Imaginary video art

  

There exists on the internet sites that document work that will never be made, but not because of financial hurdles or practical difficulties: the intention is to never make it.

Intention is often quoted as the rationale behind modern art, an approach stretched to the limit in conceptual art; wherein the art lies in it’s own mobius like documentation of the concept itself without recourse to production. The movement born as a reaction against the commodification of high priced art works. Not all web sites reach for these lofty ideals, www.unphotographable.com avoids having to mourn missed opportunities by describing in words what the camera has missed.

It could be that some imagery remains sharper when played out only in the mind. That in the act of envisioning it, it is created, bringing it to life in some incantation of a magic realism ritual. A criticism leveled at the film or television adaptations of novels is that the directors imagine certain aspects inaccurately, breaking our personal cinema.

Consider these a script or instructions for watching/producing an art video. It is a collaboration between us.

#1 Desire path

An ariel camera points straight down on a patch of grass, roughly the area you and a lover would utilise in having a picnic. The grass is a deep verdant green with wide blades, it’s grown to a length where light footfall will cause some strands to topple, the thickness of the leaf causing it to bruise and bend instead of snap, unable to sustain it’s own height. Definition and contrast is good, showing clearly the swirled patina caused by unchecked growth, you know that the blades will be slightly sticky should you puck one to make a whistle between your thumbs, and a faint moistness will linger near the soil from the dew, it’s lushness never fully allowing the sun to penetrate and dry out the ground.

A man steps into view bottom of screen and moves in a slight concave path towards the top. Perhaps he is wearing some form of canvas hat so that no personal features can be discerned. He is, as seen from above, essentially a head and shoulders with brown lace-up boots jutting back and forth as he walks. Behind him he leaves a slight trail causes by the disturbance in the weave of the damp grass.

A short period of time passes. He re-emerges at the same point and begins an arc upwards again, traveling at his chosen pace. The same interludes lasts until he appears again. You begin to anticipate his arrival and your eyes wait at the beginning of his previous paths. You notice what seems to be a thin cord tied to perhaps his belt loop. A modern nylon cord, thin and strong, it’s pulled quite taut, the far end vertically midpoint off screen.

Realisation dawns that it has been anchored into the soil or to a post, and by walking with the twine kept free of slack the man is able to traverse the ground in a consistent circle. He continues his episodic traversing across the screen, swathing a more and more defined path behind him. Perhaps the interaction between the rope and his movement is stronger, instead of assisting in traveling through a perfect arc it is forcing him into making this repetitious circular journey.

The grass in his wake is flattened now. He continues making revolutions at a set pace. You can sense how the smell of the scene will have changed as his regular steps have crushed the fallen grass, releasing a chloroform odour. With the change in fragrance the emerald green turns darker, starting to mush. In the cinematography of our mind the man’s cyclic trek can watched as both endless, boring his way into the dirt itself, the lighting perfect, our virtual sun not changing angle in the sky, keeping the shadows in an eternal day as he continues his pilgrimage; and overlaid with a series of cross fade fast forwards of the green turning almost dark blue before it starts breaking into streaks of brown.

The gradual process of cutting a canyon through eons is re-enacted by our mental visual trickery, we ourselves escaping what in real time could only seem as a sentence handed down, a duty, or punishment, wearing the vegetation into mire. Till a perfect circular ribbon of mud is coursed through the grass. Maybe the decent into sludge is colouring our perception and we are not watching a regression but a quest, an odyssey, to return the turf to a primal form.

#2 Vapour Trail

The sky overhead is a perfect blue. If prompted to name the colour you would compare it the shade of a 1950’s dress, strong but not to a Mediterranean depth of hue. It is cloudless, unblemished. No foliage interrupts your vision. It is not a screen but the vista, it encompasses all, your entire view.

A plane comes into sight, transcribing an up-tilted path across the sky. It’s momentum slow, graceful, fluid. The movement seemingly in harmony with the blue backdrop. You watch it drawing an airbrush line of cotton-wool white. Till the perfectly straight man-made line has bisected the sky.

The angled vapour trail, as if a celestial brush tip has bleached the colour from the sky hovers above you. No breeze discernible. There is no movement, all has become a still life before you. As you become conscious of time passing, that you have been watching without focus or purpose, the far end of the trail begins to softly fade, ever so gently. With a patience bordering on the devotional the white evenly blends out to the blue.

Till only the untouched sky is left again. Maybe a popular song can be heard in the background.

–

Desire path | Vapour trail

Circus girl

Until the last week and a half I had always thought the expression “Run away and join the circus” was a euphemism. I have learnt the error of my ways.

Eleven days of flame throwers, fire eaters, high wire dancing girls, angle grinders, arc welders, tattoos, big tops and tents. The working day is going to seem a little tame for a while…

Daisy chains

Sometimes everything gels just how you envisioned….

Daisy chains…
…and schoolyard games,
a list of things we said we’d do tomorrow

The artist’s studio

 

I recently learnt that three of my tiny fictions are to be published in web lit-zine, this should enthuse me to put fingers to keyboard and yet I find myself unable to tear my enthusiasm away from the Holga. I feel I am somehow cheating, that writing is facing the creative rock wall – the proverbial white sheet. While photography has that little leg-up, pointing the camera at something that is in itself already visually arresting. 

