jonnybaker

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you still can't hold back the light

you still can't hold back the lght, originally uploaded by jonnybaker.

see you can't hold back the light

another pic from the slot festival taken in poland in the old monastery

le tour

in life's madness at the moment i haven't yet mentioned the tour de france. but as ever when around we watch itv's hour summary every night of each stage. it's been a pretty exciting year so far with lance armstrong back aged 38 and currently only 2 seconds off the lead - surely he can't win?! mark cavendish equalled the most stage wins ever by a british rider with his fourth stage win this tour and i'm sure he'll win more. he is simply brilliant. let's hope he makes it through the alps next week to win on the champs d'elysée. it's also been great to see bradley wiggins giving it a real go this year and sticking with the elite riders in the mountains. he is currently in 5th. watching the alpe d'huez in the alps last year is still a wonderful family memory though it seems a while back now...

fractured broken and beautiful - dubh

dubh (pronounced "duv") is irish for dark (and a bit dubby). it's also the guise for ikon's own jonny mcewen who has recorded his first solo album fractured broken and beautiful. you couldn't get a more honest title - it sums up the music perfectly. made on a laptop, a couple of synths, a kaos pad and samples this instrumental electronica is dubbed out, trippy, warm, mellow, chilled, gorgeous, ambient, almost dub step in places. it's hard to know what to compare it to. it's a very unique sound with a real edge, an instant proost favourite!

somewhat confusingly the title of ikon's album was
dubh but this time round the artist is dubh!! and just to confuse you a little more we also have an album coming out on proost shortly by dubb :-)

there is a dubh facebook group you can join and listen to a few tracks online. go say hi to jonny and become a fan! this is the sort of release that reminds me why proost exists. it's hard to imagine any christian record label releasing anything like this!

it's currently available just as a download in the audio section of the site though a physical product is in the pipeline in time for greenbelt in a cardboard recycled sleeve as proost gets eco friendly. (if you subscribe you get access to it in the downloads area as part of your subscription).

think stream

the rise of social distribution networks is a good (long) piece (ht nic). i liked the concept of streams:

A stream. A real time, flowing, dynamic stream of information — that we as users and participants can dip in and out of and whether we participate in them or simply observe we are are a part of this flow...

...This world of flow, of streams, contains a very different possibility set to the world of pages.   Among other things it changes how we perceive needs.  Overload isnt a problem anymore since we have no choice but to acknowledge that we cant wade through all this information.   This isnt an inbox we have to empty,  or a page we have to get to the bottom of — its a flow of data that we can dip into at will but we cant attempt to gain an all encompassing view of it. 

the project - if you're in scotland...

the project is on 20 june in edinburgh, a day of

arts – faith – theology – ecology – politics –philosophy - spirituality - justice
…or basically celebration, inspiration, irreverence, profundity, laughter, tears, questions, argument, friendship, shivers up the spine - add your own noun to the list.

there's a listing of the programme here (scroll down) which it includes the likes of beki bateson, doug gay, steve butler, julie wilson, john bell, iain archer. looks wonderful!

surprising wedding

the kingdom of god is like...? here's a parable that is as good an answer as i've seen for a while.

on a mission to cause scenes of chaos and joy in public places improv everywhere do a load of stuff but this surprise wedding is simply wonderful.

worship curation [3]: negotiating newness

worship curation [1]: opening up a series of reflections
worship curation [2}: the making of a world

i have just finished reading A Brief History of Curating by Hans Ulrich Obrist (thanks nic). his concern is that curation may be forgotten and so has conducted eleven extensive interviews with well known curators to help the memory live on. i say well known but part of the curator's role is often to disappear behind their work so i didn't really know the names very well at all.

it's fascinating seeing the themes that surface again and again in different ways in the interviews and with the lens i bring to reading i am looking to scrape off the surface themes that resonate with curation in worship. one of the strongest is negotiating newness in art in the midst of the public, artists, museums, galleries, benefactors and patrons, and the range of institutions and powers at play in the art world. in short the curator is most definitely a negotiator, a middleman or middlewoman even if that wasn't what they signed up for! (sound familiar?)

