TAMAGOTCHI KIDS
Tamagotchi Kids was the first in a series of collaborative art projects, that took place over two weeks at The Alchemy Experiment in Glasgow from 16th to 29th January 2023.
The project was split into two parts. The first took place between 16-23rd January, and saw the artist-curator J.D. Nealon collaborate with the artists Jamie Steedman and Josh Rowell. During this collaboration, the venue’s downstairs gallery became an open studio where the participants collectively researched and conversed to create a series of poster-pieces. The works used the artist’s shared perspective as late millennials as a jump off point for inspiration. In accompaniment to this, the upstairs street-front space was used to show pre-existing works from the participants, alongside materials that contextualised the project. This included a poster board where audience members submitted their contributions in respect to what their memories growing up where. In that they were handling themes of coming of age, nostalgia and the mobilisation of memory - this allowed the audience to have an active role in the process of the art creation, as the artists each day reviewed the submissions.
The second part of the event took place between 23-29th. During this time, the used studio that was used the week before became a relic to view in exhibition format, while the upstairs gallery was be re-hung to showcase the work created during the collaborative process, drawing focus to the themes and methods the artists exchanged during the previous week.
At the mid-way, turn around point of the event there were two events held. The first of these was a private view and talk that saw the artists sit in conversation with the curator Kirsteen MacDonald. This took place on the evening of Monday 23rd January. This was followed up the next evening with a public opening, that took the form of a nineties style disco.
This page is the original webpage used to promote the event, and has been adapted to exist as a point of archive and access to the event details.
PARTICIPANT BIOS
b. 1992 in Glasgow, J.D. is an artist-curator with a practice-based background. In 2016, he graduated from UAL’s London College of Communication with an honours degree in Photography. Since then, he established The Kube Gallery, which during the pandemic offered a series of online photography and mixed media exhibitions, with event programmes, many of which he led. Since 2021, J.D has been part of the Curating Contemporary Art MA programme at the Royal College of Art in London.
b. 1995, Jamie is an artist and writer currently based in Edinburgh. He completed an MA in Contemporary Art Practice in the Public Sphere at Royal College of Art, London in 2020, and in recent years has participated in and co-curated various projects across Buenos Aires, London, Shanghai, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Utrecht, as well as online. In 2023 he participated in the group show Day Zero at Palacio de Aguas Corrientes, Buenos Aires – linking emerging artists working in Europe and South America – and was one of the 12 invited writers for the year’s Interjection Calendar with Montez Press. Steedman currently produces digital media and design with Scottish Youth Theatre and is an editor of Windfall* – a newly developed arts publication aiming to champion emerging contemporary artists working across the UK.
b. 1990, Josh is an artist from Kent who generates his artistic vision by focusing on technological advances that shape our contemporary lives, communicating our increasingly mediated human interactions within the confines of visual art. In 2013, Josh graduated from with honours from Kingston Art School, which he followed with a course in Art Criticism at Central Saint Martins college in London, prior to returning to Kingston to complete an MFA in 2015. His works have been exhibited in London, New York, Miami, Seattle, Basel, Hong Kong and Mexico and his works are part of public collections including the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Gregorian Foundation in Washington, London Kingston University’s contemporary art collection, and the Matilda collection in San Miguel De Allende.
PROCESS & CONTEXT
As the aim of the first Tamagotchi Kids event in Glasgow was to open up the process of art and knowledge production in a way that is public, it seemed fitting to open up the pre-production process too. As with any curatorial event, the forms that planning and collaborating take vary. They are sometimes hand written notes, phone notes or online video calls. In addition to this, and as was the case in this instance, the collaborators involved in Tamagotchi Kids - namely JD Nealon & Jamie Steedman, used the miro board app to annotate the outcomes of their calls and share ideas and progress. While this miro board does not contain every aspect of planning, and much of it is loose, crude or unspecific - it does give a raw insight into the planning of an event like this. It also provides context and answers to questions from an audience perspective, in a way that is normally never communicated. Almost all of the answers, comments or points of query in this document find their outcome via a stream of consciousness - and are perhaps more candid than the carefully considered texts or materials that artists and curators normally present with exhibition.
