From now until the 22 January 2006, Tate Britain will be playing host to an exhibition of the shortlisted artists for the Turner Prize. Ever a magnet for controversy, the prize has previously offered such spectacles as Damien Hirst’s Mother and Child, Divided (you know the one; pickled, bisected cow carcasses) and Tracey Emin’s My Bed. These, whatever else may be said about them, were certainly memorable. But just what is the Turner Prize out to prove?It was remarked by GS Whittet, in a letter to the Observer in 1984, the year of the prize’s inception, that “Turner must be rotating in his grave at the prize given in his name by the Tate gallery”. Yet, while a man of Joseph Turner’s era would indeed be somewhat bemusedby a prize which rewards the efforts of a transvestite potter (Grayson Perry, winner of the prize in 2003) and an artist who presents for exhibition an empty room with The Lights Going On and Off (Martin Creed, winner in 2001), Turner himself was by no means an uncontroversial figure in his day. His earlier works in oils received heavy criticism and his later style, so admired by the likes of John Ruskin, was nonetheless frequently ridiculed. Perhaps Turner would feel more empathy with the bearers of his prize than Whittet and others have given him credit for.The most traditional and simultaneously most controversial offerings on this year’s shortlist come from Gillian Carnegie, nominated for her solo exhibition at Cabinet, London. Her paintings, embracing the respected and quietly reassuring categories of still life, landscape, the figure and portraiture, reveal their artist as technically astute and almost certainly safe from the accusingcries of “I could do that!” which are so often and so easily uttered by many a spectator of modern art. Even Carnegie though, recluse as she is, still manages to create a stir, choosing as the subject for one series of paintings a discreetly anonymous posterior. Her peers on the shortlist are producers of the conceptual kind of art more generally associated with the Turner Prize. Damien Almond works in mixed media with film, photography, sculpture and real-time satellite broadcasts, exploring time and its effects. While not in any sense shocking, the works do raise questions about where the line should be drawn between traditional visual arts and film and have been the subject of much debate. The breadth of artistic approaches which the prize encompasses can be seen in the diverse concepts behind the works of Simon Starling and JimLambie, nominated respectively for solo exhibitions at The Modern Institute, Glasgow and the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona and at Anton Kern Gallery, New York, and Sadie Coles HQ, London. The former describes his work as “the physical manifestation of a thought process”, while for the Lambie, it is the sensory pleasure of his installations which takes precedence over any intellectual response that it may reflect or generate.We might well ask ourselves just what the point is of having artists of such varied techniques in competition for the same prize, but it is perhaps not the idea of a single or outright winnerwhich is at the heart of what this prize is about. The competitors’ works this year are by no means as controversial as previous years of Turner nominations. Yet they still represent the prize’s spirit of innovation and diversity. Public debate is arguably the lifeblood of the Turner Prize and when the pieces under discussion meet with criticism they will have done so in the public eye, which can only generate further interest. Even if the whole shenanigan is viciously dismissed with descriptions like that offered by government minister Kim Howells in 2002 of the works as “cold mechanical bullshit”, they have still provoked a reaction and in doing so have brought contemporary art to itsARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

Angela BullochModern Art Oxford11 October – 18 DecemberAngela Bulloch’s newexhibition is rather likehow you might imaginesome cyberspace realitywhere technology hasreplaced humans. The plywood andmetal boxes, which form most ofthe work in the exhibition, are thesquadron of living creatures that,spread around the main gallery, emitunearthly pink, yellow and greenlight. The boxes fade and brightencontinuously as if engaging in Morsecode, unintelligible to the viewer.Bulloch’s earlier work RGBSpheres has a similar futuristic feel.You wander among huge bulbouslamps, implanted into the gallerywalls, to the accompaniment of a lowelectronic hum. The bubble-shapedlights, sweet-shop colours andmuffled sounds all mingle with thevacuous white space of the galleryto give Bulloch’s exhibition an eerilyunnatural character.The artist tells us that each boxrepresents a pixel, the smallest speckof colour on a television. In one ofBulloch’s works, Z-Point, the pixelboxes, forming a large vertical grid,display the explosion scene fromMichelangelo Antonioni’s 1970s filmZabriskie Point. However, the imagesof the explosion are slowed down andthe violence bleached out of the film:only the plaintive music and distantsound of a blast suggest the violencethat the film originally projected.Bulloch modifies the presentation ofscenes from various films to the pointwhere they are no longer recognisable,and she is trying to show the sterilityof modern society and its attemptsto order and sanitise reality. Withoutreading about the artist’s own ideas,however, you would strain to catchthese somewhat elusive meanings.The very least that can be said forBulloch’s exhibition is that it raisesquestions about what art really is,which something like Monet’s WaterLilies would never do. However,opinion of Bulloch’s work has not yetdrifted into orthodox art consensus.With an occasional belief in its ownprofundity, her work seems to bealone, out in orbit and talking onlyto itself. Bulloch’s exhibition seemsso dehumanised and so clinical that,despite its innovative approach, itwill no doubt have viewers like myselfcreeping back to Monet’s WaterLilies.ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