some curators locate themselves at the independent freelance end of things so they have the creative space to fulfil their vision. they problematise the institutions and the art world and haven't got time for them. so seth siegelaub calls the museum 'a cemetery for art' with its focus on historicisation. and sees no point in working with a museum because of its vested social and structural interests. art institutions can be very detached from artists which ends up being a real problem so why bother with them? in an article i want to come back to in curating subjects it made me smile when okwui enwezor says that the day curators want a permanent job they have reached a threshold! it so sounds like the debates around mission and sustainability and ordination/full time paid or not...

on the other hand there are plenty who managed to take roles inside the museums and used that to negotiate permissions for artists to do amazing things in and around those huge spaces. obrist suggest in questions to curators that a couple of keys to the curators who have managed to create the most impact in and around museums have been their own closeness to artists and their ability to create trust in the interplay between the institution, the public and the artists. without that trust you won't be able to do much but once it's there who knows what can happen? sandberg talked about the courage to run a museum in a non academic experimental way - but you're not going to do that without a lot of graft in building trust.

there have been a couple of significant changes in museums in particular. one was that museums stopped just seeing themselves as showing permanent collections. but warehoused the artworks to create different kinds of themed shows bringing the good stuff out from time to time and showing it in different ways, making different articulations and connections with it. and the second was a shift in some museums seeing themselves as sites for experimentation. at art historians day in 1970 michael diers says that it became clear that museums had to say goodbye to their isolation, to their function as an aesthetic church (!). out of this emerged the idea of the museum as a workshop or laboratory. johannes cladders talked about the museum as a space of risk (which I love). i remember going to an amazing evening at the victoria and albert museum in london with DJs and projections, and an evening of installations in traditional spaces by onedotzero – that definitely had this laboratory feel. i suspect that if you rewound, things used to be a lot more stuffy!

my response to this debate is pretty similar to how i feel about the wonderfully creative mission leaders, improvisers and worship curators who have been part of the emerging church/alternative worship movement that has subverted, shaken, deconstructed and brought newness to the christian faith in the soil of postmodern cultures at the edges and in the heart of the institutions. let's have both and everything inbetween! i love it that there are curators who want to sail off the edge and do things that the institution cannot imagine or permit. and i also love it that there are those who patiently earn trust and negotiate space within the heart of the church. the beauty of the new environment is that it's so easy for those people to connect and share their learning and stories and journey together. can you imagine a cathedral employing a curator to play in their cathedral which they see as a laboratory and a space of risk with a wealth of artworks (theological capital?) that's been warehoused but that the curator can bring out of the cupboard to create new articulations with imagination holding up and subverting the continuity of the tradition? renewal that comes from the centre and the edge

interview with kalle lasn of adbusters

kalle lasn interview

geez and experiments in truth

i was contacted by geez magazine a while back to ask permission to use a photo. i was delighted to be asked having heard good things about the magazine (and pleased that that is the third magazine i have had a photo in this year). well yesterday a copy dropped on the doormat. hailing from canada, it looks great, is intelligent, funny and poignant. a couple of the people working on it have done time with adbusters which didn't surprise me - it has a similar feel. on the 'feel' of the magazine the eds replied in the letters page to someone who didn't like the name by saying that they wanted a name that suggests they are in the realm of religion but not in a typical way, that the exploration of topics is more like saturday evening over beers than sunday morning with its strictures. each issue has a theme. the current one is inspired by gandhi's notion of experiments in truth (which i was inspired by in mark scandrette's book a couple of years back) - put legs on an idea try something out such as downward mobility or sit in public, see what happens. don't just sit there theorising. the magazine is like greenbelt - i.e. it's a space in church life where you actualy feel good about being a christian rather than embarrassed if you know what i mean. the magazine has been running a daringly awkward sermon contest - 300 words only. the nest issue will have a bundle of winners.

