Drinking Art

Now here's a piece of performance art that I could get intoAllurements of Mass Media by Anti-Cool: "A performance artist's show which saw her spend three hours balancing on a beam while becoming drunk on lager has been defended by theatre officials. "

Sounds like someone found a way to get shitfaced, make a twat of themselves in public and call it art. I had to go to university to do that! Oh well, at least she's sharing: "There were 48 bottles, but she did not drink all of those. Some of those she suspended from her neck by a rope inviting the audience to cut them away and take them for themselves."

The council may have missed the point:

Mr Patel, a Labour councillor for the Canton ward, said: "I don't agree with any binge drinking, regardless of what it is. I think it is inappropriate that a performance of this nature is staged in the public bar area - it should have been behind closed doors."

He added: "If she was drunk then that concerns me and it sends out the wrong message. It is an arts centre but it also has a cinema and it is all open, so if young people were to walk through the main door they would've seen that."

Mr Patel you are a nob. You have given the kind of reaction to 'binge drinking' that one might expect for public sodomy. Young people can see far worse binge drinking than that walking through Cardiff City Centre after a rugby match, something they are far more likely to do (and which may possibly involve public sodomy). Also it is taking place in a bar a bar i.e. a licensed premesis so anyone going in there is over 18 and so will be well accustomed to the effects of alchohol abuse.

Multiple choice section

Now Mr P. take the position of an 18 year old walking into a bar and seeing Anti-Cool at work, your reaction would be:

1. Look at that nutter! What the bloody hell is she doing?
2. What a bunch of pretentious wank that is
3. She's gonna fall off that surely, I'll have to stick around and see what happens
4. She's giving away free beer! Brilliant!
5. All ofthe above

And once again Mr P. this makes it:

1. A self-indulgent and pretentious piece of crap
2. An engaging and interesting public artwork
3. An unsubtle and heavy handed commentary on the contempory media environment
4. A slightly provocative performance with its's tongue firmly in cheek
5. An over-thought conceptual spectacle that has failed to realise that its' own artifice may render it innappropriate for its' intended purpose
6. A Japanese bird getting hammered balancing on a beam
7. All of the above

Amazingly enough it is the last option in both cases - astonishing eh?

I've been to Chapter and it is tucked away in the backstreets as it used to be a highschool. Whilst it does have a cinema it would have to be a fairly unusual 'young person' that would go in there. The vast majority of films they show are not exactly aimed at attracting 'young people'. My suggestion is that we let the silly artsy people do their thing in peace, after all some of it is quite interesting, and remember you are allowed to laugh at it.