You Is Here Are Here Now! It has begun!

The You Are Here festival starts today and I have poked my nosey-beak into the Hub to investigate.

It's beautiful and warm and assembling itself around me and this is how a You Are Here starts.

I hope you've already combed the program for the events you're interested in.

(Looking for a hot hint? Try hitting up Free Music for Rich Kids this Friday night! Ainslie Place stage from 9, BE THERE! I'VE HEARD THINGS! *WINK*)

The hunt for meaning with the document and the "Artifact" continues, and the arts war is becoming more and more aggressive.

For those keeping score, the ANU Art School, the Canberra Musicians Club, and The Street Theatre have all been claimed as territory by T-Bone. It sounds pretty impressive (and T-Bone has been confident enough to post an especially crazy anecdote) when listed like that, and it is impressive, but don't forget that the rest of Canberra, including the You Are Here festival itself is still Mr B's domain.  Also of note is the positions of the great Guilds of Art (Music, Theatre and Writing) who have all declared independence of the conflict.

Of course individual artists have their own loyalties despite the choices of their representative guilds, local visual artist Paul Summerfield recently declared his allegiance to Mr B and the BMOA for example, and Duncan Felton has sided with T-Bone. Incidentally both sides have launched Twibbon campaigns, so you can publicly declare your allegiance, should you feel inclined.

It appears the BMOA are slowly but surely losing ground, will this inspire an escalation in their efforts to shut T-Bone down? On the subject of BMOA, have you tried the Acceptable Art Quiz yet? A bug seems to have crept in whereby if you hit 'retake the test' you'll see the correct answers! Intriguing - wonder how long it'll be before the BMOA plugs that hole!

T-Bone, Mac, and the Bird seem to be gearing up for another assault on the BMOA, and while the motivations of T-Bone and Mac are discerned easily enough, the Bird's gols are a bit harder to work out. What on Earth is she up to?

Earlier today the Bird referred to today as the "eve of #TheArtifact"on her Twitter account.  Can we assume more information on the Artifact will be forthcoming tomorrow?

Everything is quiet here in the You Are Here Hub, it kind of feels like the calm before the storm... You should probably come down and enjoy the peace and quiet before all hell breaks lose.

Once all hell breaks lose you should come back and enjoy that too.

Super excited.

Again keep your eyes on the #artctrl hashtag and keep checking out the Facebook group where people are trying to solve the mysteries surrounding the artifact.

Current Mood: My body is ready.
Current Music: Backstreet Boys - Backstreet's Back

This whole thing is becoming quite "McDeadly"

The City News have woken up to the war happening in the Canberra arts scene... kind of.

McDeadly? What?

They'll get there eventually I have no doubt, but maybe someone should to direct them to this blog?

As for me I've been keeping a low profile ladies and gentlemen. After the violence (SHE HAD A GIANT GUN) of the launch I figured this art war is likely to get a lore more deadly (regular deadly, not some fast-food variant of it) before it's over, so I've decided to play it safe and keep myself and my identity hidden for the time being. No sense in playing one's hand too soon.

That being said I am still watching and listening to what's happening here.

And things have been happening.

Firstly and most importantly several of my readers have discovered a hidden message in the Document:

"The Artifact Appears."

What is the artifact? Is it anything? Is that the point of this document? Is that the "gift" referred to in the document?

Keep digging guys, there seems to be something going on under the surface here.

The great guilds of art have been recruiting and  keeping their cards close to their chest.

Mac, T-Bone and X have been posting threats on Twitter and the Bird has been posting... well Bird things... but we've got some radio silence from Mr B, possibly trying to keep a low profile after his humiliation at the YAH launch.

The more I try and look into Mr B the less I find and the more unnerved I get. The man's a ghost, and where did he get his own heavily armed kung-fu bodyguard?

What was that he wore around his neck?

T-Bone might be a crazy wildcard, but at least we know that.

It has become apparent how little we know of the man behind the BMOA, which suggests there may well be plenty about the BMOA itself we don't yet understand.

This is getting weirder and more serious by the day, if you want to keep ontop of things keep checking this blog, follow the #artctrl hashtag, and make sure you jump on the Facebook page where a collection of Canberran art fans are trying to piece all of this together.

Good luck, and stay safe everyone.

