One Applination Under A Groove

One Applination Under A Groove Selection of writing produced at an application writing all-nighter at Grand Union, 31 August – 1 September 2012 8pm–8am.

The writing is re-produced below in an unedited form (reflecting the time constraints of the event).

Conservative Biography writing BAZ have just heard that later on in the evening there may be a Tate Modern Turbine Hall commission opportunity - that celebrates the Conservative Party. Please adjust your biography or CV so that it will be viewed more favourably by the Conservative Party.

150 words max / 25 minutes Proposal A Having been diagnosed as lactose intolerant at an early age I am extremely grateful to Mrs Thatcher for removing the free milk at play schools while I was there. Since that time I have used my work as an artist to express my gratitude to Mrs T and the Conservative party as a whole. I am currently exploring my “blue period� with a series of collages and digital events in the 59 shades of blue and believe this can be turned to celebrating the glory and leadership of the Conservative Party both modern and traditional. I see a glory-full montage of the great Conservative leaders and ministers stretching from Mr Cameron back to Pitt the Younger, showing the unbroken chain of right thinking and greatness that this party has brought to this country (is it too early to include Tony Blair into this line of Conservative leaders?)

Proposal B I am a writer living in Edgbaston, Birmingham, a city which may have reached your attention with HS2. My current work for Malthouse Engineering, a history of a steel manufacturing company based in the Black Country – proves the arts can work alongside industry. My writing will give the workers a feeling of purpose and justification for their meaningful little lives, therefore increasing productivity, boosting the economy, giving them a glow in their ruddy cheeks. You may be interested to know that Oldbury is based near Smethwick and Cape Hill, which is a haven for family run small businesses and local entrepreneurship. I have subsided my writing career by working full-time in the private sector, most recently with Equiniti Sharedealing, buying and selling shares on the live market. I have an NVQ Level 2 in Customer Service, which I consider to be one of my proudest achivements.

Proposal C Ruddlesworth-Jones is a director of Ban the Union, a capitalist-led space housing a gallery space and high spec studios for only the most commercially successful artists in the city. Our public programme of traditionally grounded exhibitions encourage peer-focussed discussion, and train young curators to think more fiscally. Before becoming involved in Ban the Union, Ruddlesworth-Jones had led several not-forprofit organisations into the ground, being instrumental in building an ambitiously unprogressive visual art scene that thrives on the voluntary sector and large-scale donations.

Arts Council Black Country: Pork Scratching Commission Arts Council Black Country branch have announced plans for a 1 million pound commission in the Black Country to celebrate the much maligned pork scratching. Proposals in any artistic form are now been accepted, although a preference is for dance pieces.

300 words / 50 minutes Proposal A In celebration we show the history of the humble pork scratching in the Black Country. We will show the working environment this most traditional of pub snacks will spring from. Picture the seen, honest and honourable coal miner, relaxing in his Sunday best in the parlour of his humble home. A multitude of children playing around his feet. Wife in the kitchen. A perfect ballet of movement of woman and children around the sat man. After several minutes of this play the man stands up, gesticulating at the dancing children and his wife and walks out of the room, placing his cap on his head from a peg in the hallway. The woman and children look at one another , shrug and as one say the only spoken word of the piece: “PUB!�. The stage splits in two, on the left (as the audience sees it) is the man, stood at the bar of his local, supping a pint of heavy and talking (miming) with friends, putting the world to rights.

On the right is the wife, slaving over the stove, pans and roast. Smoke rising more and more as the man sinks into his cups. Time jump to later, the man back home, sliding down the wall, his wife furious over a heavily burnt pork joint, threatening him with a rolling pin and him defending himself. The man reaches down and breaks off a burnt piece of the skin

and rises it to his mouth. Spotlight on him as he eats and his face melts in delight at the taste explosion. Offering a piece to his wife who forgets their fight and the pair dance together joyously. As props are moved off stage it begins raining pork scratching both on stage and in the venue.

