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http://www.bobbybakersdailylife.com

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Hello. My name is Bobby Baker. I am a woman and an artist. I am 58 years old.

I live in London, England with my husband Andrew, a photographer. We have two grown-up children - a son and a daughter. They don’t live with us anymore but Roxy and Chico do instead - they are black cats.

My company is called Daily Life Ltd. I am fortunate to work with Steph -Producer and Emma - Projects Assistant, and other tip-top people too.

While on this perch I’ll be responding to the question posed by Rajni Shah for The Art of Engagement: "What is an 'engaged practice'?" I am very pleased to reside artistically on this particular line – whatever or wherever it may be – throughout the month of May.

So a small flock of us will flutter around and try to engage with each other (and you) with our beady eyes, to create a birdy culture of sorts. We will be using Twitter which is a "service for co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question - What are you doing?" We will be sending 'tweets' – SMS posts of up to 140 characters. I see a tweet as a haiku for the digital age – well, sort of.

I have spent the past 11 years road testing various treatments for my multiple ailments. I've been cured of most so far. On Tuesday 28th April I had a new knee fitted to replace the disappointing one I inherited. So lots of my tweeting will be about being in hospital and perhaps about knees, TV, flocks of nurses or flurries of doctors…Let's see…

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Comment Wall (21 comments)

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At 8:55am on August 17, 2009, Keith West said…: Hi Bobby

Thanks for sharing your work with everyone - I really enjoy seeing it.

I wonder if you knew Barbara Reise the late art historian and critic? I was a student and good friend until her sudded death in 1978. The Tate Archive has commissioned me to write a personal memoir of Barbara and I would be pleased - if you knew her - to add something - recollections of her - to the document.

Hope to hear from you soon

Best wishes and thanks again for your work

Keith

At 5:36am on July 3, 2009, Betty Martins said…: Hey Bobby! Nice meeting you here!

At 2:59am on July 1, 2009, rajni shah said…: Bobby - thanks so much for your wonderful residency!

Of course, you are more than welcome to continue posting and twittering, and I hope you do for it will be much appreciated.

But now the 'official' residency programme is ending. It has been fantastic, really a wonderful thing to have the privilege of organising. Thanks for bringing it to such a joyful and human and unusual end.

with love and a deep respect,
Rajni

At 4:41pm on June 30, 2009, Phyllis Reeve said…: Thanks so much for your twittering residency. I'm going to miss you.
Love to Roxy - and the bird on your head.

At 2:29pm on June 20, 2009, Bobby Baker said…: It's great to find this Comment Wall - compared to Twitter actually. I haven't done it much as I still get so tired after the operation - and resting with Roxy is an absolute MUST at the moment -or I get just too horribly bad tempered for those whom I engage with on a daily basis.
I just thought I'd check in though - after a few 'tweets' - and find that I feel like I'm now in my own virtual jolly summer party. How weird is that? I'm going to do this more now as it's a slightly more comfortable 'headspace'. It's easier to 'tweet' when I'm out and about - or when I was in hospital. God - I wonder how Iris is? Did she recover? Do I care? Sadly no - I hope I never see her again. She moaned fore England she did. But as for Sue and Emily - thinking of them and wondering about their health brings tears to my eyes even though we only knew each other for a week by being on the same ward. Emily is old - Sue is much younger and more ill perhaps. They had such dignity. I hope the nursing assistant with the sadistic streak - who I made a complaint about on my last day - has been too scared to bully other patients as she did all of us. I've only experienced that on psychiatric wards before. I bet it hasn't stopped her. Maybe if we all engaged online about these tiny, maybe rare, but everyday examples of evil - it would stop it? Finally? Ha, ha - very funny.

At 8:56am on June 14, 2009, rajni shah said…: I realise that, being in the privileged position of having visited your beautiful home, I am imagining you in your various locations. Though having said that, I imagined you on the ward perfectly well without having been there. It's interesting how we collide the real and virtual inside us. In a way, these online spaces are like attempts at recreating that 'headspace' but it's very different.

At 2:15am on June 12, 2009, Katherine R Adams said…: I love your pictures. I'm so glad the peas are making themselves heard.

At 3:06pm on June 11, 2009, Bobby Baker said…: I'm on an actual computer - sitting in bed admittedly but online, indoors, wifi and all - with the telly on too to add that 'je ne sais quoi' sparkle of excess engagement - and in a room with curtains to boot. The luxury and ease of it all is quite marvellous. It really beats an iPhone as far as my moderate portion of brain cells goes. Thank you Danny Gold for restoring our Broadband and thank you for the comments below. I'll comment back and Twitter more myself from now on. But Roxy has pissed off in a huff and the person who sleeps in the other half of the Dream bed has just arrived and doesn't seem to approve of this chirpy environment - so I'll disengage until tomorrow. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

At 2:25am on June 2, 2009, Katherine R Adams said…: I think with Twitter, following back and taking caree to appreciate followers is important because when regular tweeps see that you don't they won't follow you. One person I listen to well is an artist who made a pebble labrynth. Twittering for her is a two way engagement - very open, very appreciative but not a work of art in itself. I listen well to you Bobby because your tweets are funny and thoughtful. There is a great sense of you as a performer in them. I think it is a very flexible medium in that respect. Your style generates a different kind of engagement. I would be curious about how the two approaches might be combined.

At 11:03am on May 22, 2009, Justin Allen said…: I am really enjoying this discussion, and hope more engage with it. I have mixed feelings. I joined Twitter at the start of April, and have been experimenting with it as a way to explore thoughts around my own practice. I'm enjoying doing that, but I'm not sure if I just like the sound of my own voice. I wonder who's really listening, and about the quality of that listening.

On the other hand, I have really enjoyed other people's tweets -- particularly Bobby's, which have been funny, engaging and at times rather moving. So I think it has potential as a medium, but people need to explore different ways in which it can be used.

For example: did anyone see this competition, which ran all this week?
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/spoken-word/twitter

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