What is the ‘spaghetti’ at the top of my website?

In 1992, I had reached a point in one’s life, possibly a mid-life, not necessarily a crisis, but at a point where I felt I needed some help. Being fired from jobs, the tension in my marriage at the time, and more… Perhaps my tendency to dig in and be determined, avoid external help might have delayed the impulse to seek succour was a factor, but seek help I did.… More...

Add This…

I stare through my laptop screen, unwilling – no determined not to focus.
My unshaved chin rests on my arthritic hand. My dry lips uninterested in the fresh coffee steaming under me.
I wait for the meds to kick in – it’s late now, 11:03 AM perhaps they are beginning to work – that is how I able to talk to you now.

The Talented Losers

A live session from the Talented Losers, comprising the notorious Sexton Ming and poet Colin Shaddick.
The Losers conduct an unusual session, in the sense that, Ming is in the studio whilst Shaddick collaborates via telephone.
The whole episode ended in a complete meeting of minds, we were united in self-realisation and found our way back to the source of the unverse through farting, haikus and shocking ourselves awake.

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Just Me

Unedited studio recording of R. Stevie Moore when he was my guest last year, he has just played in London and is now up in the north of England
R. Stevie Moore: You dont have to worry about my love off Advanced (2011)
Andy Partridge: Mermaid Expanation and Mermaid smiled off Fuzzy Warbles (2006)
Jandek soundtrack from the film Jandek on Corwood
Jandek: I shot myself from 0781-Khartoum (2005)
Jandek: The stumble from 0772-The Place (2003)
Syd Barratt: Wouldnt you miss me from Crazy Diamond
Allen Ginsberg: Uptown
Edith Hillman Boxhill This little light of mine from Music therapy with the mentally handicapped
The Sound of surrealism Patricide 4
Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band: Canyons of your mind
Brion Gysin: Kick that habit man
Brion Gysin: Thoughts from the dream machine
Flying Burrito Brothers: Sin City from The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969)
Robyn Hitchcock: Not dark yet by Bob Dylan from album of Dylan covers Robyn Sings (2002)
Cal Veale: Paralysed
Randy Newman: I’ll Be Home from Little Criminals… More...

UK Uncut & Heathcote Williams

(originally broadcast )

Proving it is hard to learn by his mistakes, James embarks on another series of Outsider In where we may find insight into the world of the ‘outsider’. In the first episode we find James accidentally embroiled in facing off the mainstream media when they assume he represents UKUncut… Heathcote Williams sends James a new anti-government poem which he will read out for the first time and live on air… this is underpinned by more candid UKUncut field recordings and advice on nuclear safety.… More...

Surveillance and Art

Essay written for MFA in June 2019 (James Tregaskis all rights reserved)


Introduction
Surveillance has been with us throughout western history. The use of technology opens up opportunities for covert activities. Increasingly sophisticated methodologies are employed with each advance in technology.
In this paper I set out examples of surveillance, contrasting desirable and undesirable outcomes in its use. I present examples of recent and more sophisticated techniques of surveillance to raise the question – is surveillance out-of-control? Evidence suggests that the Internet has accelerated the advancement and aggregation of bad actors in the commercial arena to a toxic extent, a manifestation referred by commentators on surveillance as ‘surveillance capitalism’ . Could it be that the government-initiated high technology surveillance methods used on their populations are a good thing and perhaps necessary for the ultimate survival and benefit of mankind? The resultant asymmetry of power does not only lie in global corporations but is also held by governments. How has the evolution of surveillance and the questions it raised been dealt with by artists and how do they approach the subject?