Proposal B Pork Talk will encourage dialogue between young and old from Birmingham and the Black Country with a dance element. Two dance companies (Motion House and Sonia Sabri) along with Professor Carl Chinn, Aynuk (from Aynuk and Ayli) and Malcolm “Play up your own end” Stent, will hold the event at West Bromwich Albion FC every week when the Baggies are playing away, with obvious audience potential. The event will be compered by a rolling list of well-loved comedians from the region, including Jasper Carrott, Frank Skinner and Lenry Henny, thanks to their evergreen, progressive and popular with all ages Rock With Laughter show as seen at the LG Arena.

The tickets will be sold at a competitive price, and each member of the audience, in their seats at the ground will receive a bespoke bag of pork scratchings, made by individual companies within the West Midlands.

Families from Birmingham and the Black Country will connect by comparing the bags that they have, and will share stories about the places in which the scratchings were made with their neighbours. With the help of the West Bromwich Readers Network and Prof Chinn, Aynuk and Mr Stent, the memories will be transcribed onto a series of large video screens, which will be in turn interpreted by Motion House (hereby known as Pork) and Sonia Sabri (hereby known as Talk.)

Pork will start the dance, and Talk will respond. They have stated that they will use the following in their performance – four fork-lift trucks and a life sized model of the HP Sauce Building, Kong, and Rotunda Tower. Both troupes will be wearing costumes made out of pork scratchings, and in this case, pigs will fly. The rest of the money will be used to create a replica of Battersea Power Station, and at the climax of the festival, David Gilmour and Roger Waters will appear on a column and join the crowd in a rousing sing along of ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones.)’ Unfortunately Malcolm ‘Boing Boing’ Boyden will not be appearing as his fee was considered far too high.

Proposal C 'How the scratch got in scratching' is a spectacular skin based performance that explores the very essence of what it is to be fried.

This weekend-long performance will take place in the heart of the Black Country and invite pig-farmers from across the region to participate with their animals, bringing the region's rural and urban communities together in this celebration of the frying process, from heating the oil through to the final crunch.

Cradely Heath Hill-top will become awash with the sounds of squealing piggies whilst the valley is vibrantly lit with the frying equipment of the region's chip and kebab shop owners.

The performance will play out during the weekend, giving the national and international scratching connoisseurs audience a deeper understanding of this revered snack.

An accompanying education programme kratzend will lead into the main performance. Walsall based expert Babs 'the pork' Simmons will share her incredible knowledge about the scientific side of the scratching through interpretive dance across germany.

Evaluation will include collection of visitor numbers and profiles, surveys allowing for more in depth feedback from audiences and charting the expected increase in sales of G Simmons & Sons scratchings across the UK and Europe.

Proposal D On the Rind-a-bout is an ambitious new dance initiative in the Black Country from archetypal Dance Company Touche Dudlay.

As part of Black Country Diversity and Healthy eating festival 100,000 schoolchildren will ceremonially discard empty pork scratchings packets in to a large hole near the Station Hotel1 on their way to hanging out outside of the chip shop near top church.

Once the hole is full of empty wrappers a large crane will slowly lower a 1

Dug by off-duty bus drivers over the course of 6 months

troop2 of Dancers in to it to the tune of Schubert’s 4th symphony. In a scene not to dissimilar to the ending of the Crystal Maze3 the dancers will search for a ‘Golden Scratching’, forged by local craftspeople from the contents of Cash for Gold and earlier deposited in to the pit by local celebrity Wagner4 The night will be live screened to the televisions above the bowling lanes at the Superbowl and recorded for posterity by regional sculptors who will be coinciding with the event by taking part in a live stone carving event, carving figures writhing in pork rind out of marble shipped over from Italy with a consignment of fake designer handbags5.

The whole event is designed to celebrate the importance of deep fried snacks to the mining community and promote good litter management.

Birmingham City Council Cultural Commissioning Service: The Great Big Viaduct Plan We, Birmingham City Councils Cultural Commissioning Service, have just discovered that due to an administrative error, the majority of our arts money has been going into the 1999 Secret Santa Fund. Because of this discovery, we are pleased to announce plans for an ambitious commission to transform the disused Digbeth viaduct - The Great Big Viaduct Plan.

The application idea or concept must use water to express multiculturalism 600 words max / £1000000 / 50 minutes Proposal A Harking back to the principle of the medieval London bridge and continuing the development of Digbeth as the heart and soul of inner city living we match the ambitions of BCC with a plan to create a row of restaurants and bars along the old Digbeth viaduct.