I justify it with a modern art rationale – it’s the intention that makes the art, not the form. The reasoning that setting up a photograph is akin to writing out a scene. An internal bickering forever in the back of the mind. Guilty feelings that it is laziness stopping anything new being written. Having spent the weekend fooling around with a new ring flash and some hundreds and thousands this snippet I read recently throws a different light on such musings…

“Writers always envy artists, would trade places with them in a moment if they could. The painter’s life seems less ascetic, less monkish, less hunched. Instead of the austere mess of the desk there is the chaos of the studio: dirty coffee cups, paint-smudged cassette decks, drawings of the artist’s girlfriend, naked, on the walls… In the age of the computer the writer’s office or study will increasingly resemble the customer service desk of an ailing small business. The artist’s studio, though, is still what it has always been: an erotic space. For the writer the artist’s studio is, essentially a place where women undress.” Apparently quoted from ‘Out of Sheer Rage’ by Geoff Dyer.

Hard to argue with that isn’t it. Although I know I need to devote some time to my chosen partner writing, the mistress of photography still lures me: the shots failed from the Holga and a digital image has been resorted to, temporarily. It irks me that it doesn’t resemble that in my mind’s eye, and I am keen to reshoot.

(This paragraph will only of interest to those Googling Holga, diopters and ring flashes. The Holga normally suffers from under-exposure, but it seems that a ring flash throws out a lot more light that it’s built-in version, and combined with a close-up lens the glare bleaches everything out. Film rated at 100ASA is massively over-exposed. A test roll is needed pulling 50ASA stock back a stop). After I’ve put pen to paper of course.

I found both the quote and the marvelous picture of George Dyer, boyfriend of British painter Francis Bacon (shot in his Reece Mews Studio by an uncredited photographer in 1964), on the excellent ‘Sympathy for the art gallery’. Given that Dyer senior was gay I suspect that Geoff and George aren’t related, but it is serendipitous that their pairing should illustrate so aptly why I find myself drawn to photographic portraiture when I know I should be honing my writing.

Appearing with Bum Bum at Glastonbury

The ‘You Me Bum Bum Train’ is going to Glastonbury. You’ll find it as part of Mutoid Waste’s Trash City.

I leave next week to help build the set and today we were assigned our roles… very excited.

Can’t say more but but it should be a fantastic ride… if you’re going to be at the festival it’s well worth the effort to get on board. (Like the man from Remington I liked riding it so much last season I joined the company).

Neville Brody interview by Deezen

The pecha kucha I gave at David Gale’s Peachy Coochie Nights and BAC’s Burst festival gave a brief history of type in twenty fonts and ended with Neville Brody’s Insigna. Commenting along the lines that Brody’s faces and the fact he cut them from red film or a rotraring pen suddenly opened up the world of type design. With a call to the barricades his work gave me and a generation of graphic designers the confidence to create typography without thinking we needed to serve an apprentice with a foundry. With a Mac suddenly the graphic world was ours.

So I watched with great delight Nevile Brody talking about topics close to my heart including punk, London, t-shirts and fashion during an interview by Deezen for the Design Museum’s ‘Super Contemporary’ exhibition.

Watch it at www.dezeen.com/2009/06/10/super-contemporary-interviews-neville-brody/

Interviews and confessionals

Many years ago a good friend told me that he considered everyone to be capable of telling you a great tale, that everyone had lived through something astounding, something moving. That there lurked in everyone amazing stories.

I was once again reminded of this conversation on seeing David Lynch’s new project – Interview. A camera crew take an odyssey across the flat lands of America interviewing whomever they met on the way. As a project it draws on classic Lynchian road movie motifs and is perhaps also provoked by his film The Straight Story, based on a true tale of Alvin Straight’s journey on a tractor across the States to visit his estranged brother before he dies.

Interview has a new episodes every three days, not all contain exceptional tales, some a trifle sombre, I think the adage that everyone contains a great story also relies upon timing. You must catch a person at the right moment to hear an intimate confession.

Alex Chadwick used not a road trip but a trestle table and 50 cents to lure passer-bys into giving a brief interview. Lynch’s candidates so far seem akin to supporting characters in one of his films whilst Chadwick’s urban locations seems to give a wider spectrum of the population, but it is early days yet for the Interview outing, and there’s no detraction even if it were to concentrate on outsiders. Stories straight from the heart.

I find hearing ordinary people talking about what they hold dear to be endlessly engaging, vox populi suddenly turning poignant or uplifting. A fine example is Fifty People One Question, a beautifully simple idea: “Go to a place. Ask fifty people the same question. Film their responses”. Within the brevity of the responses a great deal of the orator’s character and aspirations are revealed.

These are all confrontational projects in respect of having an interviewer cast direction, the flip side is creating a space for people to leave their thoughts, and more intriguingly those that can only be uttered aloud confidentially. Fragments of a life story that have a confessional aspect to them.

The internet is of course an ideal medium for confession booth and listening post. The first use of technology that I’m aware of for secular confession must be Allan Bridge’s ‘The Apology Project’, a 1980 conceptual art project where callers could leave their confessions on his answer phone. Just before his accidental death in 1995 he was considering moving the project to the internet, having amassed over 1000 hours of recordings.

