Just thinking about forms of communication, sending signals down cables and along wires, I was reminded of a video I had seen where african pigmys swing accross a vast distance to create the basis for a bridge between the opposite sides of a river.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Monday, 26 October 2009
Nite of Poetry and Soup
Along with a few friends, we thought it would be nice to have a regualr evening of poetry. Amongst the usual T.S. Elliot, one of the most notable poems was read out by a friend studying English Literature at Glasgow University by Alice Notley.
Alice Notley - '101'
It's possible that I still live there
Apartment that is path-narrow
I don't want to be there in this poem if
Anyone else is, from the past, I want it to be empty
A lot of dust I let fall
It gets smaller See mobiles from when, a flasher
Whose penis had broken off That other mobile I
Made it's talismanic objects
A bottlecap a rose a centaur a cactus a coin
Several handmade afghans always and many filthy blankets
Shawls on whatever chair a Mexican shawl a cotton cloth from Africa
What about all of the plants they would get very scrubby
Cunty conches rock collections art everywhere collages and fans
But the apartment's a hallway and odah orange and purple curtains
at one window
Held up by a rope and hanging clothes tacked up dividing successive
tiny rooms
Come into the kitchen from outside look down through slanty-floored
narrow nearly-rooms
The mobiles dangle on the way to the real front room where radiant
south light is
And there's some light in the kitchen in spring and summer
As well as in the corridorish bedrooms
In the kitchen's a small bathtub underneath it's dark cockroach
hell
In the toilet room off the kitchen are the Christmas tree
decorations
On top of the kitchen cabinet are dead radios never sent to
Nicaragua
In the 80's and in the 70's are minor plants on the sill three or
four
They look like a few arms reaching malformed something always
hangs beside the window
A plastic medallion someone once found or a shoehorn
No the shoehorn was in a bedroom
You had to walk past people in bed to get anywhere
Ted's arm sticks out for some years near the shoehorn where is
it exactly
And later a photo of Doug's is there of a man looking bored at a
wrestling match
I've forgotten the books I sold so many for a living more flew
back
the usual and all of Leibling
Fenellosa on art Fat City the Quiller Memorandum was always there
Shibumi the Time/Life Wildlife Series Levis-Strauss and -Bruhl
All of Stevenson herbals the Mahabharata the First Folio the new
Tale of Genji the new Proust in the 70's when those were new
There isn't any room in this treehouse three flights up people
keep coming in
They ring the buzzer in various codes which we often ignore
You can tell by the pressure applied to the button who it is
anyway
They keep coming in I won't enumerate but they're all there at
all
of the ages and stages we
Were it's too crowded isn't it or not you love it whoever but I'm
pushed far inside
At this moment finding space down the well of myself
Though I am this land this apartment in hieroglyphs inscribed
round
the well as I drift down
This apartment wasn't me really it was everyone else it was the
outer world
How did it all fit in it was all-nighters parties near-fistfights
breakdowns
Endless conversation and controversy dinner parties on a bed
An eternal heart-to-heart "It smells like McSorley's in here"
A death occurs and a couple more offstage the room's full of
mourners
I sit up half the night
Staring near the shoehorn hanging from a nail staring at nothing
Some wood in a bookshelf that never got varnished
Trying to understand how a person vanishes will I ever vanish
Outside's the block one year I dreamed so much I wasn't sure I
could
tell the difference
Between sleeping and waking the block became me full of symbols
People keyed into my problems speaking somewhat in my codes but
Later the block became itself again
So fixedly that it's difficult for me to see it though it changes
Gets restaurants shops yuppies punks speculators drifting types
Buildings and cars and trash cans still there
Same old people whom I do like fixed in place just like me
So I walk up the block trapped in time not even so much in those
times
But the time of walking up the block and around it to the store
Over the years I had too often walked on that block to the store
and back
What do you do in life go to the store and the next day and the
next and
Trapped in the time of walking to the store
And back one day I popped free from time
I popped out of sequence out of walking that stretch for a second
everything felt light I wasn't there
That wasn't the first time something like this had happened
It had happened a few years earlier on Third Avenue
I didn't exactly leave time that time time slowed
And people slowed and walked in slow motion and had naked faces
They all looked vulnerable benign not hard but this time in
1991
I realized I wasn't even there at all I was unlocated untimed
About a year and a half later and there is no connection
particularly
I left New York
Other artists which we touched upon included Frank O Hara & Harry Mathews with his rather sexually explicit collection of 'Singular Pleasures'. Here is a sample:
While the Aeolian String Quartet performs the final variation of Haydn's "Emperor" Quartet in the smaller of Managua's two concert halls, a man of three score and four summers sits masturbating in the last row of the orchestra, a coat on his lap. Thirty-three years before, after relieving himself during the intermission of another concert, he had returned to his seat with his fly unbuttoned. Unconscious of his appearance, he had become erect during a scintillating performance of the Schubert Octet and actually ejaculated during the final chords. The house lights had come up to reveal his disarray; he had fled; ever since, he has been laboring steadfastly to recreate that momentary bliss.
