The Glasgow Effect

The Glasgow Effect was a multi-layered ‘research project‘, which took place in 2016. Its central provocation was that Harrison would refuse to travel beyond Glasgow’s city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for a whole calendar year (1 January – 31 December 2016). On 8 January 2017, she gave a talk about the work at the Glasgow Film Theatre. On 4 November 2019, she published a book providing the complete context for her thinking and action.

Part psychological experiment, part protest, part strike, The Glasgow Effect was initiated by Harrison in summer 2015, in order to explore the relationships (both constructive and destructive) between the individual and the:
– institutional structures (the family, higher education, ‘the artworld’, the media),
– communities (offline and online), and,
– economies (local and global), within which they are forced to operate.

To trace the development of The Glasgow Effect project, see the media coverage archived on this page, as well as the chronological list of ‘outputs’ below:

11 November 2015: Presentation at ‘Culture & Sustainability’ at The Tetley, Leeds
5 January 2016: Creative Scotland Statement
5 January 2016: Artist’s Statement
Original funding application for ‘Think Global, Act Local! (working title)‘
7 January 2016: Artist’s Interview with CommonSpace
1 February 2016: Article in Art Monthly
3 February 2016: ‘The Glasgow Effect: A Discussion’ at the Glad Cafe, Glasgow
Public Survey: Question 1 & Question 2
24 February 2016: Presentation at ‘Centre for Environmental Change & Human Resilience’, Dundee
1 March 2016: Presentation at ‘Cross-Party Group on Culture’ at The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh
Autoresponder available via e.harrison@dundee.ac.uk (1 March – 31 December 2016)
11 March 2016: Artist’s Newsletter: “The Glasgow Effect”
30 April 2016: Practising what we Preach – text exploring the many problems within the Higher Education system, which were the project’s initial impetus
1 May 2016: Screening of “This Changes Everything” as part of Radical Home Cinema at the Radical Film Network festival
24 March – 23 May 2016: View from studio window
27 May 2016: Presentation at ‘White Wood Forum’ at Deveron Arts, Huntly
23 – 24 July 2016: Presentation at ‘The RRAAF Founding Symposium’ at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
4 August 2016: Presentation at ‘International Teaching Artist Conference’, Edinburgh
15 September 2016: Presentation at the inaugural ‘Get Glasgow Moving!’ meeting at Renfield St. Stephen’s, Glasgow
22 September 2016: Artist’s Newsletter: “The Sustainability of a Sustainable Lifestyle”
22 September 2016: Presentation at the Scottish Artists’ Union AGM at South Block, Glasgow
27 September 2016: Screening of “Reclaim the Streets” organised by Cinema Up Collective as part of Scalarama festival
26 November 2016: Presentation at the ‘Youth Climate Summit’ at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
30 November 2016: Presentation at ‘People Powered Money’ at Glasgow City Chambers
31 December 2016: Annual Reading List
1 January 2017: Annual Heat Map
6 January 2017: Artist’s Interview on BBC Radio Scotland
8 January 2017: The Glasgow Effect: A talk by Ellie Harrison, Glasgow
10 February 2017: Artist’s Newsletter: “The Glasgow Effect”
23 February 2017: Universal Basic Income, For Fika Sake, Glasgow
5 May 2018: ‘Art, Activism & the Absurdities of Economic Growth‘ TEDx Southampton
4 November 2019: ‘The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint‘, published by Luath Press
18 May 2020: ‘Artist as Active Citizen‘, a-n The Artist Information Company
8 October 2021: ‘City as Social Sculpture‘, Live Art Development Agency

5 January 2016: The Glasgow Effect debate
Scotland 2016, BBC Two

5 January 2016: The Glasgow Effect phone-in
The Kaye Adams Programme, BBC Radio Scotland

6 January 2016: The Glasgow Effect discussion
The Janice Forsyth Show, BBC Radio Scotland

6 January 2017: The Glasgow Effect interview with Ellie Harrison
The Stephen Jardine Programme, BBC Radio Scotland

The Glasgow Effect was funded by Creative Scotland through the Open Project Funding Programme.

2 CommentsComment on Facebook

Ellie Harrison Louise Haigh and Labour say that they will reform the complex fares system to ensure that passengers are confident that they are getting the best fare; confidence that X is the case, and X being the case are not necessarily the same thing. Simplification of fares would have to include the abolition of many fares. The assertion that simplifying the fares structure would reduce travelling costs is based upon a false premise, that being that the complicated-ness of the fares-and-ticketing structure is the reason why fares are expensive, that is not why they are expensive. They are expensive because the base level is too high. If you massively simplify the fares, one might then always be certain of getting the best available fare because there are no obscure cheaper fare hidden away in a Byzantine monolith, but that best fare is likely the best of a bad bunch. Railway fares are complicated, but it is within this myriad complexity that the nuances which facilitate cheaper options lurk; if you take a sledgehammer to the behemoth you bring down the cheaper options which lurk within the behemoth. If there are presently 18 options for doing Thing X, with 15 of those ways being cheap, and 3 of those ways being expensive, if you abolish the 15 cheap options for doing thing X you have massively simplified the paying-to-do-Thing X process because having 3 ways is much simpler than having 18 ways, and you have made it such that one is highly unlikely to not notice the cheapest of the available fares, because one is more likely to notice something when it is one amongst 3 than if it is one amongst 18, but it is nevertheless the case that the person is selecting the cheapest of the 3 most expensive. (i) Being guaranteed to always get the best fare; and (ii). getting cheaper fares are not necessarily the same thing. Be mindful of the actual specific wording of things: both before and after coming into government, Labour has never in actually promised cheaper fares, what Labour has promised is that one will be guaranteed to get the best available fare. The general public, politicians and public-transport campaign organisations alike have been seduced by the word 'simplification'. Simplification is not a virtue in and of itself. Simplification is a neutral concept, neither a good thing nor a bad thing; what is pertinent and important is the nature of the simplification. One can simplify travelling costs upwards. Simplification can simplify out the cheaper options. I deliberately say 'travelling costs', not 'fares', because thinking only terms of fares when it comes to simplification of railway fares and ticketing, and when it comes to Single-Leg Pricing is a proverbial red herring, one should think both in terms of fares AND in terms of travelling costs. Fare decreases do not necessarily mean travelling-cost. LNER is a prime example: with the June of 2023 introduction of Single-Leg Pricing on LNER, and the February of 2024 introduced of the Simpler Fares pilot, travelling costs for using LNER have gone up. Two halved-in-price Singles are more expensive than one Day Return; a fare reduction, but a travelling-cost increase. The changes December of 2023 fares-and-ticketing changes on c2c have many of the same fare-decreases-but-travelling-cost increases as LNER, plus its pay-as-you-go tap-in-tap-out integration with Transport for London (to simplify things) has necessitated the introduction of a weekday early-evening peak period between 4.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m., which has numerous knock-on effects which can hugely increase one's travelling costs. The answer is not reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is not simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is to decrease the price of all existing fares. Do not abolish any existing fares. Do not introduce any new types of fare. Just make all existing fares 45% cheaper, and leave it at that.

As the idiom goes: 'Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true'. Reform will only be good if it is good reform. We don't need reform, we need good reform. Some might fear that prices would inevitably be rationalised upwards. Inevitably, the rationalisation would rationalise out the cheaper options. Some might fear that reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, reform travelling costs upwards, and reform out the cheaper options. Some might fear that simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, simplify travelling costs upwards, and simplify out the cheaper options. Just take a look at LNER. Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true.