Not Proud launched in 2000 as a confessional web site, allowing participants to get their secret of their chest. In itself a valuable resource and saves one from drunken misgivings with a bartender. Adding a form of recompense is Group Hug allowing readers to give a confessors a hug, secular forgiveness or a show of understanding. They can shrug as well; which throws up questions about the voyeuristic nature of reading these sites.

I see nothing wrong in the voyeurism, the confessions have been left to be read, to share, a been-there-too, know-how-you-feel, actually-my-life-aint so-bad-after-all pool. And the hug system offers support for those who are still perturbed by their past, but a like/dislike system forces these personal moments into the realm of entertainment. Potentially becoming a ‘did I like this one’ rather than did it bring a sense of release or relief to someone. That said Group Hug is a wonderful site and service, a window into our psyche, and the work of a single person – Gabriel Jeffery – hats off Gabriel.

Allan Bridge’s original community art aesthetic is alive and flourishing under Post Secret, a blog accepting postcards where the image and message disclose a secret.

SecretTweet updates the medium for the social web generation, authenticity forsaken for immediacy; Group Hug has a long validation process before publishing. One Sentence publishes true stories in, yes, one sentence via Twitter, here humour and the mundane nestle with the confessional.

Social media with it’s soundbyte ethos has brought a wealth of sites dealing with real people aspirations and fears, I particularly like Someone once told me and Before I die I want to. The micro-blogging approach has reduced Interview’s remit to 400 words and even Six Word Memoirs.

All this guilt is good business or at least one start-up thinks so, Truu Confessions attempts to seize advertising revenue from the voyeuristic. If you find the stock photography disengaging your empathy, you could remind yourself that ordinary people can tell extraordinary stories, as Leo Rosten said ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, become fiction has to make sense’, by reading Paul Auster’s ‘True tales of American life’.

Glad I’ve got all that off my chest.

(The image is from Bill Drummond’s The 17 project, used to symbolise ordinary people, and because I like The 17. They are 17 book lovers from Derby)

Self pleasure

A beautiful ceramic dildo. I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, and having not seen it turn up elsewhere in the blogsphere decided the time is right. It’s was created by furniture and lighting designer Davy Grosemans at Das Ding and the design studio Oooms.

For me the first thing to discuss is the quality, Das Ding (apart from having a logo like a butt plug) are high-end award winning product designers, it’s manufactured by the European Ceramic Work Centre – a centre of excellence for artists to explore work in ceramics. Neither of these companies are normally involved in the sex trade. Oooms, who make a very droll memory stick from real sticks have produced a great range of dildos and exciters before, so it could be argued they have a touch of under the counter about them.

It’s a sumptuous object or at least looks it (I can’t afford one at the moment to vouch for this) and seems very well designed, I’m presuming the cork allows it to be filled with warm water on a winters evening. It’s certainly not under the counter in sensibilities, and in fact the description on the Ooom site suggests that it would be a talking point if you left it out on the mantlepiece. Exactly. It is not an object made to be hidden away and yet it is unlikely many people will display it as they would any other piece of Delftblue pottery. For the simple reason it’s used to masturbate with when not being admired.

Bringing us to the second topic – self-pleasure – one assumes practically everybody does it and yet there is very little public acknowledgment of the practice. (Girls are way ahead on this one with their Anne Summers parties, but I’m thinking of a more general public admittance). One can buy sex toys as a couple and mention you watch ‘porn for couples’ but nobody really admits to ‘spending a few quite moments with oneself’.

For instance on Amazon there are book reviews by customers, and furthermore there are erotica books whose only purpose to aid a little nighttime under-the-duvet relief, but are there many reviews of these titles by people using their real names? No, not really, although they are a few brave types who have – I salute you! Obviously one is using euphemisms here, after all we’re talking about, not writing filth. Although a review of ”…made me cum in buckets really quickly” may be accurate, a simple “very effective” will suffice. It’s the admittance, or rather the public lack of, that I find intriguing, not being explicit about it, after all it is a matter that occurs in private much like visiting the toilet. Now with the latter subject some people show no hesitation or restraint in discussing the finer points, something I’ve never quite understood.

Before reaching closure with my final aside I should put my money where my mouth is. I particularly enjoyed the ‘Wicked Words’ short stories from Black Lace, let’s just say it doesn’t matter too much that the stories are short.

When I originally saw the Milkmaid with it’s  connotations of admittance and display, it led me to thinking about literature, which prides itself in tackling taboos and thorny subjects head-on. And yet there is very little mention of masturbation in books outside of erotica. I don’t mean descriptive passages, just a character during the course of a novel indulging in some self relief. Authors will go to great lengths describing the preparation of a  breakfast meal, or the choosing of a jacket, but very rarely will a protagonist masturbate to relieve stress for instance, which could show a side to their character as much as other plot devices. When it comes to sex writers show no abounds, but it’s always sex between two or more.

I’ve been trying to think of books where masturbation is used within the plot, and so far I’ve come up with ‘The Illuminatus Trilogy’ by Robert Shea and Robert Anton and Geoff Ryman’s ‘253’. There must be more? For instance ‘The colour of memory’, an excellent tale of friendship amongst ennui by Geoff Dyer features plenty of aimless drug smoking, staring out of windows and general realistic trivia of modern life yet no-one has a wank in it. A friend mentioned that they thought Madame Bovary might have masturbated but alas I haven’t read it.

