This is a project three years in development and implementation that incorporated a solo ‘retrospective ‘ exhibition at the City Dome, Collective Gallery in Edinburgh in 2014, as part of Generation, 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland, with a subsequent 18 month project, initiated at the exhibition and funded by Creative Scotland, City of Edinburgh Council and the Generation Engagement Project, working with young people and the Gallery that resulted in the release of a collaborative ‘publication’ of a Vinyl Album with Risograph booklet and poster launched at an live music event at Collective in December 2015

Celebrating twenty years of my Real Life Project that I had begun in 1994 when I had the words tattooed on my back I developed a collaborative project re-imagining the idea of the retrospective exhibition. For eighteen months preceding the exhibition I developed and produced a site-specific exhibition initiating a longer project at Collective’s City Dome space that incorporates a series of placards naming 20 years of Real Life artworks, structures supporting multiple musical instruments, a public rehearsal space and an interactive painting area. The exhibition component of the project was active over the Summer 2014, during the time of the Edinburgh Festival and was visited by over 17,000 people, many of whom were interested tourists rather than art aficionados. Spreading the information widely with postcards and posters and in the exhibition, at the end of the show we gave away most of the exhibition to any young person born since I had the REAL LIFE tattoo made in 1994, 20 sets of musical instruments, one for each year of my project. This was followed by 18-months of working with the teenagers who had received the free instruments including song writing workshops, tuition, design, industry input, rehearsal and discussion that culminated in a recording session and the production of the publication/record. Articulating this publication I describe the development of the project in a quote on the record sleeve:

“2014 was the 20th Anniversary of my Real Life Project. I wanted to look back and celebrate this journey, but at the same time look towards the next 20 years with a renewed sense of optimism. What had been promised? What had been achieved? Hundreds of exhibitions and artworks, local, national, international, books and essays to document them all, records, cd’s, posters, postcards, beermats, billboards, and any other forms I could think of to use. But what really remained when the show was over and the people went home? I wanted to explore a way to translate the energy and ambition and hope of these works I had made (many of which had only been ‘live’ for a few weeks or months during an exhibition) into other forms - planting new seeds that could take on a Real Life of their own. Collective asked me to make an exhibition in the City Dome on Calton Hill. This was the perfect opportunity to reach out to another audience.”
I had constructed the ‘Real Life Character’ in 1994 by making the tattoo on my body and placed this new entity at the centre of the various works setting up unusual and dynamic encounters with the visitors proposing new ways to consider the veracity of their own spectacular experiences. Over the years I have developed the identity of the character being repositioned in photographic form, or simply by imagining ‘Real Life’ through various textual iterations and as the project has developed the visitor has been slowly elevated becoming the operator or driver of the work. Subsequently this has seen the viewer becoming more physically active in the projects participating with the construction and refining of the work, having fun participating in painting or music and the creation of meaning around it, where the audience themselves eventually become part of the work.
“20 Years of Real Life: Free Instruments for Teenagers”, features music developed and recorded during a project where the locus for the creative energy has evolved a collaborative celebration with the participants. I reflect this process in the final publication, as part of the Real Life Project. Though the resultant artwork is something of a collaboration, I am in control of the framing and outputting of the publication, commissioning writers, designing most aspects and providing the content and defining the key modes of dissemination. It could be argued then when viewing the participating bands in a live concert in December 2015 at Collective to celebrate the launch of the record, the young people involved in this project have become extensions of the live installation I was exploring with my own tattooed body at the inception of the real Life Project in 1994.