In Solidarity With Egypt

These photos are from my two months in Egypt over the winter of 2008-2009. My heart goes out to this beautiful country.

Cornish Landscape II

Went to see three exhibitions over the last two days, all in the Penwith Peninsular of Cornwall: Richard Cook at The Exchange, Penzance; Unfold at Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn; and Peter Lanyon at Tate St. Ives, St.Ives. The three exhibitions are jostling about in my mind as I try to make sense of them, physically framed by my extraneous wanderings in the Cornish landscape and the clever use of windows and scenic viewing points by the galleries to reframe the outside view as inside. All three exhibitions use landscape and nature as subject matter, two of them solo painters and the other a group show.

It seems a monumental task to tie all my thoughts on the past two days into a coherent whole. Landscape is the ultimate frame, but there is a meandering problematic residing within this broad term as I grapple with it in my own experience, thinking and photography. I am going to post a small series of photographs and writing on this thematic.

I felt most troubled by the Newlyn exhibition, troubled in a way that marks an uncomfortable boundary to what I want from my own work. The full title of the show is 'Unfold - A Cape Farewell art exhibition, A cultural response to climate change'. It is a gathering of responses to an expedition that a group of artists, musicians and poets made to the icy north to reflect upon the changing status of our natural world. The impetus to the show is indeed laudable and I was quite excited to see it. I want art works that engage with the political issues of the day, especially when it's about the natural world. I want art works that help. But, despite liking several of the works on show, I was left feeling all my usual doubts about the success of such works to fulfil this extra-aesthetic role. I say extra-aesthetic because the political element to the show's purpose throws an uneasy extra criteria to our judgements: how does this work help us slow down climate change? And what happens to the aesthetic element of works when they are utilised for such a purpose?

On the train on the way down to Penzance I noticed that there were trees on the edge of some fields that had a shape like giant weeds, and I remembered how easy it is for us to justify felling trees accordingly, that the cultural associations and linguistic signs that we use are crucial to treating the planet better. It is in this that art and artists are crucial.

There is the post 'institutional critique' reading of art that gives us works that expose the social and material relations operative to works' realisation within their setting, gallery, landscape. This thinking criticises the aesthetic object for keeping up a facade of ideological illusion of art's autonomy for the bourgeois' claim on taste and political hegemony. I am impressed by this but mourn a means to make art that can retain an element of that spiritual rapture we get from great beauty.

Though how often do we encounter that? And how often is beauty genuinely beauty and not another kind of bewitching?

I sat after looking at the art works in 'the studio' to peruse the various materials that has been put there for our research (on eco art, the exhibition, the expedition etc). All text based, a computer, some books, some written comments on the wall. As I read I wondered how much this show was supposed to be a pedagogic experience, (which I find a little patronising), and how much the format lent on a design orientated aesthetic. Did I come here for information, in what feels like an ever encroachment of the administrative? Am I a purist to wish for my art to be art? (Maybe I am turning into a traditionalist). 

It is an interesting question - where is the aesthetic in a specific art sense here? Or maybe it should be, what is the aesthetic here? 

As I was leaving I noted that Frieze is doing a religious issue.

This is Daro Montag's, Leafcutter Ant Drawing, Amazon rainforest, Carbon and oil on pre-used paper, 2009. It was created with the feet of tens of ants navigating the two stripes "painting" made by Montag with a carbon-oil solution. The film accompanying the piece was very interesting. Where does the aesthetic reside in this? Perhaps in the visual as a composite of all the different material and social elements that go together to make an art object and to give that art object, externally, internally, meaning - firmly, integrally, immanently to its, the, landscape.

Moorhen Blues

The sound of a moorhen crying from the other side of the river during my run this morning was a jolt. It was the sound of an animal communicating in a language I will never understand. It was a very lonely feeling.

I also saw a giant fish leap out of the water.

Overview

Trying to decide which of my photos might be appreciated as a gift for my two closest friends here in Chania. These are a few of my short list:





















In the end this process has become a bit of an assessment of all the photos I took whilst being away in Greece and Egypt. A natural closure.

Observations #2

I'm getting tardy I know, but there are reasons.
Some observations recently in words:

So many birds in cages, birds singing gloriously, nailed to a crumbling wall, above the ancient woman who keeps them there.
Birds in cages outside the petshop. Chorus of competing singing and chirping to the accompaniment of terrifying Greek traffic on a tuesday morning. Birds calling to be noticed in cages.

A lone cockroach outside the supermarket. Retreating from the pavement as we pass. Returns to its position when we are gone.

A basketball court at night with the stars just visible despite the floodlight. Tall metal arms holding the hoops and their shadows falling over the court, one arm's shadow intersecting with an oilstain, interconnected, a centipede makes a quick scuttle across both and into the dark on the other side.

A rusty drain pipe protruding from the middle of a balcony four floors above us. Showering the street with soapy water. At midnight there were rivers of the stuff making inky landscapes all over our walk home.

A fish with a tail of fine silk billowing out behind it, locked in a never ending forward motion in a glass bowl. Glassy eyes that don't register me.

Ach Thoughts.

I am deliberating over how much word I want to put on the blog. For the sake of visitors I tend to think pictures and minimal writing is enough; sometimes though I am in the mood to talk.

I just went off on one with an opinion on someone else's blog:

Jane McCoy's post brushing off the chips

I read myself in your excellent blogpost, not just in the persona but in the analysing it after. I've spent good hours negotiating the 'show myself/hide myself' dichotemy and thought I might share some thoughts with you (if you don't mind).