Is it because masturbation is seen as a sign of failure? Not managing to have sex with someone, and having to do it on your own. I’m married and enjoy sex as often as I can but every now and then a bit of self pleasure brings it’s own rewards, a lie-in with a hangover is vastly improved with a wank, being stuck on your own in hotel room can always be enlivened with some self indulgence, and if you’re on the continent you might even find a television program you don‘t get at home to inspire you. 

Its seems very odd to me that something so enjoyable so be seen as failure, even the new trendy sex shops play to the couples angle, I have only seen the marvelous Coco de Mer suggest solo pleasure with a series of fantastic adverts showing people’s facial expression during a petit mort. I would love to photograph a series of portraits like these, the mask drops away, but I will be very surprised if any of my friends would volunteer.

So…note to self, need to make sure any future stories I write allow for non-gratuitous masturbation within plot lines or character development, and to photograph my own orgasm portrait – a self-portrait perhaps, would anyone agree to photograph me at the point of release? (discreetly under the covers of course).

It’s a bit of a shame that www.beautifulagony.net isn’t simply a gallery of faces enlarging full-screen into a truly beautiful celebrations of the self, shining through in that single second of ecstasy, and instead delves into videos and ‘confessions’ becoming something much more voyeuristic. Any brave souls out there who fancy exchanging camera duties? And if you know of a novel that features masturbation do leave a note…

Scarecrow returns

Lee Rourke’s online lit-zine ‘Scarecrow’ has returned. And with a bang.

The first six entries feature three authors whose writing I already enjoy. There’s a short story by Will Ashon, author of ‘Clearwater’ – a black consumer-age farce. Chris Killen also contributes a story, his ‘The Bird Room’ is on my reading list and whose blog I regularly read. Tom McCarthy has a more fringe piece included, but what would you expect from the creator of the incisive and elegant ‘Remainder’. Apologies to the authors I haven’t mentioned by name, no criticism intended…

Lee Rourke aside from publishing such a splendid platter is also author of ‘Everyday’.

Dancing at Burst festival

Ironic happenstance aside, I will be appearing in a dance piece, or site specific event, or as I have learnt; a scratch performance. 

‘Handbag scratch’ by Geraldine Piligrim is on for two nights as part of the Burst festival currently on at The Battersea Arts Festival.

Handbag Scratch

Geraldine Piligrim

28 May 2009 – 29 May 2009

19:00 Performances at 7pm, 7.45pm & 8.30pm

£5.00 (Concs £3.00)

Book tickets

Handbag Scratch
Geraldine Piligrim
28 May 2009 – 29 May 2009
19:00 Performances at 7pm, 7.45pm & 8.30pm
£5.00 (Concs £3.00)
Book tickets

A scratch performance is a work where the action is derived on location from what is at hand, both cast and set. From scratch so to speak.

Not much more to say (feet do the talking) so instead here’s a fantastic poem centered around a handbag, ‘Crocodile’ by Anne Baker

Crocodile

1975 Crocodile Handbag
One only
Republic of Kenya
Game Department
Legal Possession Number: 602485
Export allowed

The black scales
and shiny buckle
Momentarily caught the light
Almost ready for a fight
It must have been the moon
There was no street lamp
In that municipal darkness
of the South Cliffs

The park
Dark
Near the Coast
Close to the Dutch Spa building
Walking
Talking
On the way back from a wedding indeed
Trying to save on the money for a cab

A man ahead
Surely he was behind us
Before
Us

Dragged down the steps
By an arm around the neck
Scimpy clothes
Panty hose
Plenty of scope for a grope and worse

Frozen
Scared
In spite of those self defence classes
Bloody useless when disabled by sheer man weight and fetid anorak breath
Death turned his head
And said
Don’t be afraid
I have made
An exception
In your direction

Whack
Crack
And a crocodile once lazily skulking in the waters of Kenya
Now proudly rears its dried out self to meet a prey of a different kind
Killed, skinned, dried and tanned
No longer slithering but flying
No mud
But thud
Contact made
This crocodile is not afraid

To be saved by a creature
From another continent
Modelled into a fashion accessory
May be necessary
In this mad world.
The meeting of skins
The conjunction of violence
Epidermis
Skirmish

Not rape
But escape
Becoming yet another unreported statistical event

Reproduced with thanks to Anne Baker

Appearing at Burst festival

Hot on the heels of my pecha kucha debut at Peachy Coochie I am flattered to be asked to cooch it again. David Gale brings his night of 20 slides for 20 seconds to the Burst Festival at Battersea Arts Centre. So I shall be doing a rerun.

Can you be heckled about typefaces? Seems the answer is yes since I was asked “Where is microgramma?” Pecha Kucha is an unforgiving format, in the end old favourites had to go in favour of a broad historical overview. All of this will make perfect sense if you have seen the presentation, or indeed come along to

Peachy Coochie Nites: Reason For Living
Battersea Arts Centre
Lavender Hill, SW11 5TN
15 May 2009, 9pm
£5.00 Book tickets

The omission of microgramma could be deemed ironic given I used it as the base in creating the logo for Spceco.

 

 

Coming across like an infusion of My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins, Spceco are purveyors of nugaze, or dreampop to you. Their debut album is out and can be purchased by paying as little or as much as you want. They, like a lot of bands have come to the realisation that revenue streams don’t come from CDs anymore. The topic is too broad to diverge into here but the band have written about their feelings on the subject. Stateside people can buy an actual CD from here. Personally I make a habit of seeing any band I like play live so dosh goes into their pocket, least one can do.

