Launching My New Pamphlet, “Oam”, at Govanhill Baths

Oam at Govanhill Baths
Calder St, Glasgow
November 27th, 7pm
FREE, plus refreshments!

Ah’m fair awa tae be lenchin ma new pamphlet, “Oam”, fae Stewed Rhubarb Press, at Govanhill Baths on November 27th — n hit’d be grand gin ye’d come.

The pamphlet wis wrote as pairt o a residency wi Govanhill Baths Art and Regeneration Team (GBart), the art weeng o Govanhill Baths Community Trust. The Baths is a yinst n futur sweemin puil (n steamie n slipper baths n Turkish baths n mair), closed by Glesgae Ceety Cooncil in 2001, occupeed n fendit by a strang community campaign, n nou reappent as a community centre, suin tae be a sweemin complex agin.

Ah’ve been resident at the Baths for the past five months, jynin in wi n organisin community events, interviewin volunteers, doin a bit of imaginary sweemin, gettin tae ken Govanhill, n aw in aw havin a grand time wi an amazin place n amazin fowk. This wee beuk o poems in Scots is the ootcome o that time, n Ah’d luve tae shair hit wi ye.

Thare’ll be refreshments, by which Ah mean fuid n bevvy.

See ye thare!

I Want To Blow Up The Palace: Research Day 1

Politics, Theatre

This is the auto-surveillance report of the first day of research for the performance project I Want To Blow Up The Palace Of Holyroodhouse (for art)

On 9th October 2013, between 1500 and 1800 hours, Harry Giles did use the following Google search terms

How to make a bomb
How to make a bomb out of fertiliser
How to make a bomb out of bleach
Is making a bomb illegal?
“possession of records of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”
Terrorism Act
UK Explosives Law
Where can I buy explosives?
Exploding with high pressure water
Exploding with high pressure air

and access the following websites:

His research was retweeted or otherwise condoned by the following people publicly on Twitter:

@danielbye
@solobassteve
@spunshon
@hannahnicklin
@dannybirchall
@kieranhurley
@amaenad
@hannahsilvauk
@jenniferreynard

and also approved of by:

15 people on his private Facebook timeline (names withheld and stored in private records)
4 known individuals at the Forest Café research location and 2 unknown individuals (names withheld and stored in private records)

His research questions were:

What types of SAFE & LEGAL SMALL EXPLOSIVES are there?
Do I need to MAKE a bomb or can one be PURCHASED?
If MAKE, where can I acquire MATERIALS?
If PURCHASE, from where?
Will I need any LICENSES, PERMITS or PERMISSIONS?

His conclusions were:

The internet has literally hundreds of recipes for making bombs. Popular ingredients include fertiliser, matches, bleach, batteries, soap, baking soda and sparklers. Recipes can be found on websites ranging from ask.com and answers.wikia.com to dubious caches of paramilitary websites. Most of these recipes are simple, poorly spelled and coarsely detailed. Using any of them would involve much experimentation, which would clearly risk life and limb. It might also be illegal.

In the UK, it is illegal to access and possess information which could be used to commit acts of terrorism, unless you can prove that you have it for purposes other than terrorism. It is illegal to make any statements which encourage or glorify terrorism, and also to recklessly make any statements which might indirectly encourage or glorify terrorism. With this in mind, I would like to publicly and clearly state the following:

All the information I am accessing is to be used only for blowing up a small scale model of the Palace of Holyroodhouse in a safe and legal manner.
I neither condone nor encourage the actual blowing up of actual public buildings, and will not be sharing my research with anyone who does in an encouraging way.
Any websites I link to here or on Twitter are for information or humour purposes only, should not be used for acts of terrorism, and can be found by a very basic Google search anyway.

I am quite disappointed by having to make these statements, as I had hoped to inhabit the problematic and risky space of whether or not I actually approved of blowing up palaces for much longer. However, over the course of my research it became apparent that I’m on thin enough ice as it is and this whole project will be taking place in edgy and difficult territory even with the above statements made and regularly repeated.