Alice Notley - '101'
It's possible that I still live there
Apartment that is path-narrow
I don't want to be there in this poem if
Anyone else is, from the past, I want it to be empty
A lot of dust I let fall
It gets smaller See mobiles from when, a flasher
Whose penis had broken off That other mobile I
Made it's talismanic objects
A bottlecap a rose a centaur a cactus a coin
Several handmade afghans always and many filthy blankets
Shawls on whatever chair a Mexican shawl a cotton cloth from Africa
What about all of the plants they would get very scrubby
Cunty conches rock collections art everywhere collages and fans
But the apartment's a hallway and odah orange and purple curtains
at one window
Held up by a rope and hanging clothes tacked up dividing successive
tiny rooms
Come into the kitchen from outside look down through slanty-floored
narrow nearly-rooms
The mobiles dangle on the way to the real front room where radiant
south light is
And there's some light in the kitchen in spring and summer
As well as in the corridorish bedrooms
In the kitchen's a small bathtub underneath it's dark cockroach
hell
In the toilet room off the kitchen are the Christmas tree
decorations
On top of the kitchen cabinet are dead radios never sent to
Nicaragua
In the 80's and in the 70's are minor plants on the sill three or
four
They look like a few arms reaching malformed something always
hangs beside the window
A plastic medallion someone once found or a shoehorn
No the shoehorn was in a bedroom
You had to walk past people in bed to get anywhere
Ted's arm sticks out for some years near the shoehorn where is
it exactly
And later a photo of Doug's is there of a man looking bored at a
wrestling match
I've forgotten the books I sold so many for a living more flew
back
the usual and all of Leibling
Fenellosa on art Fat City the Quiller Memorandum was always there
Shibumi the Time/Life Wildlife Series Levis-Strauss and -Bruhl
All of Stevenson herbals the Mahabharata the First Folio the new
Tale of Genji the new Proust in the 70's when those were new
There isn't any room in this treehouse three flights up people
keep coming in
They ring the buzzer in various codes which we often ignore
You can tell by the pressure applied to the button who it is
anyway
They keep coming in I won't enumerate but they're all there at
all
of the ages and stages we
Were it's too crowded isn't it or not you love it whoever but I'm
pushed far inside
At this moment finding space down the well of myself
Though I am this land this apartment in hieroglyphs inscribed
round
the well as I drift down
This apartment wasn't me really it was everyone else it was the
outer world
How did it all fit in it was all-nighters parties near-fistfights
breakdowns
Endless conversation and controversy dinner parties on a bed
An eternal heart-to-heart "It smells like McSorley's in here"
A death occurs and a couple more offstage the room's full of
mourners
I sit up half the night
Staring near the shoehorn hanging from a nail staring at nothing
Some wood in a bookshelf that never got varnished
Trying to understand how a person vanishes will I ever vanish
Outside's the block one year I dreamed so much I wasn't sure I
could
tell the difference
Between sleeping and waking the block became me full of symbols
People keyed into my problems speaking somewhat in my codes but
Later the block became itself again
So fixedly that it's difficult for me to see it though it changes
Gets restaurants shops yuppies punks speculators drifting types
Buildings and cars and trash cans still there
Same old people whom I do like fixed in place just like me
So I walk up the block trapped in time not even so much in those
times
But the time of walking up the block and around it to the store
Over the years I had too often walked on that block to the store
and back
What do you do in life go to the store and the next day and the
next and
Trapped in the time of walking to the store
And back one day I popped free from time
I popped out of sequence out of walking that stretch for a second
everything felt light I wasn't there
That wasn't the first time something like this had happened
It had happened a few years earlier on Third Avenue
I didn't exactly leave time that time time slowed
And people slowed and walked in slow motion and had naked faces
They all looked vulnerable benign not hard but this time in
1991
I realized I wasn't even there at all I was unlocated untimed
About a year and a half later and there is no connection
particularly
I left New York
Other artists which we touched upon included Frank O Hara & Harry Mathews with his rather sexually explicit collection of 'Singular Pleasures'. Here is a sample:
While the Aeolian String Quartet performs the final variation of Haydn's "Emperor" Quartet in the smaller of Managua's two concert halls, a man of three score and four summers sits masturbating in the last row of the orchestra, a coat on his lap. Thirty-three years before, after relieving himself during the intermission of another concert, he had returned to his seat with his fly unbuttoned. Unconscious of his appearance, he had become erect during a scintillating performance of the Schubert Octet and actually ejaculated during the final chords. The house lights had come up to reveal his disarray; he had fled; ever since, he has been laboring steadfastly to recreate that momentary bliss.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Hidden treasure in the Barras
99 Moncur Street
I went on a cycle ride down to the Barras area today to go in search of a gem of a hardware store which Sarah Lownes had mentioned in a presentation she had made during the festival of DIY culture.
Sitting down outside Bill's tool store I wondered what the building next to it, with 1887 enscribed at the top, had been used for and if it was still in use today as it looked quite run down.