Below is their fantastic single “You’re alright” which can be brought from iTunes.

And speaking of playing live, I am delighted to be sharing the stage with John Hegley on Friday, perhaps a much better reason to purchase a ticket.

Slow Club portrait

I am rather taken with Slow Club, so asked if I could do their portrait. Turned out nice as they say.

They are as delightful live and in person as they on record, www.bandstandbusking.com is currently featuring them so you can judge for yourself, along with the very great Emmy the Great and Psapp going acoustic. The Black Cab Sessions on a bandstand if you will. 

Fact: Slow Club like my home-made bread.

Fail better

I had forgotten how much fun can be had typesetting with no brief: for my Peachy Coochy appearance I spoke on 20 typefaces that shaped our world, and had to illustrate each design.

Fail better. Such a fantastic sentiment. Samuel Beckett must have been pleased with it because he used it twice…

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

and

Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.

So a chance to flush aimless typesetting from my system for a while and remind myself…

Fail better.

Recursion

I’ve always loved the way a paperclip’s appearance in Mervyn Peake’s “Gormenghast” breaks the ‘fantasy world’, halts it from solidifying into a Tolkienesque bygone mythology, jolting us into an alternative parallel world.

Stationary in literature, the typewriter in Burrough‘s Naked Lunch, Douglas Coupland Office Supplies Ltd.

These are just a few of my favourite things.

And before it all gets too metatextual this is just a way to introduce this delightful clip made by photographer David Friedman, who filmed the Post It note inventor Art Fry watching a video of a Post It note performance. Recursion. And so on.

www.ironicsans.com/2009/04/postit_note_inventor_watches_s.html

(and an excuse to post one of of Mr Peake’s beautiful illustrations)

Ballard

I only just found out.

That passage in “The Gum Thief” where the protagonist rages about the literati never really owning up to their favourite authors struck a chord. It’s always someone obscure, or French, or both.

The three best books on the twentieth century malaise, the condition we’re in as the century turns, the ones I wish I could had written…

“Girlfriend in a coma” Douglas Coupland
“Platform” Michel Houellebecq
“Millennium People” J G Ballard

Rest in dystopia.

6Sv2 available from Amazon

I have two tiny fictions “Marriage” and “Minicab driver” in the second anthology of very short stories from Six Sentences.

You can buy it from Amazon or Createspace

I’d go for Createspace but those of us in the UK may find Amazon’s postage cheaper.

In fact, until the failamazon issue is satisfactorily explained I’d rather you did buy it from Createspace regardless of postage costs, I am.

You can read one of my stories and lots by other people at the six sentences site.

Slow Club a ‘coming

Music taste is a much too personal matter to post about. One man’s candy floss being another’s vinegar and all that. But sometimes, just sometimes, a band comes around who make you love music like you did before careers, mortgages and their ilk drag you into the half-light called responsibility. A band that makes you want to sing out loud.

Slow Club do that to me.

And they are playing my local this Monday. It’s sold out but I shall be haranguing the doorman till I get in. So this is just really an excuse to put up one of their tracks. Play it. If it sends spasms of joy through you then tickets are available for their shows at the Scala and the ICA later this year. It’s safe to mention as mine are already booked.

Appearing at Peachy Coochie

I am appearing.

David Gale’s Peachy Coochie Nights is an evening of pecha kucha held in the Arts Admin bar at Tonybee Studios, Aldgate, compared by the inimitable Mr Gale.

Pecha Kucha is a presentation format created by Klein Dytham Architecture in which the presentee has 20 seconds to orate 20 slides, developed ostensively to halt young architects talking endlessly about buildings and building during pitches. You can see why they dreamt the concept up. Pecha Kucha is apparently an ideophone for the sound of Japanese being spoken.

Since it’s inception it has been hijacked by the arts movement amongst others, and here steps in Mr Gale who has been involved in performance for, well for a while. I have been to quite a few of his peachy evenings and so can attest to their high entertainment value. So much so that I am stepping up to the plate and will be cooching at this month’s show.

Arts Admin
April 30th 2009
7.30pm
Book tickets

I was originally going to read aloud some of my tiny stories, but this would be playing with the form. Not in a good way, at least for a debut. To wit, there are rules. The 20 slides can not be random, and must form a sequential narrative, on a sustained subject. Like ‘Just a minute’ with added hurdle of being invigilated by fascistic time and motions fanatic. No transitions, no durational slippage, no stopping.

I have witnessed people not talk but staple objects to themself, use a number other than twenty, show video, and speak utter nonsense. All of which is indeed justifiable in performance and entertainment, but for my initiation I wish to experience pecha kucha in it’s purest form. Except I wont be talking about buildings.

Be lovely to see you.

Nineteen year exposure

Today there was closure.

Five months ago a taxi returned a cardboard box containing the detritus I had left forgotten in an old studio. At the bottom amongst artwork and proofs lay the unused slides from a session I had shot for a record sleeve by the group See See Rider back in 1990.

Holding the transparencies up to the window I was struck by the richness, the depth, the wonderful analogue grain of film and resolved on the spot to abandon my digital camera. Within a week a Holga had arrived and my enthusiasm for photography rekindled.

