In this post-truth era, how does one navigate the endless information available and choose a viable narrative of reality? In How to Know What’s Really Happening Glasgow-based writer and curator Francis McKee looks at various techniques for determining verity, from those of spy agencies and whistle-blowers to mystics and scientists.

Francis McKee is an Irish writer, medical historian, and curator working in Glasgow where since 2006 he has been the director of the Centre for Contemporary Arts, and is a lecturer and research fellow at Glasgow School of Art. McKee has worked on the development of open-source ideologies and their practical application to art spaces.

Designed by Julie Peeters and Valerie Arif.

In this post-truth era, how does one navigate the endless information available and choose a viable narrative of reality? In How to Know What’s Really Happening Glasgow-based writer and curator Francis McKee looks at various techniques for determining verity, from those of spy agencies and whistle-blowers to mystics and scientists.

Francis McKee is an Irish writer, medical historian, and curator working in Glasgow where since 2006 he has been the director of the Centre for Contemporary Arts, and is a lecturer and research fellow at Glasgow School of Art. McKee has worked on the development of open-source ideologies and their practical application to art spaces.

Designed by Julie Peeters and Valerie Arif.

In Francis McKee’s first novel, observations of séances, scientific advances, group education outings, Kurdish protests for the ‘disappeared’, become mixed with his own Tarot influenced visions: a haunting spirit appears; the relation between political resistance and Spiritualism is cast as an insurrectionary force and a millenarian energy, celebrating the ecstatic moment. Histories of isolated early Christians and twentieth century mystics affect the psyche, all of this documented through journal entries that move from Scottish islands to Puerto Rico. Influenced by forms of 1960s new journalism, McKee pushes language to match the raw material of the stories, which become more erratic, signalling the looming fate of the text and its author.

Francis McKee is an Irish writer and curator working in Glasgow. He is Director since 2006 of the CCA, Glasgow, and a lecturer and research fellow at Glasgow School of Art.

You can hear the author discuss the book here.

For this solo exhibition in CCA, Glasgow, entitled It isnt what it used to be and will never be again (with reference to La révolution n’est plus ce qu’elle était, by Henri Lefebvre with Catherine Régulier, 1978), Bik Van der Pol have brought together works that are are hoovering around questions of information, what distribution of information might or might not set off in the public realm, and if action can, should or is tak(e)(ing) place when seemingly nothing seems to happen.

With contributions from the following writers and artists; Francis McKee, Anthony Iles, Jan Verwoert, Fiona Jardine, Neil Davids, Jon Bywater, Neil Gray, Darren Rhymes, Angelique Campens, Alexander Trocchi, Camcorder Guerillas, Sarah Pierce, Simon Yuill, Sarah Tripp and Bik Van der Pol.

With texts by Federica Bueti, Malak Helmy, Francis Mckee, Haytham El Wardany, Brian Kuan Wood.

Five essays that take an intimate look at what language’s role is in moments of dramatic change, and how to find meaning for artistic practices in these transformative conditions. Taking its cue from the aftermath of the events of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, Final Vocabulary doesn’t provide answers as much as it captures the spirit of the moment of searching in which the writers find themselves. The book was developed out of a live conversation at an event called “The Informal Meeting” that took place in Leuven in January 2015, where participants were asked: Our histories and references are often in a different language (abstract or actual) than we use ourselves, what tools do you think are or might be useful to help you trust your own memories and narratives? What, if anything, do you think we might borrow from art to experiment with language in different situations? In English and Arabic.

Produced on the occasion of Phillip Lai’s exhibtion at The Showroom, London, 26 February–30 March, 1997. With an essay by Francis McKee and an interview by Karina Daskalov.

Phillip Lai’s work at The Showroom involved the construction of objects and images which addressed ‘fluid’ states; the transformation via a soy-sauce fermentation unit, of solids to liquid and the absurd fusion, through biro drawn directly onto the gallery wall, of automatic drawing and the ‘letting’, or exhumation, of a consciousness.

More information on the exhibition can be found here.