A former student of Lincoln College entered the college’s chapel,
disrupted the altar dressing and shouted  abuse at the choir who were rehearsing. The incidient
took place at around 4pm last Sunday.Choir member Helena Wilde said that
the woman “suddenly stormed in, looking very angry and purposeful”. She
continued, “She walked straight past us towards the altar, so we all assumed
she was a chapel warden, perhaps coming to set up for evensong.”The woman’s behaviour started to arouse
the suspicion of the choir as she proceeded to noisily rearrange the candles and
the cross which were placed on the altar, before throwing them and the altar
cloth onto the chapel pulpit. She then approached an electric keyboard in the
middle of the chapel which Senior Organ Scholar Paul Wingfield was using for
the rehearsal.Wilde recalled that she “banged
her hands down on the keyboard to make a terrible sound then shouted ‘My parents
got married in this chapel’”. As she left through the antechapel the woman
closed the heavy wooden inner chapel doors, which normally remain open at all
times. She said “Burn in Hell, you Catholic” to the Organ Scholar who was by
the organ in the antechapel at the time. She then slammed the outer chapel
doors.Fourth year Lincoln chorister Johnny Shipley followed the
woman out of the chapel to the front entrance of the college, where she was
attempting to shut the main college doors behind her. Shipley said that he
tried to “reason with her” but she responded with confused comments, including the
remark “Where’s Oliver Cromwell when you need a war?”The conversation continued on Turl Street, where
her comments to Shipley indicated that she was a former Lincoln student. “She said something about
not being allowed to sit Finals, and something about  medication,” Shipley said. The woman, who some
of the members of choir estimated to be in her mid-twenties, also revealed her
identity when asked by Shipley.Lincoln College declined to disclose the
identity of the woman in the interests of her personal welfare. The woman had
tried to gain entrance to Lincoln
at around 9.30pm on Saturday night. She asked at the porter’s lodge if she
could enter the chapel but, as it was after visiting hours, she was denied
entry. When she returned the following afternoon, porter Rohan Ramdeen said he
had no reason to suspect her intentions and allowed her to enter. The
college porters have now been made aware of the woman’s identity and will
refuse her entry if she attempts to make further visits to the college. Lincoln JCR President Ollie Munn said,
“I was obviously concerned for the students involved but it seems that no one was hurt and that
nothing was badly damaged.” Choir members described the incident as  surreal” and Wilde admitted that they “were
all quite scared when it happened”. Chaplain George  Westhaver said that he did not think the
incident had been “a cause of lasting distress” and confirmed that no charges
are being levelled against the woman as she did “no damage at all”. He added “putting
things back in place took two minutes.”ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

A former student at Pembroke College who was seriously injured in
last year’s tsunami has been nominated by national magazine New Woman for their
Woman of the Year award.Naomi Bowman was visiting the Thai
island Koh Phi Phi last December when she was swept almost a mile away from the
beach by giant waves. Despite  sustaining
multiple injuries, which needed six operations and a month in five different
hospitals, Naomi returned to Oxford
to complete her maths degree last summer. Upon her return to England in
January this year, Naomi decided to launch an extensive fundraising appeal to
help the local residents of Koh Phi Phi who survived the tsunami. In ten months
Naomi has already managed to raise over £5,000 in donations, which has been
divided between Thai families affected by the disaster, a school and a charity.Having previously considered a
career as a City banker, Naomi now works as the project manager for the committee charged with rebuilding
the devastated island, having emigrated to Thailand in the summer. Elizabeth Dawson,
deputy Features Editor of New Woman, described Naomi’s story as “inspirational”
and “one which other women would like to emulate”. Naomi said, “I don’t believe it’s
important how much money I have raised or what I’ve personally done. I don’t
feel I’m anything special or above the other people who work just as hard and
harder to help the place.”ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