on the subject of magazines conspire also looks like an interesting new zine on the block birthed out of the simple way community - a different approach to how the economics and distribution works, with communities subscribing to be able to distribute it free having signed up and agreed to donate towards it as a community.

we are doing our own experiment in truth again this week - off to run dekhomai at the london mind body spirit festival chatting with, listening to, praying with, massaging feet of, making prayer bracelets with, doing jesus deck readings for visitors to our stand. the experiment? take christian spirituality out of the church box and into the spiritual marketplace and join in with what god is already doing... if you pray, do pray for us. we hope the 'energy is strong' in our booth :-)

spotify collaborative playlist - worship trick 67

matt who co-ordinates the DJs for the grace cafe each month came up with a fun idea for last week. he created a collaborative playlist on spotify and then invited a few of us to contribute in the week. you simply drag and drop tracks into it. then at grace the soundtrack in the cafe was that playlist on random play... collaborative DJing! worship trick 67 series 3. apologies if you are in a country where spotify isn't licensed!

in the spirit of collaboration i have created a jb blog readers collaborative playlist. so if you are a blog reader of mine and want to drop some tunes you are listening to on spotify in there then here's the http link and the spotify url

mission in a consumer culture - blah type event with pete ward

mission in consumer culture is a half day at cms on thurs 11 june in oxford exploring mission in a consumer culture with pete ward and then myself and cathy ross responding. you can book online. if you remember the day we had with brian walsh and sylvia keesmaat, it's furthering the discussion around the relationship between faith and culture. pete's latest book is excellent on this relationship - i reviewed it here.

blah... as a series of events/conversations has gone quiet but i guess this is certainly a blah... type of event. here's the blurb

How should Mission relate to a consumer culture?

Some like to argue that the Christian faith as an 'alternative way' in an alien market driven world. So the Church is a community of those who resist the prevailing consumerist trend.

But is this the only possible approach? Is it possible that Mission in the West requires us to seek to express or contextualise faith in consumer culture?

This half day will explore the possibilities and limitations of Mission as contextualisation in a consumer culture.

don't be average

don't be average . i love this attitude...

bill viola 2 pieces in london as part of mythologies exhibition

i called in to the new haunch of venison gallery which is amazing - at least i assume it's their new gallery or maybe they've just used the space for this exhibition? it's the old museum of mankind and has a lot of space in rooms throughout. the current exhibition mythologies explores stories we tell about the world in order to understand it. damien hirst has a piece in there along with a stack of other artists but i really went along because i noticed bill viola had a couple of pieces in it. if you've not come across his work he is a video installation artist whose work explores spritual themes. i have seen a load of his work in london over the years - angels of the millenium, messenger, a solo exhibition with haunch of venison, passions...

one of the pieces is called incarnation and has two naked figures - seemingly referencing adam and eve, but maybe just humanity - who are in grey blurred in the distance. they slowly walk towards the scren and reach out a hand to go through a sheet of water. as they do so they turn from grey to colour, look around in wonder before eventually returning. the other piece small saints has 6 small screens, much like icons. on each a figure makes a similar journey from the gloom through a wall of water into the light and colour. the figures stand prayerfully or reflective before turning and returning. the sequences probably take around 10 minutes.

i read up in the catalogue what bill vioa had to say about them and he talks about transfigurations, or awakenings where a person undergoes a total transformation, the world comes alive, is seen in new ways. it's an inner transformation that is being referenced.

i was transfixed by these pieces. they would make perfect imagery for baptism passing from death to life or light to darkness. i don't think for a moment that that is what viola had in mind but it's so striking - in fact a lot of his pieces would fit perfectly with baptism. he is definitely interested in the threshold of change between life and death, this world and the next.

it's on until 25 april - go if you get the chance.

heaven UNKLE

UNKLE heaven with spike jonze

update: thanks to darren wright - download the movie here

something old something new - hamilton stations a perfect example

something old something new is an article i wrote for the leadership journal in their current issue. the piece has just been put online. in some ways it's nothing that i haven't said a few times before but i'm quite pleased with it...