My curiosity was also piqued with regard to whatever had happened to See See Rider. They were the favourite of all the bands I designed for, going beyond a working relationship, marking me a proper fan-boy: I still regularly play their EPs to this day. You probably haven’t heard of them, being probably the most criminally underrated group of the nineties (although No Man could also claim heir to the title).

Fronted by lead male and female vocalists, with a mini Keith Moon on drums they were for me, the essence of rock and roll. Songs about sex and drugs, hell, on sex on drugs, with no loyalty to any one style or genre. A fiercely intelligent song writer whose conversation would veer from porn to literature and back; perhaps you can see why I loved them. Tweedy their drummer was like hanging with all four Beatles at once. The only news I had of them was a couple of chance meetings with the other vocalist who became a fine art curator after they split.

During the months between designing the two EP sleeves I happened across a semi-detatched being renovated. The gutted parlour with it’s cane chair spoke to me of some dilapidated 70’s Performancesque glamour, tinged with overtones of a mock sexological test, the kind where you describe yourself as a path, a room, a wood. It struck me as being so very See See Rider. With the forthcoming album in mind I returned to photograph the house. That album was never to be, the record label disintegrated, the group moved on, and I was left with only my memory of some great songs from the handful of gigs they played.

Google is like magic. A few finger clicks later and it was revealed that a web site had recently been created about them. Outlining their brief career with a discography.  I was amazed to see there, nineteen years later, the unreleased album available to download free, legally, as high quality mp3. At the time spurred on by the fact that Hallelujah had just hit number one and Jeff Buckley’s band of alt country was back in favour, I was going to post a little entry pointing to it, with a few words on how incredible these songs still sound. But I never did. (We shall forgo the fact that Hallelujah is really a Leonard Cohen song). 

One of the reasons that See See Rider failed to set the world on light may have been their scant regard for the fashions of the time and instead playing some form of twisted Glam Country Soul, whoever uploaded the album had tagged the tracks ‘Eccentric Country Rock’. These tracks even as demos still sound fantastic, Gram Parsons gets a baby oil fisting from Suzi Quatro while Bolan riffs on wearing only see-thru plastic pants, perhaps accepting a line, toke or blowjob from Lou Reed. I surmise that by never being in fashion one never becomes dated.

I still have that transparency I shot intending to be on the sleeve, wouldn’t it be quite an act of closure if it were to be embedded in the mp3 tracks. The site is nothing to do with any members of the group so it has taken a while to track one of them down and email them the image. But today I received an email from the singer saying he would be delighted to use the image for the download. After nineteen years the photograph has finally come home.

You can download both the EPs and the album from www.seeseerider.co.uk. I’m not sure if or when the hand that graces the web site will upload updated mp3s with the image in place, so in the meantime help yourself here to the ‘new’ cover image in either PNG or JPEG format. Below is ‘White Flake Elite’ to whet your appetite.

* Technically it should be a nineteen year development not exposure, but that’s not such a snappy title.

Reading and fucking

Ian Dury sang ‘Sex and drugs and rock n roll’ but as one approaches a certain age, it’s best to admit when one’s ability to rock n roll is past it’s prime, and it’s time to pick a new adage. Plus, I’ve really been dying to typeset the phrase ‘Reading and Fucking’.

They are two noble pursuits but aren’t always seen hand in hand with the respect they deserve. Dirty stories I believe is the phrase, rather than erotica. Actually I think I prefer dirty stories, and will leave erotica to label photography, where there is a more of a divide between art and commerce.

Aside from bedtime, or is it bedside stories, what really started my thought juices flowing was actual writing about sex. Too rarely authors delve into this topic, which seems strange given it’s such a huge motivation in our culture. There are plenty of novels analysing greed or jealously as the driving force in a quest for power or glory, but very little on how the need, relief and act of sex can affect the consequences of human intercourse. Or maybe I’m reading the wrong books.

I write about sex and death. 

What else is there. 

It is very hard to write about the act of sex without lapsing into descriptive prose and there by ending up in different waters. All my life I wanted to write but never did anything about it, in particular putting pen to paper. Events conspired and finally culminated in my starting, and I should give kudos to the three books that gave me the kicks I needed. And fittingly two of them are largely about sex.

Nic Kelman’s ‘Girls’ is rare in that it explores sex from the middle aged male psyche, alongside the lies that are generated in it’s admiration of the female teen. He writes on this subject with a brutal ardour rarely shown in public. Dangerous ground to tread these days where Woolworths can not sell a child’s bed called ‘Lolita’. As if the very word itself could cause a visitor to misbehave even without being aware of the name of the bed. (Lolita being another exception that springs to mind, in that it’s not written from the perspective of a woman in the call girl trade, look at all the other books that Amazon recommends if you follow the previous link).

Kelman’s writing excited me in hopefully the way he intended, making me think there are still things to be written and said on this subject. These short parables speak volumes and he deserves to be much more widely read. Any male starting to lose their hair would be wise to look between it’s sheets. He writes without judgement about his characters, and the second book that inspired me brings sympathy to it’s dissection of life’s fuck ups and losers…

Ewan Morrison’s ‘The last book you read’ adds a twist of addiction here and there to it’s tales of sex and life. His writes with a quiet understanding of people unable to bring their lives under control, without moral overtones. When I read this I knew what I wanted to write about, it unlocked the voice inside me. I would like to call him a hardcore Nick Hornby but I’m worried that doesn’t convey how brilliantly insightful he is.

