Haroon Mirza nominated for the Northern Art Prize

Its November, its colder than it should be, and if you are as lucky as this editor, your boiler is broken. Fortunately galleries are surprisingly good places to keep warm. Here is our November round up of some exhibitions and arty things worth looking at.

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In our first interview about the last issue’s theme Drift, we talk to creative agency Mercy. Split between London and Liverpool, Mercy have their fingers in many pies, from writing to do design, to events. They have worked with a whole host of companies and organizations including record labels, fashion houses and galleries. In addition to this they have found time to work on several of their own projects, including a fantastic zine.

Does accident play any part in your creative process? Do you ever arrive somewhere without meaning to, and how do you use it when this happens? Is it more original?

Yes. Absolutely. Mercy learns from its mistakes all the time - especially in the beginnings of creative process. We have special exercises, a bit like the Surrealists’ Automatic Writing and drawing, where we do things superfast just to see what amazing kinds of accidents happen. You could almost say that accidents are more honest than clinically produced things. With writing, design, and performance final products though, I’d say it was Mercy’s style to hone and polish the material from emerges from these accidents before we let the outside world see it.

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At long last, Issue 0 is up on the web reader

As part of our awakening - the internet exists! - we decided to try uploading some of our magazine content in a web friendly way. This is the web version of the Life Worth Living. Here’s a roundup of the most intruiging exhibitions in the immediate future.

Dogs we’re accustomed to disregarding as nothing more than playthings satisfying ours whims for strokes and walks in the park, practical pairs of gloves, generic reality makeover TV programmes, and dead iconic pop stars - all of these form the inspiration and material for some of the works of art on exhibition this week. All quite everyday and banal stuff out of context, but in our opinion forming some of the best art stuff going off in places round here right now.

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Anyone who didn’t happen to be John Aldridge in 1988 is going to have a pretty hollow feeling in
the pit of his stomach when he hears the following two words put together: Scouse Rap.
Yes, those jaws will be clattering onto the pavement when I go on to reveal, coyly, with one cheek
embedded in my shoulder, that this isn’t Liverpool F.C. bending their knees to-and-fro in front of a graffitied wall. Nor is it your many-throated Pavarottis warbling their support at the Kop stadium. Or the Beatles on a hallucinogenic mishap. Or Tin’Ed caught up in a drive-by shooting. Really, Scouse Rap isn’t quite what we’re used to at all - and yet if a sector of Myspace is to be believed then this improbable genre stands aloft as an art form in its own right. Read more ⇒