Opening up for the local residents will be a wide collection of eateries representing the diverse populace of this great city. So that will mean 2

About 10 90’s TV Gameshow hosted by Gavin Wade 4 Moustached PE Teacher from the X Factor 2011 5 This, along with Wagner’s appearance fee will take up most of the budget 3

restaurants and “temporary” stalls featuring West Indian, the classic Balti, Chinese, Irish and others. Feeling the skies of the Irish quarter and Birmingham with a smorgasbord of delicious smells and flavours 24/7.

Transforming the once industrial into leafy boulevard and continuing the “gentrifying” of the creative quarter with the Eastside Park, the viaduct will be a point for all tribes and people of Birmingham to congregate.

Celebrating at once both their divergence and togetherness.

We envision the sides of the viaduct built up into permanent locations or secure and sheltered venues (dependent on finding co-funding among the food industry, the American franchises being our last port of call).

Where the train line ran will be replaced with pathways and small streams, under fully matured trees from the Botanical Gardens.

All food stuffs will be represented in a beautiful collage with no zoning of regions of origin. Polish will stand next to Irish will stand next to Pakistani will stand next to Turkish.

Proposal B What is interesting about this project is that it a proposal will be part of the actual art itself. It is a collaboration between Sport England, Rainbow Venues and The RSC. The proposal will be that the Abacus Apartments will be turned into the city’s largest water feature, and the tenants re-housed into the Sandown apartments, one of the fourteen tower blocks in Druids Heath. What will happen is that the resident(s) who complained about the noise coming from the Spotted Dog and Rainbow pubs will be ordered to reveal their true identity, otherwise the Sandown tower block in Druids Heath will be destroyed at 6 am the next day.

When the identity of the resident(s) are revealed, a giant klaxon the size of the viaduct will sound. Everybody in Birmingham City Centre will stop what they are doing (having paid a toll of a pound to enter the city thus creating a source of extra match funding) and stare into space. The Lord Mayor of Birmingham Cllr John Lines will take off his robes and donate them to the resident and donate to them the sum of £800,000 for them to do as they wish.

However, there is a problem. Despite the resident(s) now being one of

the richest people(s) in the city, everything has now stopped. No services run, shops and restaurants are closed, and the resident(s) have only their food in their cupboards to survive. Suddenly, a kindly dwarf will emerge from the River Chris Rea, dressed in purple and gold. He will kindly inform them that in order to survive they will have to walk the 50 route to Druids Heath, posting one hundred pounds in notes in every letterbox that they pass. Because of the multicultural cachement areas of the 50 route, each housemember and small businesses will eventually thrive from this donation. If the resident(s) is successful in this quest, they will receive double the amount originally given (raised by the match funding from the toll earlier.) The quest will end at the Sandown tower block in Druids Heath, where the resident(s) will receive the payment of £160,0000.

When the resident(s) reach Sandown, they should, if they’ve followed the dwarfs instructions, have £400 left. This needs to be placed in the cardboard box marked with a large black cross which they will find next to the pedal bins outside the front entrance. Inside the box, they will find a bracelet made of human hair and children’s marbles, one for each resident. Attached to this is a note, saying that the resident(s) must now wear the bracelet and walk back to the Abacus Apartments to complete the task. However, this walk must be completed before sundown otherwise the Sandown apartments will be destroyed at 6am the next day.

Back at the Abacus Apartments, the resident(s) will be greeted not by the kindly dwarf, but a hostile dwarf, dressed in grey and black. The dwarf will look at the resident and spit three times on the floor, and show them the match funded money, which he will place in a carrier bag and walk over the crossroads to the Rainbow venue. Another large klaxon will sound, and everybody in the city centre will return as normal. And from this day on, the resident(s) will have to now return to their flat and their city living, but now have to put up with the sounds of the Rainbow’s soundsystem which is now the most expensive in the world going on all day and all night in some sort of multicultural street party. There was going to be a big wicker man involved with cash in it but I thought I’d be nice. Thanks.

