Join a spatially distributed reading group via online communication platforms. We will start with Dark Matter: Art & Politics in the Age of Enterprise & Culture (2010) by Gregory Sholette. All you need is an Internet connection.

Exploring expanded art practices as redundancy or resistance? This reading group will meet weekly on Thursdays online beginning with work by artist and author Gregory Sholette who will be appearing at Skibbereen Arts Fesival this summer. Please contact me to get involved for more information click here

Clearing the right of way to the fourth entrance to the Rock on High St (lower) in dappled sunshine and great company.

Its not easy to get started again after the long break. Its fantastic to get the support of the artist in the community scheme, but in the intervening time between research phase and now we have got out of the habit of meeting. Summer brings with it lots of urgency to do things in the garden, in and on the sea and with other groups. So myself and Nick went to Lissard today to try out walking in procession singing/chanting and making noise. It was a perfect afternoon. We had the place to ourselves, glorious sunshine, glades of bluebells and the coolest lake. So its ideal for practicing. So we will meet there again next week.

Core group participant biographies being collected ; Lorelie Tomko was born in New Jersey and raised in Seattle. She has lived in several US States also in Mexico, Kenya, Italy and Wales. While living in Wales she trained to be a spiritual healer and feels privileged to use this ability to help others. For over 25 years she has been active in theatre in Kenya, Italy, Wales, Washington and California. Now living in West Cork she is an avid hiker, poet and author of Say Jambo to the Man.

Reddy spent some time taking photos today as a resource to the project online. We have reserved the website domain urbanexplorerproject.com and the Facebook name Skibbereen Urban Explorer for use in the next phase

When is an event participatory and when is it not – when is an event like a conference and when is it not – lots of semantics this week and we struggle to make ourselves understood to ourselves and each other. Pictured above is one of the access points to the Rock, that needs clearing to open up the right of way again. With the help of some guerrilla gardeners we should be sorted.

Talking tech this week – Nick brought Ableton’s Push pad-based controller to create and perform music, with loads of instruments & effects, so hoping to develop somethings specific for the arts centre with this technology – discussed documentation and social media to capture participant experiences to be edited into a single short film – will establish a Facebook page to hold content and mediate work prior to the event – It’s hard to establish way of communicating in between meetings – some people use facebook some don’t, some use mobile phones some don’t, some use email some don’t… I guess thats why people have meetings.

Working as a group getting things down on paper is tough – so we projected the text onto the wall and took it apart moved cut and pasted until we were happy with the summary project description.