During the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this yer Fierce had a page feature in the inaugural Forest Fringe Zine. Dirty Cash!!! was a competition we ran as part of the Forest Fringe programme where we invited the public to send in the the filthiest suggestions of how to spend £250 – an expansion of the idea that there is no such thing as clean money.

Celebrity filth judges Laura Solon and Richard Dedomenici helped us sort the filth from the chaff and deem one idea the worthiest (filthiest) recipient of the cash.

The entries ranged from pure sleaze and sexual deviancy to more political statements on corruption.

The top three were:

1) Jasmine Loveys (below) – winner
2) Andrzej Lukowski – ‘Autopeodophilia’ – a study on the ethics of child pornography – what happens if you masturbate over a picture of yourself as a child?
3) Lucy Ellinson – ‘Anti-filth’ – finding the filthiest, grimiest unperpasses and spaces in a city and writing ‘reverse graffittti’ statements about the ConDem coalition government in bleach and industrial cleaning products.

So the winner is…

So. . . here is the filthy way that I would spend 250 big ones:

Jasmine’s dirty day. . .

11.30am
I would begin with a bit of light cosmetic surgery and have a hair transplant on my face. Specifically, I would have hair transplanted just above the mouth to form a moustache. I would like it to be quite a bushy one but money doesn’t go far. I visit a back- street transplantists and pay £200 for a thin moustache.

3pm
Armed with new facial hair, it’s time for a little jog and the tache reveal. Having purchased a pair of tiny, shiny red shorts from a charity shop for the bargain price of £2.50, I take all my clothes off, apart from the shorts, and run.

5pm
Very sweaty from the jogathon, I pop in to the local co-op for a tin of UHT squirty cream. Pay £2 to the cashier and leave.

5.10pm
Having left the co-op, I stop to slather my sweaty torso in cream, paying particular attention to the nipples. I am thinking how much the girls will love this.

6pm
It’s never to early for a titty bar so I head to ‘wild catz’ for a little of the action. I order a reef and watch the girls on the pole, seductively fingering the cream from my chest into my mouth.

Midnight
Somehow hours have passed and I’m still at the titty bar. By now the cream has really festered and something is smelling pretty funky. I head home.

1am
I find some cold chips in the kitchen from the night before. I eat them before climbing into my new leopard print sheets (£12 from debenhams).

What a marvelous day!

There’s no such thing as clean money.

Help Fierce Festival discover the filthiest way to spend 250 quid.

For the full page click here!

Send your ideas to dirtycash{at}wearefierce.org

Best filth gets the cash to spend (on filth)

The winner will be selected by a specialist panel of celebrity filth experts and announced at a sleazy ceremony at:
Forest Fringe, Bristo Place, Edinburgh at 11.59pm on Saturday 21st August 2010.

Fierce’s Dirty Cash!!! is Fierce’s contribution to the inaugural Forest Fringe Zine. Our page features alongside contributions from a number of artists including Tim Etchells, Action Hero, Third Angel and Ant Hampton. For more information about Forest Fringe please visit www.forestfringe.co.uk

Fierce has long been a member of the Live Art UK network and had the opportunity recently to talk about our work alongside our respected peers in ‘In Time: A Collection of Live Art Case Studies’.

Our Executive Producer, Kevin Isaacs talks about our work and Audiences. Kevin talks eloquently around the following subjects: challenges of engagement; artist/audience relationships; the media; site – citing works such as ‘The Great Swallow’ by Benjamin Verdonck and ‘Name in Lights’ by Joshua Sofaer; the importance of education programmes; partnerships; and venue programmes.

Kevin concludes with a statement which I think we all agree with about why we choose to work within the sector:

“Finally, it’s our job as curators, marketers, producers and venue managers to inspire our audiences, and we wouldn’t be working in the field of Live Art if it wasn’t fun, would we? Thinking a bit left-field, being brave and a bit risky, is what makes the job fun, and seeing the audience getting a great experience that they’ll remember for many a year has to be the perfect payback.”

In Time also features case studies from Lyn Gardner, Sonia Dyer, Artsadmin, Live Art Development Agency, The Bluecoat, New Work Network, Colchester Arts Centre, Chapter Arts Centre and Arnolfini. It is a definite ‘must read’ for all those interested in Live Art or the work of organisations like us.

For more information about In Time click here or visit www.liveartuk.org.

Hopefully you heard the good news that Birmingham has recently been short-listed to become a UK City of Culture for 2013 (see the DCMS Press Release). Birmingham is now one of a list of four final cities (the others are Derry, Norwich and Sheffield) bidding for the title.  During the bidding period Fierce has been working with Birmingham Cultural Partnership on Big Blank Canvas – a project designed to find out from the people who live and work in Birmingham what they do in their cultural lives already, what they’d like to see happen in the city in 2013. We are engaging with people both online, via the website and in person, on the streets of the city centre, in local libraries and at festivals, gatherings and gigs. This project will continue to grow and gather momentum now that we have been shortlisted.

We have received hundreds of inspiring ideas so far but we want to hear from a real range of voices so please help us to spread the word!  Below are a few highlights of the project so far…

We had a team go along to Birmingham’s Chinese New Year Celebrations on Sunday 14 Feb to talk about the bid and gather opinions which you can see on the vimeo:

Big Blank Canvas at Chinese New Year 2010 from Big City Blank Canvas on Vimeo.

Helga talked to Ed Doolan on BBC WM, and the BBC’s Culture Show and can be seen here talking to Paul Hadley:

Helga Henry, Fierce Earth. from Paul Hadley on Vimeo.

We are so pleased that Birmingham has been short-listed as we know the talent, determination and creativity that lies within the people of this city and the possibilities that this opens for 2013.

If you’d like to shout about what already happens please add images and video to our vimeo, flickr ‘Big City Blank Canvas’ and facebook page – this is our city and our culture, lets all get involved. And keep adding your ideas for cultural events in 2013 at www.canvasbirmingham.com

You can keep up to date with the latest contributions and news from the bidding process by following us on Twitter @BigBlankCanvas.

 If you’d like to volunteer as part of our events team please contact: volunteers@wearefierce.org.