[NetBehaviour] Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector.

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Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector.

By Ellie Harrison.

Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector is the first book to be
published about Ellie’s work. It was released on 22nd April 2009 to
coincide with the artist’s solo exhibition at the Viewpoint Gallery,
Plymouth College of Art.

‘Ellie Harrison was a ‘data collector’. For over five years she
documented and recorded information about nearly every aspect of her
daily routine, amassing reams of data in the process. She photographed
and catalogued 1,640 meals and snacks for her project Eat 22, and
calculated the total distance of a year’s worth of travel on public
transport for Gold Card Adventures. But these laborious, demanding and
introverted processes took their toll. Something had to give. Ellie had
to quit!’

This book documents the process of rehabilitation that followed Ellie’s
decision, as she set about coming to terms with her ‘data collecting’
past and beginning to reinvent her role as artist. In a specially
commissioned text, Sally O’Reilly turns ‘therapist’; devising and
administering our patient with a harsh but eye-opening treatment known
as Hysterical-Historical Praxis Therapy. By exploring the social,
political and historical context of this condition, she outlines
possible root causes in the target-driven worlds of Thatcherism and New
Labour. She provides successful ‘case studies’ of alternative critical
practices and offers ‘motivational slogans’ to help carry our patient
onwards to success and happiness...

more...
http://www.ellieharrison.com/index.php?pagecolor=9&pageId=project-confessions