Went back to the Institute of Visual Culture yesterday with Alan and some students.

I was quite impressed with my stamina, having only slept for two and a half hours the night before. It was an enjoyable day. It began with a traditional one hour wait before the third of the timetabled trains decided it could be bothered to go to Cambridge. Before going to the gallery, we strolled through Cambridge and Alan explained some stuff about the town and the university and everything. Luckily, none of the students decided to transfer.

The exhibition was 'Cognition Control', a collection of work by Stephen Willats and a few others. The work on show was from the 60s and 70s and, as they say, it:

'represents a vital period in British art, when Willats and his colleagues proposed activating the audience as an integral factor in the conceptual formation of a more open-ended and inclusive art practice. Each of these projects shares a common objective to use visual arts practice as a tool for social enquiry and transformation. Their radical intervention in the cultural infrastructure of the time still resonates with, and influences, many artists working today.'

Part of the idea was to break down barriers between art and science/academia, partly by carrying out research projects that ignored the usual conventions.

The exhibition was a bit perplexing, partly because it's hard to leap back through the decades and imagine what it would have been like then, and especially to feel confident that you understand what they were trying to do. Was it ironic? sincere? incoherent? incompetent? Were they poking fun at scientists/academics? Or what?

Luckily, Stefan, the director of the institute, was there to discuss it all and I enjoyed listening to Alan and Stefan discussing it all.

I like the idea of using the world and the people in it as the materials for your art. And it was interesting to look at similarities and differences between this work and some of the work that goes on now. Stephen Willats hadn't really bothered to keep track of his work, catalogue it or anything. There aren't many artists around now, who would be so relaxed about what they do.

One thing it got us thinking about was hippiedom and the extent to which remnants of that survive. One of our students grew up in a series of communes. Are there any communes still around?

B-)