Failure or not a Failure?

I've sent the starvation diet idea off to a group exhibition about failed art. I'm not really sure if this is failed art but thought that it threw up some interesting ideas about when and why we judge something failed.
The text from this is here:

Starvation Diet Failure Statement

“Starvation Diet” is an art/ life project based around food inequality. The premise was that I resisted food I didn’t need and gave the money saved to charity. The process was documented through, photography, film, text and currently resides on a blog site and a half finished book. As the project developed it involved others in “Starvation Diet, the next generation”, explored an idea called “Extreme Starvation Diet” generated a shared weighing scales element and resulted in my losing 2 stone and giving £367.00 to the charity practical action.

Why do I consider it a failed work?

The true nature of it as failure or success will only be evident at the moment of my death. The aim is to raise £10,000 in my lifetime and to remain at a healthy weight. The work is currently in a state of failure as I am putting on weight, have not donated in 3 months and have stopped noting the things I have resisted. The Next generation have not carried on with the project. The work is part of an effort to create slower art with less of a discernable end. This form of art brings up all sorts of issues around success and failure. At what date do we decide on a projects success and how does this choice of date skew this? When the lines between life and art blur are there more pit falls and less artistic control. As artists do we have the tenacity to stay with long term projects and not be distracted by new ideas and works.

Looking back

Was just looking back at my starvation diet blog and realised that I haven't included anything about the Interactive scales project. The idea came about when I was considering buying a set of scales to weigh myself with. I decided that it was daft to posses something which you would use so infrequently. I also saw a way of picking up my activity levels. I set the rules for weigh in that:
I had to weigh myself on somebody else's set of scales
I had to get there under my own steam
I could only use each set of scales once.

So it began and was charted here:
http://www.bethbarlow.com/completed_pages/scales_map.html

A long time missing-the temptation to stop because its lost its novelty

This was supposed to be a life project but its turning out to be tricky to keep it in the forefront of my mind. As with lots of art projects they slip in and out of focus and so has my commitment to this. I have started filling in my sheets again and trying to resist. I can feel the inches coming back on a little and I know its perverse but the thing which makes me want to refocus is seeing others about me who have extra weight. In this country we hear common phrases like " I just don't know how I got like this." " I hate myself for being this fat." and people passify with phrases like " Your not fat your just cuddly." or " There are plenty of people bigger than you are." or say of you " You have lovely hair." which is a sure fire distraction from the issue. I haven't decided if we should hate ourselves for being overweight. Not because it looks bad and might turn others off their dinners but because of the moral obligation to eat our fair share and nothing more. This has made me think of an art experiment, possibly the opposite of the extreme Starvation diet where I ate only rice and porridge. In this new work I would have a big cheap and nasty cake, I would chop it into slices one huge and one just a slither. The tiny bit I would give to someone, maybe my son to eat. Maybe I wouldn't tell him why he was only getting a small piece and I was going to eat every other bit. The other I would plough through myself. Maybe it could be filmed with flash images of the needy, too fast that they don't register on the concious. Maybe this is just striving after novelty again though and I just need to keep on with the mundane, both for the sake of the art, life and the message. I shall ponder on the validity of this one.

Your diet with others in toe

Its hard to stick to my guns when other people pop up. I realise how far from other peoples every day reality my life is. It sticks in my gut to see food thrown away. Its hard to justify the expenditure on a meal which I can't eek out for two days. Maybe I am too stuck in my ways or maybe its just about reaching a happy food compromise.

A whole month into the void

Where does time go to. I knew that I had been really slack with documenting my starvation diet resists in my log charts but went to fill them in today and found that they were more than 2 months behind. October is a right off, I can barely remember what I had for tea last night never mind a month ago. November is a rough approximation with lots of "Resisted nothing"'s filling in the blanks. It amounts to an unknown amount of money not filtering through to the charity of my choice and I feel bad about that. I'm not sure if I've piled on any extra weight with all this slap dashedness.

Peer pressure

Writing the title for this blog sent my mind off on a tangent about pier pressure, the pressure you experience when walking along a pier at the seaside. Pressure to purchase candyfloss, shells made into tiny animals, go on bouncy castles and arcade games. But this is not the kind of pressure I really set out to write about. Hanging around with somebody else this week Its been funny to note how frugal I have become. Bacon for dinner on a Thursday, what extravagance. Bacon chopped up really small and added to a cauliflower cheese much more the ticket, four meals at under a pound. I also don't see any of this as a sacrifice more as a challenge. The only problem is convincing others that having less is not detrimental to your life but instead brings.... hmmm what does it bring? Pause. I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Maybe its a smugness which is strangely satisfying, maybe it is a certain kind of safety to know that you can live on next to no money if you really have to.

To Book or not to Book?

I am in two minds about if Starvation Diet Should become a book. I keep putting it off and can't decide if that is because that's not what it should be or I don't want to do the work. I suspect that the only way to know might be to start. Or maybe I need to think about what purpose the book would serve. Would it be a book for the person in the street or a bit of high brow artistry? Could it be both? I want it to be a reading experience if its going to be a book at all. A sit down with a cuppa, clean hands and anticipation of enjoyment kind of a read. Sorry, headed off for a bit of internet research there and have come back with this:

Why do artists make books?

"Artists may use other media such as painting or printmaking but for some of their work only the book adequately fulfils their idea.

There is affection for the book as an object and a recognition of its long history as a container of information and ideas. The book form also lends authority to its contents. People understand books because they are accustomed to reading them. Books are very intimate artworks. When you read a book, you are in control. Unlike a painting on a wall, you hold it in your hands, you turn the pages, you touch it and smell it. Only you decide how long it will take, and you don't have to share the experience. Artists like the close connection with their audience that they can have through artists' books.

Books are sequential, with ideas and stories building up as each page is turned. This allows complex ideas to be developed within one artwork.

Different binding forms can be used to reinforce an idea, for example a binding that continually folds in on itself could house a never-ending story. Materials used can also relate to and tell part of the story."

I do want a container of information and ideas, I want authority to the contents. I want a form which is easy to understand and has an understood convention. Touching it and smelling it is good. The way that I want to set it up does involve an element of sharing in that people will be asked to pass the book on. I'm not sure how sequential I want it to be. I've considered materials like rice paper and starch paper to convey the idea of an edible book which people can choose to either eat or read. Think that maybe this gets rid of the idea of it as a book somehow though. Its a nice idea cause it fits so well with the concepts but is it a step too far? Will have to get some paper to try.

Funny how the focus has completely changed now that an object has reared its head. Is this a good thing?