Facebook vs Face2Face

by Amanda Greatorex

Lauren Childs

Brian Eno at the Private View

Should I succumb to finally getting a Facebook site? Am I going to ask Brian Eno to be my friend on myspace? Ooh the dilemmas of social networking. I’m under virtual pressure! I’d much rather sit outside Romeo Jones with a cup of the best cappuccino in the village, and see who walks past – and have a some genuine face-to-face conversation. The other alternative would be to go home, log on, and chat to a whole host of people globally and digitally. But then, you see, I wouldn’t have the fresh air and sunshine on my skin or pick up on the subtleties of facial expressions and body language. Plus the joy of live laughter and spontaneous, unedited chat.
So I’m resisting Facebook for the moment. Maybe instead I should do an illustration like the ones currently in Dulwich Picture Gallery (until 18th Jan 09) and post that on the net instead. These charming illustrations, – some montages, collages or a series of little drawings in labelled boxes, take more effort to decipher. They are expressive and revealing of the artist, and in themselves, lovely pieces of art.

There are some real favourites – particularly, the children’s book illustrators. “Charlie & Lola” artist Lauren Childs, has long strips of type as tree branches with her familiar characters dangling off; Eric Carle of “The Hungry Caterpillar” fame, uses his colourful, painted torn paper collage style, Jan Pienowski – the silhouette cut-out style of his “Meg & Mog” books and Quentin Blake, who rustled up all these well-known mates to contribute to this exhibition. (Doesn’t have a facebook site – I asked him).

What are you like?

The brief is to ask 12 basic questions about your likes (and a dislike) and the participant illustrates 8 of these, thus building up a personality profile in a picture. It’s like a Victorian Era Facebook site, highlighting all the favourite things in your life. Admittedly, this is static and not interactive or updateable. However, the sum is more than it’s parts as each stands alone as a composition in their own right (the only restriction was overall document size).

Paul Smith

Paul Smith’s scrapbook

Paul Smith, however, diverted slightly from this size issue, by producing a page in an old brown- stained scrapbook. (displayed in a cabinet ). He incorporates beautiful little line illustrations of blazers and bicycles and actual fabric swatches sticking out of the back pages. Just what you’d expect from a fashion designers’ working ideas sketchbook.

The space-time continuum and Renaissance women

If the opening night hadn’t been so busy, I’d have had the chance to actually peruse over the illustrations a little (the room was heaving with the very well known types). I would have embraced the fascination of synthesizer circuit diagrams with Brian Eno (I too play synths, theramin, & samples) and the space-time continuum (I study cosmology & taoism), his favourite artist, Kandinsky (my A-Level art thesis), philosophers, scientists, and voluptuous Renaissance women (that’s me!). As a DPG representative on the night, I did have a little chat with the ambient music God (yes, we all know he was also in Roxy Music and worked with U2) and offered him a drink, keeping quietly to myself that I was, in fact, a local underground ambient music goddess. I appreciate it’s annoying to badger well-known people about what they are well-known for, and, as a comparatively unknown like me, it’s polite not to be too schmoozy at a public function. (I said I was a volunteer school group teacher at the gallery, which is true, and I felt was the relevant answer at the time). So I guess that’s why it’s a good idea to have some on-line presence, so, if you want to know more about someone you have just met, or invite them to get to know about your other facets and fascinations, you can do a Google search later on them, in the comfort of your own home!.

Brian Eno photo: thanks to Rebecca Louise on flickr.com