I entered the shop on the ground floor, selling discount nursery furniture, and asked the woman playing with her son whether anyone lived upstairs. She seemed quite suspicious at first until I explained that I was looking for potential sites to put on an exhibition. She then asked her husband, who makes all the furniture to show me around the building. He took me up to the top floor which was astonishing in both it's view and open space.
He told me that the building used to be a clay pipe factory and that his wife had inherited it. The other two similar buildings had been converted into £70,000 flats and they had been approached by the council and estate agents on various occassions. However, he seemed to be quite open to the idea of turning the space into an place for exhibiting artwork. I was even more impressed by the floor below the attic space which still contained some of the gambling machines from it's brief time as snooker hall.
Returning to the ground floor, the shop keeper also seemed pleased that my interest in the space wasn't going to be financially orientated and we exchanged numbers to discuss matters further. Had I not have done the mapping shop the week prior to this where we were asked to go and have an unfamilar lunch in a new location and carry out an action, I'm not sure whether I would have considered going to talk to the shopkeeper. Having done so however, I have found how relatively little effort can lead to what could potentially be a very exciting project which many people could be involved with.
I went on a cycle ride down to the Barras area today to go in search of a gem of a hardware store which Sarah Lownes had mentioned in a presentation she had made during the festival of DIY culture.
Sitting down outside Bill's tool store I wondered what the building next to it, with 1887 enscribed at the top, had been used for and if it was still in use today as it looked quite run down.
I entered the shop on the ground floor, selling discount nursery furniture, and asked the woman playing with her son whether anyone lived upstairs. She seemed quite suspicious at first until I explained that I was looking for potential sites to put on an exhibition. She then asked her husband, who makes all the furniture to show me around the building. He took me up to the top floor which was astonishing in both it's view and open space.
He told me that the building used to be a clay pipe factory and that his wife had inherited it. The other two similar buildings had been converted into £70,000 flats and they had been approached by the council and estate agents on various occassions. However, he seemed to be quite open to the idea of turning the space into an place for exhibiting artwork. I was even more impressed by the floor below the attic space which still contained some of the gambling machines from it's brief time as snooker hall.
Returning to the ground floor, the shop keeper also seemed pleased that my interest in the space wasn't going to be financially orientated and we exchanged numbers to discuss matters further. Had I not have done the mapping shop the week prior to this where we were asked to go and have an unfamilar lunch in a new location and carry out an action, I'm not sure whether I would have considered going to talk to the shopkeeper. Having done so however, I have found how relatively little effort can lead to what could potentially be a very exciting project which many people could be involved with.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Radical Nature at the Barbican
Agnes Denes: Wheatfield – A Confrontation
15 July 2009 - 6 August 2009
Off Dalston Lane
15 July 2009 - 6 August 2009
Off Dalston Lane
A pioneer of environmental art, Agnes Denes makes interventions into the landscape that frequently take the form of powerful performances involving the planting of trees or crops. In Wheatfield – A Confrontation, 1982, Denes planted and harvested two acres of wheat in Battery Park landfill in New York, situated between the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Centre. It was an act of transplanting rural nature into the heart of an otherwise extremely dense urban environment. As part of Radical Nature the work is restaged at an abandoned railway line in Dalston, East London.
EXYZT: The Dalston Mill
15 July 2009 - 6 August 2009
Off Dalston Lane
15 July 2009 - 6 August 2009
Off Dalston Lane
Barbican Takes Radical Nature to Hackney
Part of Barbican Art Gallery’s current exhibition Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009, the experimental architectural collective EXYZT has created The Dalston Mill, turning a disused railway line and waste ground in Dalston into a vibrant rural retreat for the people of the area and beyond.
The fully-functioning, 16 metre mill is accompanied by a 40 metre square wheat field, a recreation of environmental artist Agnes Denes’ original 1982 pioneering piece.
Come and participate in one of the events or workshops, from theatre performances and bread-making to pedal-powered music and tea-time talks with artists.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Mona Hatoum
Other works of interest
Pull (1995)
Pull (1995)I particularly liked this piece which has been arranged so that the pony tail that is displayed in the box is actually Mona Hatoum's own and she is in fact lying down with a camera directed at her face, which is being displayed on the monitor. When you pull the hair you get an instant reaction, but the difference between actually knowing she is just behind the wall and just seeing her face on a screen would drastically change your perception of the piece.
Self-Initiated Project
Conrad Shawcross at Siobhan Davies Studios
shown as part of 'The Collection'
7th April 2009
Slow Arc inside a Cube (2008)
shown as part of 'The Collection'
7th April 2009
Slow Arc inside a Cube (2008)I was completely mesmerised by this piece of work which had been installed in the top floor of Siobhan Davies studios I managed to sit around for almost an hour filming it from various viewpoints. The effect of the intensely bright light coming from such a small source meant that the shadows cast on the walls of the studio shifted from feeling like a cage was being lifted off of you to then feeling entrapped again. I was very interested in this idea of an image being able to have such a tangible quality so much so that it almost feels physical.
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