Proposal C What is it exactly that we mean by ‘via’? Naturally the front bit of ‘viaduct’ and also the front bit of “viagra”. Yes it’s a real enigma invented

by people who were fluent in latin! Artists embrace enigmas because we are courageous and existentially challenged but in need of sensible types to help us realise our vision. We are speaking of course of that great latin tradition of the via – meaning ‘in betweenyness’ and ‘on-the-way – to-ness’. Some call this mysticism and tomfoolery. I call it urban regeneration!

The way, the path of ‘via’ requires an understanding of fluidity. That tradition of viscosity that has allowed many dark skinned people and women to appreciate classicism. We must understand that a viaduct is no more than an stony conduit that really wants to be an aqueduct. It maketh me weep to think of a viaduct as the poor relation of its watery cousin!

To that end I propose that the Birmingham viaduct is sprayed with highpowered hoses by community groups until it collapses. I estimate that this will take 56 years. The local wildlife will not be affected.

The Baltic rebrand as Balti© - Art, Architecture and Food Commission Opportunities The Balti© is a major international centre for contemporary art and curry.

BALTIC has no permanent collection, providing instead an ever-changing calendar of exhibitions and events that give a unique and compelling insight into contemporary art and curry. BALTIC’s dynamic, diverse and international programme ranges from blockbuster exhibitions to innovative new recipes and projects created by artists working within the community and local restaurants.

Balti© is a place where visitors can experience innovative and provocative new art and curry, relax, eat, learn and discover new tastes.

Balti© is an international leader in the ambitious and distinctive presentation, commissioning, development and communication of contemporary visual art and curry.

Two opportunities are available: Architecture £300 000 is available for a sympathetic re-designing of the exterior and interior of the building to celebrate the fusion of Contemporary art and curry Exhibition

£80,000 is available to an artist or artist group to put on a major exhibition celebrating contemporary art and curry.

Please outline your expression of interest for either commission opportunity in 400 words or less.

1 hour Proposal A The Balti© Architecture Before the visitors enter the new, improved Balti© they will be greeted by the chap who used to stand in front of The Celebrity Indian Restaurant on Broad Street, Birmingham. Full moustache and ice cream wafer hat on show.

Ground floor/starters: Visitors are received into a typical street scene start out of New Delhi.

Artists and street vendors will mingle with the visitors offering them food cooked at the sides or guided tours of their exhibitions or “one off pieces of ground breaking art” (usually a badly printed copy of that tennis player scratching her arse). Young, up and coming art students will offer shoe shines for sponsorship deals to get them through to graduation.

First Floor/Steak and chips: The mildest of visual nutrition. Arena posters of that bloke and the baby intermingled with bloody Jack Vettriano's couple on that beach and what not. The attendants will openly sneer at anyone on this floor, don't care if you're being ironic you still wouldn't know art if it came up and tickled your testicles. Piss off back to Castle Galleries why don't you, pleb. (if you go to an Indian restaurant and order Steak and chips you deserve all you get. Even my dad has curry and he's not the most adventurous of eaters you know) Second Floor/Korma: Having by-passed the utter rubbish on the floor below you enter the start of the good stuff. Still nice things that will look good on the white wall of your quay side apartment/matchbox. Nothing spectacular you

understand but your get the odd chin stroke and nod from your “arty” friends at least.

Third Floor/Rogan Josh: Spicier and spicier. Now we'll talking. We've even gone to the trouble of tarting the place up a bit around the paintings. Some nice lighting and the first appearance of flock wallpaper. Don't worry we've got an attendant nearby who is Twitting pictures of those who mistake the wallpaper for art.

Forth Floor/Madras: The good stuff starts here. Not your wishy washy stuff downstairs.

We've got photos of that bed from Emin and a couple of pots from that tranny Perry (“Gayson” we call him in the office). Not to mention this is where we held the piss up for the Turner Prize last time, god what a night.

Fifth Floor/Vindaloo: What's that smell. That's the lost, recreated Jackson Pollock you're standing in you pillock. Oh your new shoes will be ruined, as that's not paint we've used but a chicken vindaloo. Don't worry you're not the first. As you walk to the bogs to wash your shoes (suede, bad luck sunshine) you're see the row of photos of the other gormless prats who have stepped into that masterpiece. By the time you come out of the loos your photo will be up there (yours for £25 down in “starters”).