1) Coolness is always as we perceive. I have on several occasions been informed that it was me who appeared 'cool' at school despite the fact I was a nervous wreck. I am at the conclusion that everyone feels sensitive in the end, it just varies how we display it.

2) I come to the belief that there is something inherent to art-production that is about uncovering/covering or hiding/showing. It lead me to Heidegger.. blah blah and too much intellectualising later, I feel that the process of making art is experienced within us bodily as we bodily become extensions of the object we wish to manifest (or something..). Anyway, what I'm (taking too long) saying is that the negativity we experience is a crucial part of the dialectic and life and art-making - the boundaries, the retraction, assessment, etc. etc. Our abilities to be self-critical are not just psychologically the 'tortured artist' stereotype but just a necessary part of bringing something into the world. Being sensitive to it is because making art fine tunes our listening abilities precisely for this making process (and responding to the world around). If we had no doubt then we would be running ourselves and our art riot all over the world - a violent and monolithic way of making a mark. Ok, maybe I will make this into my own blog post... not sure... sorry to impose.... Keep up the good work, I like your drawings.

I have decided to re-post it here because it collates some of my thinking on this subject of disclosure, uncovering, truth, the ground of truth.. and the role of doubt in this process. Having suffered from doubt in various forms of discomfort/self abasement, it comes to me as something in the end that must be necessary. There is nothing more grounding than the continual return to making, producing, thinking, writing - even if this production is just the debris or excess of a kind of striving, aspiration.

Was writing a little recently on the violence of totality and the drive towards totalisation. I come to this from reading some discussions on the nature of knowledge (being a drive towards co-opting every 'thing' out there into the system of knowledge), and I live this through the disappointment of hearing sentences that I have somehow heard before, and before, and before... I'm not asking for pure originality (what's that?!) but instead am just recognising how homogeneous we insist on being in the name of our insertion into the world. I make a case for subtlety, listening, small things, sensitivities, taking the time to respond honestly, a commitment to letting ourselves respond.

(This last paragraph is woefully without references and steps rudely onto Derrida's toes. I will return to it as I think Derrida is right and that there is nothing really grounding beneath it all. But this is another post.... ach! thoughts!)

Thought Themes To Build On (1)

Current topics of interest:

crystalise - a moment in time, of time, a realising, the birth of a structure
revelation as disclosure, uncovering
phenomenological description vs writerly imagination
mothering, mothership, as a state and concept
facing the world with our viewfinders already configured to see according to the structures we already know
destroying structures, destroying worldviews, in order to see reality again

the experience of being absolutely structureless and out in the world
despair

rebuilding

Hermeneutics

4th June 2009

Souvlaki yoghurt round our lips, cold flat chips left neglected, perhaps my writing is nothing more than an excersize in self-deception. Effect, building a life, beer to drink.

Scar Tissue

The most emotive line of all: a scar.

Platelets and other tiny bits of the repair machine
spin a web so fine as to leave a silver line,
cleaved and shimmery to catch my eye.

Crete

Shut Eye

Empathy and Criticality

Coming back to an earlier post, I am wondering about empathy and criticality. The statement creates a relationship between the two, perhaps one of opposition, perhaps one of kinship. It seems to say to art that we approach it with either hope of connection or suspicious reticence.

Empathy = feeling?
Criticality = thought?

There is much to stew on here.

Hello again.

I have enlisted the help of a service called FeedBurner to provide a subscription service for the blog. As part of this service it provides me with stats on how many subscribers I have and some information about where they are coming from (only browser info, I don't get to know who they are).

It says: "FeedBurner Stats provides publishers with a single interface for analyzing the content consumption habits of their audience — be it feed subscribers or website/blog visitors. This insight can help you determine which content is performing best, where your audience is located, and better understand detailed information about traffic sources such as search engines." (1)

I also tried to make an account with Technorati which is a blog community site and quite interesting because it reads labels to tell us what are the hot topics at any one time in the blogosphere. Bit like the way Twitter is a window into the (mostly US) world. But Technocrati doesn't like something about me and refuses to take my blog, and I found in the small print that once you are accepted into their community they still might chuck your blog out.

They say: "Do not tag exessively. Make sure the tags you use to describe your posts really do describe your posts. If we see high occurrences of unrelated, variants and synonyms, or over-use of tags in your posts, we may conclude that your site is trying to game the system." (2)

Guess that's me then.

I am thinking about the rules that govern, the market-consumer model for people, performance/audience metaphors, organising criteria always being political, the community/exiled binary, blog-as-me-me-as-blog, where does experimentation belong?, politics of visibility (which as a term is usually associated with identity politics - sexuality, race, and so on)... The internet can only reflect our own organising structures.

A beautiful capitalist critique for you.

I wonder how many times I will go back to FeedBurner today to see if anyone else has subscribed...

Love has moved up the list, now in at no. 24. Flagging behind a bit we have order, then mezzanine, incoherant, grief and electro, beasts.

Found this today, am quite moved, though reluctant to face the sheer amount of homophobia around. It's difficult to feel that things can change, but they do, eventually, sadly, thankfully. Pretty flowers.

I'm trying to find one image from the set I took on my way home of a dead pigeon suitable to post here. Hang on,



ok, it's too dark but it's something. I'm still annoyed because I took some better versions of this when there was more light but somehow in RAW format and they seem to have disappeared upon arriving home. Bugger.

Through my own grief I feel like I have a right to this bird and its dignity in death, absurd as that is. When I found it and was taking photos I stood in the street, defiantly standing against all the on-coming cars. What is it about death that makes us tigers? It was a lovely Easter. The face on this bird is so tranquil and pleasant, more pleasant than a pigeon's face might be when living I think.