your legs

Pete Ashton — Wed, 26 May 2010 18:40:16 -0000

To be fair Bennie's been using the 600 paces thing for years now. It was on some of the really early promotional stuff I saw the other year. And knowing him I'm sure he got someone to walk it.

Re: World Cup Willies

Pete Ashton — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:43:43 -0000

Don't have a problem with people enjoying watching football. Have been known to enjoy it myself.

Do have a problem with the assumption that everyone in the country is sharing a moment though. The current Sky and Kit-Kat billboards are particularly irksome.

Not just football. Same applies to X-Factor, dead princesses, etc. "Nation united" is damn annoying when you know damn well it isn't.

Re: Eastside, East of Westside

Pete Ashton — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:10:29 -0000

And I read it as "no, We are Eastside" too. The only downside seems to be the inclusion of a few organisations to satisfy funding requirements, but that's inevitable really, once you go down the funding route.