Sixth Floor/Phah: Here we go the full experience. Join us in the three and a half star restaurant where our chefs will cook off cuts of Daimen's pickled cow to your strength*. The best valour seats ready to soak in your spilt beer (told you to drink it from the bottle ya pounce.) (*nothing below Madras. Remember you're in Gateshead ya poof, we've got standards here you know.)

Arts Council: We’re All Going On A Summer Holiday And Learning Something About Engagement The Arts Council have announced plans for a commission that has to include arts council employees (approximately 500) going on summer holiday and having a nice time, whilst learning something about engagement.

The proposed project can involve any creative form, be mass participative, last 1 week and be based anywhere in the UK. Proposals will be favoured that increase our employees knowledge of public engagement. £100,000 /350 words /I hour Proposal A The Arts Council are a lovely bunch of people, and will do their best to help. Did you know that in foreign countries like Spain and other places, that an Arts Council is considered a luxury, and artists have to beg, steal and borrow to fund their own projects, to mostly an indifferent audience? Be aware of that next time you moan that they have declined your proposal because you’ve forgotten to accurately pinpoint the exact funding costs, nor have show exactly how your project will benefit the wider community (as frightening as that sounds.) So, what the deal is, is that the Arts Council will go on a lovely roadshow on a converted double decker bus, and go to popular seaside resorts such as Filey, Scunthorpe and Margate, where peoples idea of engagement with the arts means waiting on the phone to get through on ‘Points Win Prizes’ on ITV’s ‘This Morning.’ However! The popular-photographer-of-thepeople Martin Parr is on hand to put this right with the fee money and he will be snapping away at his representation of the working-class (?) community and install his exhibitions on the rickety old piers where locals can coo and gasp at themselves and their friends sipping from mugs of tea in run-down cafes whilst dressed in jogging bottoms and blazers (and that’s just the women.)

The great thing is, there will be some who mock Parr’s work, saying that he is indulging in cultural tourism and poverty-porn, and they will sit behind their laptops sneering and denigrating in mass debate on a community forum whilst this jolly is happening. The most arrogant of these commenters will win a competition, and will be driven to one of the seaside towns that’s furthest away, and put in some stocks, be forced to watch a stream of daytime TV compered by Jessie J and

Will.I.Am and have rotten fruit and veg pelted at them until they learn to get a grip and stop their mithering. That’ll learn’em.

Proposal B The Arts Council today announced plans to take their entire workforce on a team building Holiday exercise to Minehead.

However, in an ambitious attempt to improve staff engagement with local art scenes employees will only receive their free weeks holiday after taking part in an elaborate ‘Arts training’ exercise which will begin by all staff being theatrically kidnapped and left in a neighbouring arts council region.

Blindfolded and tied to a brown cultural attraction road sign in the middle of a roundabout, they will have to reform in to their own region’s Turning Point arts team ‘behind enemy lines’ and get themselves to the nearest art gallery, whilst remaining incognito and possibly posing as lost delegates of a cancelled Waitrose shareholders conference.

Discerning their initial location by the price of a Frappochino Latte, they will only be allowed to get to the gallery by asking non-arty looking passers by for directions, and act only on the directions they receive, even if this means repeatedly returning to the same greetings card shop and asking if there’s an art work for the biennale in the back office.

Once at the real Art Gallery, they will have to pose as gallery volunteers and given a clipboard, tasked with ambushing people wandering in to use the toilet with vague, cryptic questions that match those posed in the evaluation reports of failed National Portfolio organisations.

Armed with this information they will then be able to set up small artist studios and produce a series of limited edition prints, which they will quickly sell to local philanthropists. Once they have made a minimum of £27,350 they will receive an automated email from Nick Serota directing them to get to the nearest seaport, fast.

Here, waving a range of different coloured arts festival tote bags, they will be allowed to board a flotilla of boats hastily built in a pre arranged residency at JD Sports by Simon Starling. For the next month they will slowly float around the coast of Britain to Minehead pier, where all teams will disembark for a week-long screening of Lux cinema archives.

Exhausted, 86 coaches have been chartered for their return to their regional Hives on the last day of September, conveniently coinciding with the national deadline for GFTA awards, which will now be decided by a team of local head teachers on a staff development day at Manchester Evening News Arena.