I also determined that it is illegal to own explosives with the intent to endanger life or property (presumably other people’s), and that the acquisition and storage of all explosives is carefully monitored and delineated by a number of legal Acts. In order to use almost any explosive capable of blowing up a model palace, I would have to apply to the police for an explosives license.

Research questions for future periods will therefore include whether I could blow up the palace with any of the explosives exempt from a license, how difficult the license application would be, where I could buy said explosives from, and whether I could blow up the palace with high pressure water or air instead.

I Want to Blow Up the Palace of Holyroodhouse is a performance project about:

Rage and its uses
Free speech and its limits
Art and its effectiveness
Surveillance and the state

The performance consists of the three phases: (1) the active period of research involved in figuring out how to build a scale model of Holyroodhouse and then legally blow it up, which will take place in public, preferably in arts venues; (2) the actual blowing up of the model Palace; (3) a performance lecture about how and why I did it and what happened. If you have access to space in an arts venue and would like me to research bomb-making in your space, please get in touch.

Please note, I will be recording all documentary evidence of this project, up to an including my private thoughts on the matter, in an auto-surveillance dossier in order to spare the public purse. Please note that all comments and mentions of this post will thus be monitored for monitoring purposes.

I Want to Blow Up the Palace of Holyroodhouse (for art)

Events, Politics

original image by Nigel Swales, poorly remixed by me, shared with some rights reserved

“Every morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I’m not sure that’s right” — Derrick Jensen

I Want to Blow Up the Palace of Holyroodhouse (for art)
Phase 1: Public Performance Research
Forest Café, 141 Lauriston Pl, Edinburgh
Wednesday 9th October, 3-7pm

I want to blow up the Palace of Holyroodhouse. I am a republican, and I believe in the equitable distribution of resources for life including land and housing, and I believe in the destruction of the kyriarchy through radical militant action. For all of these reasons, whenever I walk past the Palace of Holyroodhouse I involuntarily become indescribably furious and start fantasising about blowing it up. However, I am frankly terrified of the consequences this would have on my life, and think it probably wouldn’t be worth it. Therefore, I’ve decided that I will instead, in a symbolic action, blow up a scale model of the Palace in the name of art.

I Would Like to Blow Up the Palace... is a performance about rage, politics, the limitations of art and activism, and discovering what the state can do to you. The performance consists of the three phases: (1) the active period of research involved in figuring out how to build a scale model of Holyroodhouse and then legally blow it up, which will take place in public, preferably in arts venues; (2) the actual blowing up of the model Palace; (3) a performance lecture about how and why I did it and what happened.

Because I already have a police file on me (one arrest without charge, details recorded at three subsequent protests, subject to Forward Intelligence Team surveillance many times), I am quite worried about the possible repercussions of stating publicly that I want to blow up the Palace of Holyroodhouse (for art), even if it’s just the model, and also about what will happen when I bring together the materials required to do the thoroughly-researched legal explosion. I will therefore be publicly declaring in advance each period of active research, including all explosives-related internet searches, and conducting all such work in public should anyone decide to investigate. It remains to be seen whether this will work. (Obviously, this is perhaps less about paranoia and more a way to perform the limitations of art and create a discussion about legality, surveillance, symbolic action and effective protest. But still.)

I’m inaugurating Phase 1 this week at the Forest Café, Edinburgh. From 3-7pm I will be present with a laptop and a pile of flipchart paper. I will be researching how, practically and legally, to make a small explosive, build a model palace, put them together, and then detonate it somewhere in public. All interactions and monitoring efforts are welcome. I hope you’ll see me there, even if I don’t see you.

If you have access to space in an arts venue and would like me to research bomb-making in your space, please get in touch.

This post is the first public statement about the project following two emails and a handful of conversations. I will be recording all documentary evidence, up to an including my private thoughts on the matter, in an auto-surveillance dossier in order to spare the public purse. Please note that all comments and mentions of this post will thus be monitored for monitoring purposes.