Also has anyone else been playing the YAH game? My deck is getting pretty McDeadly already. By the time the festival hits I'll be ready to throw down with you all.

Current Mood: Cautious.
Current Music: Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta.

The Official You Are Here Game!

Not content with having covered music, theatre, dance, spoken word, sports events, large scale sword battles, and every other bizarre field of interest that you could possibly expect a festival to cater for, the You Are Here festival this year has released a card game.

That's right, it's a festival card game.

You can download the rules and a game board right here, cards will be available at You Are Here events.

Link to the rules and board.

I'll repost the rules below, as I've noticed they seem to share the same bizarre capitalisationas "the document" that the Bird stole from the BMOA (which I managed to later leak to the public).

The Game

The Game is played between 2 players on 3 x 3 board (the reverse of this sheet can be used as a board). A basic starter deck contains 10 cards. Players may construct a deck of any number of cards (including duplicates), however they begin with 5 cards in their hand and select 1 of these to play each turn.

The goal is to control the largest number of cards at the end of the game. You take control of a card belonging to the other player by playing a card with a greater number on its adjacent edge and then flipping the other player’s card around 180 degrees so its marked corner faces you.
 

How to Play

Both players shuffle their deck and draw 5 cards, keeping them hiDden from the other player. Play a round of rock-paper-scissors to decide who goes first.

Each player takes it in tuRn to place 1 of the cards from their hand in any of the unoccupied 9 squares of the board, with the marked corner facIng towards them. If your card is played next to a card controlled by the other player, compare the numBers along the adjacent edge. If the number on your card is greater than that on your opponent's card, you take control of it and flip it to so the marked edge faces you.

Often the newly flipped card will be adjacent to a different card controlled by the other playEr. Once again, if the number on the adjacent edge of the flipped card is greater tHan the number on the other player’s card, you can also flip it. This is called a ‘cascade’ and it can continue as long as there are cards on the board conTrolled by the other player! If you ever end up with the cHoice between more than 1 card to flip you may only seleCt 1. The cards you control never flip during your own turn.

Play continues until the board is full and any poTential cascades have been resolved. The winner is the player controlling the greAtest number of cards (however, see ‘Pro Tops’ below). It is suggested at the end of each game that you pool all the cards in play and split them in half betWeen the players (randomly, or by the winner’s choice). However, if both players agree before the game begins, you can play for keeps.
 
Pro Tips

• Include some weaker cards in your deck in order to sacrifice.
• You don’t always have to play adjacent to the other player’s card.
• Diamonds are good all round cards.
• Hearts have one very strong side, but 3 weaker ones.
• Spades have strong left and right sides, weaker top and bottom sides.
• Clubs have strong top and bottom sides, weaker left and right sides.
• A greater number of cards controlled at the end of the game does not always equate to a win: if you exchange lots of weaker cards for one very good card, you may still end up ahead!

Meanwhile I'm still digging for into about the Bird, Ms X, Mr B, the Document, T-Bone, Mac, and EVERYTHING ELSE. Keep your ears to the wind, your eyes peeled, and your browsers full of open tabs containing things like the Facebook group, the #artctrl twitter hashtag, BMOA's page, and of course this very blog right here where I'll be posting news as it becomes available.

Keep safe art lovers!

Current Mood: Practcing my game skills!
Current Music: Kenny Rogers - The Gambler.

The Document!

Don't ask me how, because I certainly won't tell, but I've managed to get a copy of the document the Bird stole from X and Mr B at the You Are Here launch!

If you're having trouble reading it, I've copied out the text for you, bizarre capitalisations and all:

It was in the dreaming, not the dreaming, the other dreaming. The dreaming dreamt by rogues, rascalS and railwaymen, the dreams dreamt by surveyors, purveyors and mayors. The dreams dReamt by the underfolk when they are tired past carin’ and the dreAms dreamt by highfolk when the night is quiet and they think no onE is looking.

From this dreaming, this sputum of hoPes gone to dust and ideas that fell into empty pockets it came forth, a gift to the peoPle, a tool for imagining better days. At first it shone with a fevered light from under the LAke which was not there yet, so they called it ‘The Light in the Lake’. Those wise woman and men that knew of it became impaTient with the not there yet lake and took the light up upon the Hill. Alas the Hill was not quite all there so it lay barely used, languid and underpowered like a Datsun 120Y making its way up BlaCk Mountain.

