Amelia’s Magazine | How We Are Attracted To Things: an art seminar from Details on Request

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All photography and illustration by Kerry Hyndman.

Saturday night saw the end of a series of seminars on ‘irrelevant learning’ organised by Details on Request (which we listed here), who are a small collective of artists in East London. Hosted by ‘creative technician’ Andrew Jeremy Houghton-Robinson, it was two hours of ‘debate’ that explored the idea of how we are attracted to things. Sold as a conversation about the effect advertising can have on us, the public, it became a messy exchange of thoughts and the Gossip Café’s charming garden was left resembling a chaotic classroom.

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Houghton-Robinson was quick to utter the philosopher’s mantra of “there are no right answers”, but if he’d had one it wouldn’t have been taken seriously anyway. As he sought to outline his theory with a series of basic illustrations and loose metaphors about good and evil you could sense everyone was wishing they were watching the music drifting across from the Little London Fields festival up the road. But on he went.

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We must be aware of the dark arts used by advertising, Houghton-Robinson warned before showing us a clip of the eerie child snatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. “So do you think advertising is a child snatcher then?” Bingo. We’d hit the jackpot. And as the rain began to sneak through the assorted umbrellas gathered above us it seemed as good a time as any to make for the exit. Houghton-Robinson looked a little downbeat as he ended the session but in truth he’d done a valiant job at sparking debate in front of an unforgiving audience.