Making process public is at the heart of the aims of The Network Project, and in retrospect of the event it is the intention to reflect on the process as a whole through putting together a publication of some kind that will look to merge the candid with the considered to provide a rich point of reference in archive.
In advance and during the event, audiences will be able to witness the progression of events via this miro board - as it continues to be updated by the participants.
EVENT DIARY
DAY 1 - 2
SET UP & PRE EVENT PREPARATION - 14,15/1
synopsis by JD
The process of getting started began with J.D. travelled from London to Glasgow on the morning of Saturday 14th January. On arrival, he was met by Jamie at the event venue, The Alchemy Experiment, where they met face to face, for the first time. This evening, Jamie and John began hanging their existing work in the upstairs gallery and discussed moving forward over dinner at the gallery.
The following morning, on Sunday 15th January, Jamie and John met at the gallery and continued preparing by painting equipment, cutting out display vinyls, shopping for things needed and re-working texts and documentation. They also conversed about thematics, before being joined by Josh in the early evening, who had spent the day driving up from Kent. Collectively, they continued to set up the studio and finished hanging works in the upstairs gallery, and fitting displays after customers left for the day.
Day 3
COLLABORATION DAY 1 - 16/1
synopsis by JD
With Jamie having prior commitments to attend to, the first day of the collaboration was between just JD and Josh. This was a great chance for us to get to know one another a bit. We started the day in a pretty relaxing way, and tended to some of the last bits of install that had to be done.
We then had a meeting, which you can listen to below. In this we discussed where our thinking was and some other general points. After this, I took Josh around the area and we headed on the subway into town, to visit an art shop for supplies.
Later that day, we installed poster paper upstairs for visitors to contribute their memories and ideas relating to coming of age, which we will look to for inspiration throughout the process - with the aim of giving visitors a part to play in the creative process. We also had visits from several folk at the studio - all of which were really lovely and worthwhile exchanges.
We started working on our own poster paper, making a collage of ideas as a starting point - while Josh dove in and started making pieces with pastel that referred to iconic nineties moments, some of which you can see in the photos here.
Day 4
COLLABORATION DAY 2 - 17/1
synopsis by JD
This day started early for JD, who had to finish cutting out individual squares from the window vinyl display. When Josh & Jamie arrived, we caught up and had a meeting, which can be heard below before heading out for some lunch.
Today’s focus is to further explore themes and think ahead to the public openings, and to try and to experiment with playlist and podcast creation.
The day continued with various conversations, but not a great deal in the relation to creating work (apart from Josh who has been cracking on making his pastel prints).
We were visited for a couple of hours by Kirsteen MacDonald, a local independent curator who will be mediating the talk that the private view on Monday 23rd Jan will be based around. It was a good opportunity to reiterate to Kirsteen, but also ourselves our position within it all, where we were at and our hopes for the outcome.
Afterwards Jamie and Josh joined myself and some friends at a local pub quiz - which ended late.
Day 5
COLLABORATION DAY 3 - 18/1
synopsis by Josh
Having (possibly) had one pint too many at the pub quiz the night before, Jamie and I got to the gallery slightly later than the previous day. Arriving at about 10.30, we found JD already in situ in the bunker (our new affectionate nickname for the basement studio space that is home for the week). Work began fairly quickly as I think there was an increasing awareness that we only had 2 full days left together to make work. Nostalgia remained the key focus and topic of conversation; it was interesting to see that, despite the common starting point, we were all moving in our own distinct directions.
Jamie continued to explore ideas around the now demolished Clydebank Playdrome. Finding a 2012 Facebook post lamenting the decline of the once loved leisure centre, the text was both sad and amusing in equal measure. Using this text, Jamie thought about ways of altering it or redacting certain elements and we enjoyed watching a youtube video of a person exploring the abandoned building prior to its demolition. Conversations were had about visiting the site and how these ideas could evolve into a poster or print format.
JD spent time developing his poster idea, playing around with 90’s fonts and the idea of a hologram QR code, evoking memories of the shiny Pokemon cards that were a common sight in the playgrounds of our youth. JD worked hard to find a local printing company that could help to produce the hologram in time for the launch events next week. We also discussed the similarities between some of the aesthetics he was working with and christian advertising/leaflets.