it opens up talking about stations of the cross in hamilton run by dave white and friends (which i previously blogged about here taking street art to a new level when i met dave last year) which is a curious case of good timing as this year's stations of the cross is running in hamilton as we speak. you can see photos of them here and the audio for the stations is also online - it looks wonderful as ever.

stations opening - glad and surprised it's not more religious!

the launch of the stations of the cross in oxford last night went really well. jam factory is a great space for it - art gallery meets bar and it means the art isn't just seen by gallery visitors. i expect there will be plenty of visitors. the range of media and types of art is broad and there are some really good pieces. this station of christ's scourging and crowning with thorns is by clay sinclair drawing on imagery now etched in our minds to do with guantanamo bay - simple yet powerful.

ian adams and matt rees are the two drivers behind stillpoint and they are chatting here with the gallery manager who seemed really pleased. she said to me that she was pleased and surprised it wasn't more religious - i'm not exactly sure what people think religious is but that sounded like good feedback anyway!

i took a few photos of the launch and some of the pieces. i'm about to head off for spring harvest (yes i know - first time i've been in years! - am doing some teaching and running an alternative to the big top celebrations each evening - reflective readings) so haven't had time to even add photos of my piece or others to flickr. but i'll blog about that later in the week assuming there is wireless internet and what i was thinking.

ian adams stunned everyone with his painting claiming he doesn't paint much but on this showing he definitely needs to do more. i'll add that nearer easter. the exhibition is on for two weeks so if you're in oxford go and visit - the perfect good friday thing to do...

whack pack, oblique strategies and bloom apps

i recently got an ipod touch (didn't feel i spend enough for the iphone) and have been amazed how good it is. the movie quality is amazingly good. i've found myself watching quite a few things on bbc iplayer on it. and i love the apps. if you haven't seen one, the apps are the applications created to run on the ipod touch or iphone. anything from a dictionary, a spirit level, games, underground map, twitter feed, facebook, mail and so on...

there's a lot of creative potential for them i think. if i had more time i'd investigate how to create them. hopefully someone will produce something worthy of a worship trick before long...

roger von oech and brian eno have been quick off the mark with their creative thinking card sets. back in the 70s oblique stratgies was a set of cards created by brian eno. the idea is turn up a card and follow the instruction if you need a spark. you must follow the rule... similarly the creative whack pack by roger turns some of the creative ideas in a whack on the side of the head into a set of cards. i've got both sets as cards. but i couldn't resist getting the apps as well.

in both cases the app is simple. click on the screen and a card is randomly selected.

on the subject of brian eno, another wonderful app is bloom - touch the screen to create ambient sounds that create a soundscape - it's surprisingly brilliant!

YPC - spoof young peoples church

young peoples church is a hilarious spoof from horne and corden, a new sketch show in the uk. it is also painful - like a lot of good comedy it sails close to the mark.

YPC part 1
YPC part 2

pipedown

a new music blog pipedown is launched today by joel and 3 friends - jack , simon and matt. there are 4 mixes of ten tunes - one mix from each of them, a soundcloud drop box where you can place a tune you'd like them to hear and the promise of a buzz about music and culture so i assume tunes, reviews, club nights and so on.

the design (as you might expect) is very neat. they've taken up the notion of web presences through icons which i picked up on my blog in my redesign - but stripped it back. i particularly like the icon stream next to each name. in my view the header's too big - on a lot of computers it will fill half the screen... but it looks likely to be a good space for music. i doubt it will be just be on a dance tip either though that will be the main flow - jack brings a different edge with a love of alternative bands and song writing. the challenge will be whether a group blog works for them - not many i know out there keep the momentum. but if you launch on april 1 i guess it's a sign of not taking yourselves too seriously! (which reminds me that was the date i started my current job ;-)  )

so follow along in whatever online presence you are accustomed to hanging out in...