The disparity between Finals
results which exists between male and female undergraduates will be discussed
at an Educational Policy and Standards Committee (EPSC) panel meeting on 22
November.The EPSC meet twice a term and is
chaired by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Elizabeth Fallaize of
St John’s. It
consists of three panels dealing with examinations, graduate and undergraduate
matters. The EPSC’s responsibilities
include curriculum design and course structure, learning and teaching, assessment
and academic and pastoral support and guidance. The committee includes undergraduates
and contributes to policy and development, considers proposed amendments to
course and examination regulations, and deals with individual dispensations.Fallaize said, “The University is
very concerned about the Finals gap and is working with OUSU to discuss ways of
tackling it. Many studies have been conducted in the past on the matter but it’s
very difficult to draw easy conclusions from them.” She added, “But we are
still very determined to find the solution.”The OUSU Vice-President (Access and
Academic Affairs) sits on the EPSC undergraduate panel and OUSU’s
Vice-President (Women) has also been invited to attend the forthcoming meeting
in order to offer ten suggestions on how the University can act on the Finals
gap.  Ellie Cumbo, OUSU VP (Women), said,
“It is important that we take suggestions from students directly – that’s what
OUSU is for. Our plan is to first of all contact members of women’s campaigns
and JCR presidents.” “For the next four weeks we’ll be
running a high-profile call for students’ views on what will help and what will
not.” Cumbo added, “This is a breakthrough opportunity for the women in Oxford to tell the University
what their academic needs are. The fact that the University is at last gearing
up to take action on the Finals gap, and is also engaging directly with OUSU in
order to do it, is a textbook example of how a top-flight university should
work.”She continued, “I hope students
of both sexes will be encouraged to tell their JCRs, or me directly, what their
ideas are – both what will help and what won’t. If they’re prepared to speak
out, I believe we really could be at the beginning of the end of the Finals
gap.”ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

A former student of Trinity College
and Fellow of Oriel, John Henry Newman, is heading towards canonization after a
Boston deacon claimed that prayers to the Oxford theologian cured
him of a spinal disorder.Newman was a key member of the Oxford
Movement, also known as Tractarianism, which was a controversial Anglican high
church movement active in the 1830s. He was made vicar of the University Church
of St Mary the Virgin on High Street in 1828. Newman shocked the Victorian Anglican
church by his conversion to Catholicism in 1845, and founded the English
Oratory in Birmingham
in 1848. Newman’s beatification cause, the
first step towards becoming a saint, was opened in 1958. He can already be
described as the Venerable John Henry Newman, but canon law requires a miracle
to be performed by the individual before they can be considered a candidate for
sainthood.Until the miracle described by
the Boston
deacon, who cannot be named, no miracles had previously been performed at Newman’s
intercession. “I had to tell [Pope John Paul II] that the English are not very
good at miracles,” Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor said in an article in The
Times. “It’s not that we are not pious, but the English tend to think of God as
a gentleman who should not be bullied.”  The current head of the Catholic Church,
Pope Benedict XVI, is said to have admired Newman since his days as a student.
In a letter to Trinity
College, where Newman was
the first Honorary Fellow, he praised the Cardinal’s “disciplined commitment to
the pursuit of religious truth”. Father Robert Byrne, Provost of
the Oxford Oratory which was founded by former members of Newman’s Birmingham oratory, said “Newman has long been associated
with Oxford and
so we are absolutely  delighted with the
news.” If canonised, Newman will be the first
English saint since the Reformation. Other Oxford
saints include St Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford,
and St Edmund Campion, a scholar of St
John’s college martyred at Tyburn in 1581 and canonised
in 1970. Clare Hopkins, archivist of Trinity College said “[The honorary Fellowship] was
an honour that meant a great deal to him, as it was only six years after the
Statutes of the University had changed to allow Catholics to be members,
something that had been denied to them since the reign of Elizabeth I. His
visit to Trinity was his first visit to Oxford
since his conversion…Trinity
College remains very
proud of John Henry Newman today.”ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