I continued working on my oil pastel text drawings of 90’s events, culture, food etc. I opened up the work to friends and followers on instagram and soon had new content to play with. The works themselves took a slightly different direction today, perhaps as a reaction to having this long list of different words in front of me. Moving away from singular moments or narratives, I started placing disparate words together that, though not directly related, still somehow worked together to evoke a distinct time period or feeling.
The afternoon continued much like this and we recorded a meeting as we got towards the end of the day. The general consensus was that good progress had been made that day, each one of us seems to be moving in our own direction whilst still relating to the central theme; and we briefly discussed the idea of incorporating something like custom designed teatowels or Tshirts into the project, though what exactly that would look like or how it would work remains an unknown at this point.
Day 6
COLLABORATION DAY 4 - 19/1
synopsis by Jamie
Day 6 began more excursional than the previous. Each of us took a couple of hours in the morning to run errands and do what could be (pretentiously) called ‘site visits’. Josh headed into Glasgow to stock up on oil pastels, preparing himself to tackle a larger-format memories drawing for the exhibition next week. John visited his family home to trawl through personal archives from his childhood; including Pokémon memorabilia, old photographs of holidays and nights out and a few vinyl records which he’ll use in a film montage alongside his poster. Jamie took a trip along to Clydebank to inspect the former Clydebank Playdrome site, demolished in 2021, hoping to gather some inspiration and found materials for his design.
We then congregated once again in the bunker late morning and began considering what the final elements in each of our posters would be. John continued his research into holographic printing, motivated by the shiny Pichu Pokémon card Jamie extracted from the deck.
Primed with new pastels and paper, Josh considered what final assortment of terms and experiences he would use. We gathered to review each of the 39 designs he had so far made, selecting some of our favourite terms that had emerged from our conversations (with each other and with visitors) as well as submissions from people engaging online. Would it be Cilla Black, turkey twizzlers or Eric Cantona’s kung fu kick?
Jamie remained conflicted between two avenues of thought – a poster incorporating visuals and found narrative about the redevelopment of the Playdrome leisure centre, or an abstract photographic piece based on the history of the Gallowgate Twins. After much group deliberation, we decided to go ahead with both.
We concluded the day with another check-in and conversation about how each of us feel: ongoing thoughts surrounding nostalgia, personal and collective memory, and how this week’s approach to artmaking may be comparable or separate to our usual practices.
Day 7
COLLABORATION DAY 5 - 20/1
synopsis by Jamie
The day started a little bittersweet on the realisation that this would be our last day as a 3 in the bunker collaborating and making work (within the Tamagotchi Kids framework anyway). Josh was heading back down to London around midday as he was participating in the London Art Fair throughout the weekend, so we made the most of the first few hours of the day making final logistical decisions around the works we would be including in the exhibition next week.
Josh made another large format ‘memory drawing’ and John took some photographs of the work, with the intention to send to print. Our deadline for the final print-posters was fast approaching, so while Josh and John edited and colour corrected the photographs, Jamie made the final touches to his two designs.
After Josh had started his journey down south, Jamie and John took a walk to Deadly Digital (our selected printers for the exhibition) to attempt scanning Josh’s work and ensuring all the files were good to go.
Later in the day, John and Jamie discussed some more logistics about the opening event on Tuesday, including tuck shop possibilities, inflatable chairs and music needs. We then finished the day spending some time upstairs, reflecting on what memories people had shared on the participatory banner alongside taking some shots of the current installation before it is reconfigured into the new hanging over the weekend.
This day, with Josh now gone we decided to cease doing a recorded meeting.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR TAMAGOTCHI KIDS?
With the first set of collaborations completed in Glasgow in January 2023, the longer vision for this particular project will be to collaborate with more artists, from varied locations, backgrounds and perspectives to create a larger series pieces that will take the poster form. This will mean that not only will there be a series of limited art works available, it will also give opportunity to explore the exhibition in a global form through a medium (poster) that is inherently public.
While this is the vision, at this time no plans are being published or discussed publicly.