Both these books contain exceptional writing about fucking.

A little divergence here, for I feel it only fair to pay homage to the eureka book, the one where closing the final page you say to yourself “I’m going to write stories, no more excuses”. My gratitude for this goes to Simon Van Booy’s ‘The secret lives of people in love’, and in particular the story ‘Little birds’. Beautiful writing. It has prostitutes in it too, but no sex.

Luckily for me it seems that I am not the only one with a healthy interest in all of this. Bookkake publish classics of erotica, and I am delighted that they too take great pride in calling them dirty books. Not satisfied with bringing us great writing on fucking, they also ruminate on these two subjects via their blog. The Monday morning dirty poem has brought a hithero unknown joy to the start of my working week. I’m finding myself liking poetry more and more.

Another blog worthy of note is Violet Blue who apart from having an unfeasible name is a technology columnist, podcaster of naughty stories on iTunes and a writer on open source sex at tinynibbles. She’s a busy girl and turns up all over the place, but be warned, her blog can be visually ‘rich’.

I would have liked to give a honourary mention to ‘In bed with’, the compendium of short stories featuring Fay Weldon and Ali Smith amongst others, but the fact that none of them would own up to whose story was whose implies that they see them as smut not literature. Cowards. Mind you I had to stop reading ‘Swung’ by Ewan Morrison while I was sunbathing on the beach. Next on my reading list is ‘Wetlands’, I got a copy as a Valentine’s present from my wife. And who said romance is dead.

I’ve started thinking of taking photographs about sex. Not of sex. About. But I’ll come back to that.

The visual depiction of sex is another area thwart with uneasy public consumption. Fine art has long been bed partners with sex and in particular the nude. As a primer, before I dig myself a hole defining erotica or porn, literature or dirty stories, art or filth, I think most people would agree that National Art Galleries are places of refinement and culture. Have a look at this oil painting done in 1867 by Gustave Courbet, hung in the Musée d’ Orsay. 

Mathilde Madden and Kristina Lloyd both write erotica and therefore have a vested interest on what goes on the cover (as well in between). They publish another splendid blog worth reading called Erotica Cover Watch, recently they have started a debate on why, given a large market share are female readers, only women appear on erotic book covers. They also have Man Candy Monday, soon it’s going to be dangerous to start the working week…

Bearing in mind Mr Corbet’s portrait the divide between erotica and porn gets even trickier when art crosses over into photography. I was recently involved in an incident where it was proposed that someone I know sit for a topless portrait in oils, which was deemed alright, while being photographed for a study was not. (As it turned out they were horrified by having a portrait done in general, let alone bare breasted). Photographs being deemed reality I suppose, it raised an interesting question, which would you be more comfortable with; a topless photograph of you hanging on the wall or an intricate and detailed painting of your open crotch?

Males can play this game too, a photo of your arse and balls from behind or a realistic painting of your cock, it works slightly differently for men, and they are prone to cheat here. Oliver Reed and Alan Bates wouldn’t be filmed naked in ‘Women in love’ until they had “warmed up”, not wanting to be seen at their ‘realistic’ size. A friend of mine has a fantastic painting of an enlarged close-up of his anus hanging in the living room. Aesthetically very enjoyable as an abstract painting. Does the subject matter affect ones viewing? Does the oil paint neutralise it?

I have had to rewrite the next paragraphs a few times as I found myself slipping into arguments about erotica versus porn, and from there wether porno is bad or immoral. I want to side step here (but not avoid) and instead name check some photographers who have been an inspiration and caused some enjoyment on a wet Sunday afternoon.

The keyword here is I guess intent, and it is the argument often used in differentiating porn from erotica, especially in the photographic realm. Without the veneer of oil and strokes, sorry, the veneer of oil paint brush strokes, erotic photography is left far more naked to accusations of pornography than fine art. Intent is the defense. But why am I saying defense? I like erotic photography.

What is surprising to a number of people is the amount of women taking erotic photos. Often of themselves. One could talk about women photographers such as Ellen Von Unwerth who publish work in a male market place and therefore could be said to gain financial reward from it. But there are a great many female photographers on Flickr creating imagery solely for their own amusement, pleasure and interest.

To me the really surprising factor is why people, including friends of mine, find it so out of the ordinary that women are taking erotic photos too. Last time I checked half the people fucking were female.

I’ve started thinking of taking photographs about sex. Here are some of the people on Flickr whose work I greatly admire, they are funny, witty, clever pictures, and yes, sometimes sexy too. And if you are reading this at work on a Monday morning just tell everybody it’s art, literature and culture. Because it is.

RoseAndOlive

Dirtyfeet

Jaci Sue

Bububob

Victoria Tomaschko

Kristamasklousch

Demetriusgonzalez

Rainy mornings

Lina Scheynius

Everyoneknows

Laura Vancane

This one’s a chap but he’s fantastic and fits right in to the general mood 
Jan Durina

2s in 6sv2

Curiosity got the better of me, and bowing down to the pressure of my internal voices (you are just jealous because they don’t talk to you…) I asked Robert McEvily, editor of Six Sentences, which of the two stories I submitted were chosen for the second anthology.

I’ve received his reply and can now decode the cryptic headline to this post – both stories are to be included in the new volume of six sentence long tales. Particularly pleasing as one of them, “Wedding” was especially written for the collection, the other one is “Minicab driver”.

