Newsletter Archive

Ellie Harrison has been sending out regular email updates about her work since launching Version 2.0 of this website in June 2003. Since then, the newsletters have become one of the key vehicles she uses for sharing her ideas with an audience.

In 2012, as a way of acknowledging the importance of these emails in disseminating her conceptual art practice, Harrison compiled this Newsletter Archive as an expanding history of her most newsworthy projects:

2023 Bus Regulation: The Musical – special artist’s talk at Manchester Art Gallery
2023 Don’t miss these free events in Liverpool & Glasgow this summer
2023 Bus Regulation: The Musical – Don’t miss your last chance to see the show!
2022 New Merseyside production of Bus Regulation: The Musical!
2022 Talks & events online and in-person in Glasgow, Liverpool & London
2022 Check out the film of Bus Regulation: The Musical!
2022 New Strathclyde production of Bus Regulation: The Musical!
2021 Book Launch and events during COP26
2021 Glasgow Community Energy / Bus Regulation: The Musical and more
2020 Bus Regulation: The Musical Film / Book Tour
2019 Early Warning Signs / Book Launch
2019 Bus Regulation: The Musical / Book Launch
2017 The Glasgow Effect
2016 The Sustainability of a Sustainable Lifestyle
2016 RRAAF Founding Symposium (Centre for Contemporary Arts)
2016 The Artists’ Bond – Expanding our Membership in Scotland
2016 The Glasgow Effect
2015 RRAAF Kickstarter – Last Chance to Get Involved!
2015 Support the Shift from Aesthetics to Ethics
2015 Radical Renewable Art + Activism Fund
2015 Early Warning Signs
2015 This Is What Democracy Looks Like!
2015 Democracy in London / Equality in Cardiff
2015 High Street Casualties: The Exhibition (and other news)
2015 High Street Casualties: Ellie Harrison’s Zombie Walk
2015 Work-Life Balance (various projects)
2015 Dark Days at GoMA, Glasgow
2014 After the Revolution, Who Will Clean Up the Mess?
2014 The Global Race (nGbK Berlin)
2014 Edinburgh Art Festival / Early Warning Signs
2014 Transition Community of One
2013 Anti-Capitalist Aerobics
2013 The Other Forecast
2013 The Other Forecast / Bring Back British Rail (Green Party Conference)
2013 Early Warning Signs
2013 Bring Back British Rail / 21 Revolutions (Edinburgh Art Festival)
2013 The Artists’ Bond
2012 The Redistribution of Wealth (Late at Tate Britain)
2012 Early Warning Signs / Ellie & Oliver Show
2012 National Museum of Roller Derby / Ellie & Oliver Show
2012 The Artists’ Bond
2011 The End Product (Collective)
2011 Market Forces (Wunderbar Festival)
2011 Fair Game at Vault Art Glasgow
2011 Edinburgh Art Festival / Josie Long / Ha Ha Road
2011 Early Warning Signs
2011 Lone Workers Unite!
2011 Work-a-thon for the Self-Employed
2011 Personal Political Broadcast / Art Monthly Profile
2011 A Brief History of Privatisation (Watermans)
2011 Trajectories
2011 How to Reconcile the Careerist Mentality…
2010 The History of Financial Crises (Market Gallery)
2010 Artists’ Lottery Syndicate Launch Party
2010 General Election Drinking Game
2010 Artists’ Lottery Syndicate
2010 Hedonism vs. Asceticism (Centre for Contemporary Arts)
2009 Bring Back British Rail: East Coast Mainline
2009 Vending Machine
2009 Therapy Session / Book Launch
2009 Desk Chair Parade (Castlefield Gallery)
2009 Toytown (Glasgow School of Art)
2009 Confessions of a Recovering Data Collector
2008 Tea Blog Press Release
2008 New Website Launch
2007 Angel Row Jukebox
2007 Olympic Ring Doughnut Eating Contest
2007 Notts on Tour
2007 Eat 22 (Wellcome Collection)
2007 I’ve Been Watching You (Broadway)
2007 Artists’ Dance Off (Sports Day)
2007 Hen Weekend Press Release
2006 Part-time / Union of Undercover Artists
2006 Artist’s Training Programme™
2006 Day-to-Day Data Press Features
2006 Day-to-Day Data Symposium (ICA, London)
2006 Daily Data Display Room / Tea Blog
2006 Day-to-Day Data (Danielle Arnaud)
2005 Day-to-Day Data (Aspex Gallery)
2005 Day-to-Day Data Publication
2005 Day-to-Day Data (Angel Row Gallery)
2005 Gold Card Adventures (Art on the Underground)
2004 Mass = Energy = Time (Colony Gallery)
2004 Sneezes 2003 (Lakeside Art Centre)
2004 Bath Time (Victoria Baths)
2004 The Challenge Series
2003 Goldsmiths Postgraduate Degree Show
2003 Treat Yourself (Science Museum)

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.