What we are up to

Knowledge Lives Everywhere launch

04/04/11 Workshops
by Nathan Jones

"Artworks that celebrate creativity as the metaphor of an eco-system question the dominance of conceptual stability, organisation and unity."


Mercy were asked to produce a participatory poetic 'moment' for FACT's Knowledge Lives Everywhere exhibition opening.

Working with collaborator Mark Greenwood, I produced a series of cards containing detourned statements from several source texts

1. (yellow cards) FACT Director, Mike Stubbs' previous speech from the Nam June Paik opening

2. (white cards) text from the Knowledge Lives Everywhere brochure

3. (red/grey cards) text from philosopy texts regarding knowledge, including De Certeu, Kant, Machiavelli, Foucalt and Deluze & Guattari

Visitors to the show could chose from the coloured cards - starting out with a choice from the white and yellow, and progressing to a point where they could pick from any of the colours. I then added in a couple of cards toward the start and end, to give the speech the formal flavour it needed and read the cards out,with vocal processing from Rob Strachan from Hive, inspired by this performance by Laurie Anderson. Very kindly, FACT provided a fanfare!

Minako Jackson at ArtinLiverpool took some images, which you can see here. What I hadn't noticed was that the cards were colour-coded fitting with the exhibition branding. A nice coincidence.

The processing and the detourned-nature of the text made it quite a disruptive performance,  while retaining something of the formality of the occassion.  Here is the speech that I read out (I ammended the text on the fly where I could, to achieve a flow and I'll try to reflect that here)...


Welcome to FACT on this very special day as we celebrate

Knowledge Lives Everywhere!

For me this image symbolises the point at which I arrived

But how can this effect how we learn?


for FACT this project is hugely significant.



Aesthetics examined in the logic of sensation,

and homes sheltering housing residents.

What does this mean now? It means


Long before it was even a twinkle in an architect's eye

unique projects and ideas have turned FACT into a playground of ideas -

the scientist and the common man come together


This city is a fabulous place for creative collaboration.

Young people

over the course of the part 12 years

have been effected by chromatic vibration

sharing FACT through


Men lack the knowledge and capacity to maintain their power,


I am delighted that you could be part of this historical occassion


of privation, repression, eros and thantos,

representing this eco-system of

objects of an emperical knowledge that is at least intrinsically possible.


However, it wasn't just the technology or aesthetic. One of the most significant things was that


how different pieces of the system interact with each other.

It's that simple!

Artworks that celebrate creativity as

the metaphor of an eco-system

question the dominance of conceptual stability, organisation and unity.

Everywhere visitors get inspired by experiments

and learn that

this family resists modernisation


Step inside.

Experts and their knowledge can never corrupt that love.

A living legacy.


the insinuation of the ordinary into established scientific fields

entering into everyday life and exerting influence on ordinary healthy intellegence,

an elastic fluid interpreting all other substances and completely permeating them.

Enjoy the exhibition, enjoy the city!