Before the Limestone Plains becAme the Canberra, it already inspired tongues and maniFestos. It whispered the battle plans to James Ainslie while he and his sheep re-enacted the Battle of Waterloo. It was there keeping the surveyor Scrivner inch perfect. It soaked up the convIct cries and listened to the Ngunnawal mob as they sung their histories and talked about how the land had been before the white boTher bums came looking for a place to paRk their sheep. It is said it even planted itself in a hat that whispered all manner of inflammatory comments into King O’Malley’s eAr.

Later, maybe in an ink jar or maybe up one of Burley Griffin’s sleeves it whispEred and sang secret symbols into streets, mysteries into motorways, topograpHy into towns. It could see its long journey ahead, the direction, but never the route. It has wandered through our mystery history shaping great works when it could and keeping the creaTive pulse alive when it had to.

Alrighty, so that's weird. Anyone able to make sense of it?  Jump into the discussion of the Facebook page.

The real question here, is why is this so valuable? What is this "gift to the people" that the document speaks of?

If such an object does exist, and this is its actual history, then that could explain why the Bird was willing to stage down the gun wielding X in order to get her hands on this piece of paper?

I'm starting to feel that there's more to this art war than we've been lead to believe.

As for the document, there's more to this than meets the eye. It very much seems to me like a smaller part of a bigger whole... I'll keep digging.

Also is it just me or do those "typos" look a bit too intentional?

Mystery fans, puzzle fans, and umm... strange document fans, time to step up to the plate. What is going on here?

Current Mood: Intrigued.
Current Music: Peter Andre - Mysterious Girl.

First Blood at the Program Launch

Right!

I'm sure word has reached most of you already, but last night You Are Here Festival managed to have what was probably the most exciting program launch that has ever taken place.

Canberra finally got to see the mysterious Mr B and his accomplice X in the flesh, the latter stamping people's programs to confirm their acceptability, and the former sharing a beer with members of the audience before opening the launch with what probably would have been a very illuminating speech.

I say probably because moments into the speech two costumed hecklers in the front row revealed themselves to be none other than T-Bone and Mac and proceeded to storm the stage.

Any question of the upcoming conflict betweent he two arts scene heavyweights being a peaceful was was immediately thrown out the window as T-Bone's violent threats were countered by X pulling a gun on him.

Yes a GUN. A big one too.

Mac immediately leapt into action performing sort of advanced martial-arts manuver to disarm X, but before these two femme fatales could come to further blows Mac seemed to recognise X. I believe she called her Betty? I'll look into this.

T-Bone ordered a hasty retreat, but not before a third member of their team, the mysterious Bird leapt onto stage and stole a document from X.

Mr B seemed rather concerned at this, ordered X to give chase and then apologised to the audience before leaving himself. The poor You Are Here producers then went ahead with the launch, probably thankful not actual blood had been spilled on their stage.

Does this all sound too unbelievable?

Well fortunately for you I've managed to source some footage of the event.

Watch it now, I've got the feeling the BMOA are going to do their best to have this taken down.




So three things to take away from all this:

• Firstly: AWESOME!
• Secondly: What was that document? Why was it such a big deal? Was this whole scenario devised to help T-Bone or the Bird steal it? I'll be doing a bunch of research into this soon, stay tuned.
• Thirdly: Again with this Bird, who is she?

It should be noted that the program was launched, it looks lovely, and is full of all sorts of crazy fun arts events that you should probably go check out. It's free, it's fun, it's art, plus now there's a good chance of a firefight ocurring at any given one of them.

As always, I'll be there keeping you in the know.

In closing: CANBERRA IS BRILLIANT AND I LOVE IT.

Make sure you keep checking out the #artctrl hashtag on twitter.
For those of you on Facebook it seems this page here has started up to keep track of what's going on. Have a peek.

Current Mood: All shaken up!
Current Music: Meat Loaf - All Revved up with No Place to Go.

Escalation!

A storm is coming art lovers and I doubt we could stop it even if we wanted to.

I really don't want to.

It's fascinating watching the pieces stack together.

