Tim Etchells: Solo Exhibition. Gasworks. 5 February–28 March 2010

For Tim Etchells' first solo exhibition in a London public gallery, Gasworks presents two works previously unseen in the UK. Focusing on language and interpretation, the exhibition explores the potential of communication between discourses and cultural frames. Art Flavours (2008) reflects on the possibility and impossibility of translating the specialised language of the art world into edibles for the public. the video shows an italian ice cream master dealing with the task to translate concepts in contemporary art into flavours of ice cream. City Changes (2008) is a game of linguistic manipulation in which a single text is repeatedly reworked. Whilst playing with issues related to urban life such as change and stability, chaos and stasis, the work renders visible the process of writing itself, exposing the decisions, additions and omissions of each new incarnation. Opening: Thursday 4 February 2010.

The Story. The Conway Hall, London.Friday, February 19th, 2010

I'll be speaking at this event The Story, a one-day conference about stories and story-telling. The event has been put together by Matt Locke, a really interesting producer/curator/all rounder, who I worked with years back to produce my SMS instructions project Surrender Control. Speakers at The Story come from many and diverse areas of cultural practice - from games and interactive, to contemporary fiction and art, to publishing and journalism. Current list includes Cory Doctrow,  Tony White, Alexis Kennedy and Paul Arendt, David Hepworth and Sydney Padua. Full list here. Tickets info here.

Instructions: Gasworks Discussion Event: Wednesday 3 March 2010, 7–9pm

Tim Etchells in conversation with Ant Hampton.

Artist and writer Tim Etchells invites performer and writer Ant Hampton to Instructions - a discussion about delegation and collaboration across different fields of practice. The two practitioners will reflect on how theact of relinquishing control over the final outcome is embedded in their work and on their relationship to improvisation and incompleteness. Ant's blog here.

The woman working checkout in Staples has a sales pitch trapping overtrained zeal beneath a blanket of heavy prescription tranquilisers. She won't stop fielding offers in our general and specific direction - there's 15% off the printer inks for any ink we buy two of, there's a discount on the paper supplies - do we need any paper? If we take out a Staples discount card we can also get a further 5%, she can do it right away, it won't only take a minute, so do we want her to do that for us? It's exhausting just saying no to all this stuff but while the content is a slide for slide parroting of some in-house powerpoint training routine the tone is strictly lobotomised. Florescent backwash on everything. Muzak in the aisles. No eyes in the deep sockets. No touch in the fingers jabbing the till, the air or the calculator. Look, we'd save 23.98, or even 47.92. Each sentence has neither peaks nor troughs, but each drags you down on a frightening spiral. By the end you're on your knees. Each word a dead song of suffering. Did we find everything we were looking for today? sounds like the last words before coma takes hold. Yes. We found everything. Are we aware of the offers on the printer inks? Yes, we know. Do we need some paper today? Numb question summons dead chills, as a muted calling, from just beyond the grave. Gray skin. Tremble fingers.