Sir Richard Southwood, an eminent
zoologist and former Vice-Chancellor of the University, died on 26 October
2005. A lifelong naturalist, Sir Richard founded and chaired the division of
Life Sciences at Imperial College, London before
moving to Oxford
in 1979. In Oxford
he was appointed Linacre Professor of Zoology and head of department, a position
he held until 1993. A fellow of Merton
College and Emeritus Professor
in the department of Zoology, he made major contributions to both college and
University life. Sir Richard’s interest in natural
history, based on the observation of plants and creatures around his childhood
home, began at a very young age. His early entomological work was on the
morphology and taxonomy of Hemiptera-Heteroptera. This lifelong fascination
with insects led to the production of several influential books, including Life
of the Wayside and Woodland and Land and Water
Bugs of the British Isles.The Story of Life, his most
recent book, was published in 2003. It surveys the evolution of life in all its forms, from the earliest
single-celled bacteria, via the evolution and extinction of animals such as the dinosaurs, to the variety of life today. As head of department, Sir Richard encouraged
communication between various groups within the Zoology department. The
integration of research from disciplines such as molecular biology, animal
behaviour and ecology allowed exciting hybrid work to flourish, including that
of Richard Dawkins, who moved from animal behaviour to evolution.Shortly after he became Vice-Chancellor
in 1989, Sir Richard took over the Presidency of Campaign for Oxford, the University’s first major fundraising
campaign. The campaign proved to be incredibly successful, raising £340m by the
time of its completion in 1994.In addition to his contributions
to academia, Sir Richard’s public service has been extensive and important.  During his four years as Chairman of the Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution, three major reports were published and
several research projects launched – his 1983 report was influential in the phasing
out of lead-based petrol in Britain. While serving as Chairman of the National
Radiological Protection Board, he established an EnvironmentalIssues Panel with a wider membership
of ‘green’ organisations. He also chaired the Working Party on Bovine
Spongiform Encephalopathy. The Working Party’s recommendations in 1988 and 1989
guided the government’s policy on dealing
with BSE.In 1994 Sir Richard became Co-Chairman
of the Round Table on Sustainable development, an initiative set up by the
Conservative Government to advise on environmental matters. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Dr John Hood, said, “Sir Richard
Southwood had a reputation for sharp political intelligence and rapid
decision-making, characteristics which served him well during his time as
Vice-Chancellor.”He continued, “His enthusiasm and
keen interest in interdisciplinary work inspired many scientists to look beyond
the confines of their own field. He will be remembered as an eminent scientist
and a dynamic leader.”Professor Paul Harvey, Head of the
department of Zoology, said, “Sir Richard Southwood was an outstanding servant
of our University to the very end. For many years after his formal retirement,
he  presented a marvellous,
annually-updated series of lectures to our undergraduates. His strategic advice
to the department at open meetings or in personal consultation was invaluable
and, like him, will be sorely missed.”ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005

A male student from Keble had his
drink spiked at The Bridge nightclub on Tuesday. The student, who wishes to
remain anonymous, had his money stolen and was hospitalized as a result. The student said, “I went to The Bridge
with a mate on Tuesday night and met up with some others there. We bought some
drinks and stacked them up so we didn’t have to keep queuing – I only had about
six  drinks over five hours.  “The last thing I recall was
having three drinks waiting on the bar and getting about half way through the first
one – after that it was total memory blackout until this morning when I woke in
a hospital bed with a drip.”He went on to say that he had about
£50 removed from his wallet that night, but that nothing else went missing. Eve
Bugler, Keble’s JCR President reiterated the importance of going to the
hospital in cases of suspected drug spiking and having tests done so that there
is enough evidence for the police to proceed with investigations. Bugler said, “despite Oxford seeming like a
safe city, it is important to emphasise to all students that they should be
vigilant all the time. All should make sure that they watch their drinks and do
not accept drinks from strangers. Hopefully a greater awareness of the
importance of being careful will help to eliminate incidents like these.” A spokesperson from the Thames
Valley Police advised students, “Try to buy your own drinks and don’t take
drinks from people that you don’t know. don’t leave your drinks unattended.” Following
the incident, an e-mail was sent out to members of the Keble JCR and other
colleges including St Edmund Hall, urging students to be cautious.  The victim said, “I’ve informed
the JCR to warn everyone to be careful: it doesn’t seem to be an isolated incident
and it’s not only girls at risk.” On Wednesday, former Keble student Richard
Craig was also hospitalized after being attacked in Park End, which had been
hosting a Zoo entz night. He received stiches in his head resulting from having
been “bottled”, although was released from hospital the same night.Ruth Pitcher, Keble JCR Welfare Officer
told Cherwell, “The College is extremely
concerned about such occurrences and in light of recent events have strongly
advised students to err on the side of caution when out at night. I would like
to reiterate the importance of vigilance in bars and clubs, and encourage
everyone to keep drinks as close as possible at all times.”ARCHIVE: 3rd week MT 2005