Saturday 5 September 2015

Dismaland; the big sell.

Where do I start?

How lucky am I that Banksy put on a show while I was still well enough to make it?

And we got tickets too - the hottest tickets in town!

So many images, so much to say about it all.



This is what the brochure says;

                                           ------//-----
Are you looking for an alternative to the soulless sugar-coated banality of the average family day out?

Or just somewhere cheaper.

Then this is the place for you—a chaotic new world where you can escape from mindless escapism. Instead of a burger stall, we have a museum. In place of a gift shop we have a library, well, we have a gift shop as well.

Bring the whole family to come and enjoy the latest addition to our chronic leisure surplus—a bemusement park.

A theme park whose big theme is: theme parks should have bigger themes…

This event contains adult themes, distressing imagery, extended use of strobe lighting, smoke effects and swearing.

The following items are strictly prohibited: knives, spraycans, illegal drugs, and lawyers from the Walt Disney corporation.
                                        -----//-----

It was a collective work of about 50 artists although as very few were named who could be sure who did what?

If I've got any wrong, I'm sorry.

There were some very obvious Banksy images throughout the park;



And this too;



But how about this?


This is definitely Banksy;

 
 
And I think this was too;
 
 
I had an amazing time; there were things that really moved me and I had a lot (and I mean a lot) of laughs too. Robyn responded to totally different things to me....and there were plenty of people who didn't get it or didn't like it when they got it.
 
I'm going to do a whole series of Blogs about Dismaland, I think it's a very significant event and it needs something more than the superficial to do it justice.
 
And there was such a lot there!
 
Just to give one example; the whole time there's a series of 24 short videos running on a screen. I wasn't interested at all - I've had terrible experiences watching bad, self indulgent video art in pompous galleries. I wasn't going to waste precious time at that again.
 
Of course, Robyn made me stop and watch!
 
And it really hurt too! There were deck chairs but I couldn't use them with my back and there were steps to sit on but they were too low for me to get up.
 
So after about three hours in the park it really, really hurt to watch.
 
I couldn't take my eyes off them.
 
Many of the clips have been on the internet before - some are by artists, some are just by people - that's what the internet is like....it's an open city.
 
I've tracked down a couple and you really should take a look.
 
They don't take long.
 
This one was smuggled out of Syria, at very great risk. Click on the link here;
 
                                                    ISIS Video.
 
 
 
It doesn't take too long to work out that that was a Banksy production!
 
How about this glorious video - an example how a protest involving a little bit of courage, a fair bit of brains and not very much money can burst a very big and expensive balloon on it's big day.
 
I laughed like a drain;
 
                  Greenpeace at the Belgian Grand Prix.
 
 I'm not sure I can do it justice but over the next few days I'll try to give you a tour of Dismaland!
 
 
 
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
 
 
 
 


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