The controversy, the government response, the rebellious elements rising up, the quizzes, the threats... the escalation.

A lot has happened in a very short amount of time and so this post is going to rush fairly quickly through these developments. I apologise. Each of these little plot points are worth an essay by themselves themselves, but I will have to settle for making sure you're up to date with the big events that have happened.

Firstlt it's worth noting that the You Are Here Festival has now been passed as "acceptable".

Good news for YAH and fans alike.

You've hopefully seen it by now but if you haven't check out the nomadic and volatile artist T-Bone's open declaration of war against Mr B and the BMOA:


Like with the interview between Andrew Galan and Mr B I believe we catch a glimpse of the BMOA's mysterious enforcer Ms X at the end.

We can only assume T-Bone and Mac got away from Ms X in order to post the video.

T-Bone's blog has been updated also.

This is only the start.

The BMOA have released The Doctrines of Acceptable Art Informational Quiz which local artists have been scrambling complete in a way that deems them "acceptable". Rumour has it that completeing the quiz "correctly" rewards the artist with... something? The stories are vague and people seem hesitant (perhaps frightened) to tell them.

Give it a go.

Speaking of rumours; the Bird has been making some noise on twitter, and I do mean noise.

She's said very little of value so far, but there are stories circulating that she's going to be a major player in the events to come. This alone makes her very very interesting to me.

Whose side is she on? I can't wait to find out.

Lastly we may have finally seen the face of Mr B, the new poster/logo of Acceptable Art has been revealed.

This image has been popping up around the place connected to BMOA approved events and posts. Is this the face of Mr B?

I guess we'll find out tomorrow at the You Are Here program launch at Smith's! I am so excited, I will be there covering the event, I hope to see all you art lovers there also.

If you can't make it I'll be live tweeting the event so keep an eye on the hastag #artctrl!

My scribe-sense tells me tomorrow is going to be big, lets hope T-Bone makes an appearance!

UPDATE: As I was writing this post T-Bone's site appears to have been hacked by the BMOA! It now features the face of Mr B and a statement delcaring the website was "unacceptable".

FIRST BLOOD! FIRST BLOOD!

How will T-Bone respond?

Can't wait for tomorrow!

Current Mood: Mildly concerned about how excited I'm getting about the chances of seeing a fight.
Current Music: Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction

It's on like Donkey Kong

I love the smell of drama in the morning... evening,...11.30 at night... Whatever! I LOVE DRAMA ANYTIME!

The rumours are true, T-Bone is back in the ACT!

T-Bone's twitter account sprung back to life today and he wasted no time getting right back into the thick of it.

 

Threats, caps-lock, promises of change,  it's all here. I just know I won't be able to get to sleep tonight for all the excitement.

T-Bone is also making it very clear that the is personally targeting Mr B, the mysterious man behind the BMOA movement. I was expecting this, but actually hearing it has gotten my blood pumping.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, conflict creates art and it looks like we're in for some wonderful conflict.

On his (stunningly retro) blog, T-Bone said:
"I REVEAL, the PHONY who calls himself “MR B”. the BMOA will FALL & the LIZARD will RUN! I AM returned to THE CANBERRA."

What a wonderful wordsmith.

Interestingly You Are Here has commented on the matter, their official twitter account suggesting T-Bone take his complaints to LiveJournal instead of airing them on Twitter. Ouch!

Does this mean YAH has chosen its side in the upcoming conflict, or are they simply trolling T-Bone? I noted that the interviews embedded in the latest post on the You Are Here site all state that they are "Benevolent Ministry of Art Approved", the last interview being with Mr B himself.

IMPORTANT POINTS TO NOTE:

• Mr B states that they are still looking at the YAH program, maybe they're not approving all the events right away in order to have some leverage over the festival?
• Mr B says there is no chance that T-Bone will return, has word not reached him? Is he in denial? (Or more likely this interview was recorded before T-Bone made his announcement.)
• Is that Ms X we hear at the end bullying YAH interviewer Andrew Galan out of the room?

It seems I was right in assuming that the #artctrl hashtag would become the "official" place to keep up with what people are saying so make sure to direct your twitter client there to have a look.

Or, you know, just keep coming back here.

I am your man on the scene after all.

Current Mood: Ready for a scrap.
Current Music: P¡nk - So What