There’s more, the industrious Mr McEvily who deserves thanks and praise from writers everywhere for his hard work in providing such a splendid platform, has set a publication date – March 31st.

Volume 1 is still available from Createspace or Amazon.

A camera as simple as a pencil

Words are my thing. I write tiny fiction. Words start on a completely blank canvas.

The words became unlocked one weekend coming across old digital holiday snaps. I started writing. Later I came across some older photographs still, these ones shot on slide film. I had forgotten all about the grain, the glow, the mystery. I wanted to take pictures again.

I brought a Holga and said hello to expectation, to chemicals, to imagining how they might develop, because after all, there’s every chance they might not. I like the delay, the wait, the disappointments, the accidents, the surprises. The reflection of life’s dirt and glory.

When I write I don’t think about the paper size, or the length of words, I think about the tale. It’s plastic simplicity brings me that constraint, that lack of measurement. You point, you click, you hope they come out.

If you want, you can look through the view finder, but it wont show you the crop. If you desire a tighter zoom then you step forward, get closer, upfront and personal.

A camera as simple as a pencil. With options removed, left focusing on what there is to say. The story.

Valentines

Magnolia

The greatest closing shot to a film, ever? 

Published in 6SV2

Today Six Sentences announced the initial list of authors chosen to be included in the second anthology of stories, all six sentences long.

And yes, they chose one of mine… rather happy.

I would like to tell you which story is being publishing, but at the moment all I know is that I’m in (and that’s good enough for me).  I sent two, I’m hoping it’s “Marriage” as it was written especially for the collection, wonder if I’ll get to find out before seeing it in print? All the stories featured in it are previously unpublished and not available on the splendid site, so you will have to buy a copy if you want to read them.

It should be out in March, in the meantime why not buy a copy of volume 1 from Createspace or Amazon.

Robert McEvily who runs Six Sentences announced the author list in rather unusual fashion: in a Youtube video featuring the names of those chosen matted against theatre curtains. You can watch here. I am a little red-faced to say I air punched when my name went by.

Tiny Poems

I write tiny fiction, so how could I not send out a big shout to Tiny Poems. OK then, a tiny shout.

Poems on post-it notes. Hiakus for the felt tip age.

via: design crush

Snow Club

London is under six inches of snow. Last night neighbours in my street found themselves in a spontaneous snowball fight, one side of the street versus the other.

It may not be Christmas but it is enough of reason to post this – Slow Club singing in the back of a taxi. From the splendid site The Black Cab Sessions, apparently it’s very popular but newly discovered for me today. And I got to the end without a Snow Club pun.

Imagery from Chimes installation

Amidst the jasmine scent Poppy and Rose served green tea to those stirring the virtual breeze in the garden of Chimes installation at Shunt.

The curators have requested a new piece for March, details here as they become available.

Woozy with cider

This makes me think of that Tango ad where the man ends up at the White Cliffs of Dover ranting about a foreigner’s view of their product…

It makes me want to run down the street shouting “yes, our weather may be a bit shit”, shouting “yes, our culinary highlights are biscuits and crisps”, shouting “yes, our public services could be seen as shoddy”, and shouting “but I’m glad to be British, because I belong to a culture that creates things as beautiful and honest as this…”.

Goosebumps, in a good way.

Green tea and Chimes

A celebration of tintinnabulation. To mark “Chimes” being exhibited for a second week at Shunt, the Red Room is being festooned with gravel raked into pleasing concentric circular patterns, the interactive sound-work will tinkle through a sound system, jasmine incense shall drift in the air, and Poppy and Rose will be serving green tea.

Come join us on Wednesday and Thursday between six and eight in this zen escape, and stir a digital breeze in the garden of virtual chimes.

Broken twigs Winter leaves

My laptop is a giant radio plugged into the sky.

Once upon a time I thought of my computer as a tool, now it’s a conduit bringing to me wonderful things people have made.

[1]

Late night working has meant headphones. A midnight trip to 8tracks.com and a roving finger led to listening to the soupy twist mixtape, amongst which tunes I heard Slow Club for the first time. Like discovering music all over again, remember that feeling when hearing a song just put a big stupid smile on your face; made you feel great; like aural sunshine: Slow Club.

Of course you might hate them. Some people hate blue cheese or the smell of petrol. Or you might love them. The record company site or myspace would be good places to start finding out. I love them.

For a nu-folk related group it’s a playful name with it’s allusions to traditional values, there is of course a real slow movement, expanding now on it’s original theme of self cooked organic food. I was first made aware of slowness and in particular the way technology has encroached in our lives with it’s demands of increasing response time, via the “Speed” Doors of Perception conference. Making time for oneself has been something I’ve been grappling with ever since, and more in earnest during the last year. There is an irony given this post was triggered by working well into the night.

Wikipedia has an article on the slow movement and well worth watching is Carl Honore’s TED talk “Slowing down in a world built for speed“.

Here’s three tips from me for dabbling in slowness:

1. Go out for a weekend without your mobile phone. Experiencing only what is around you.

2. Go on holiday without a camera. Experience the vacation only as now moments, without focusing on representing the past in the future.

3. Walk home one evening instead of using your usual mode of transport.

In spirit of giving something back I’ve added a mixtape that doesn’t stray too far from the nufolk / electrofolk / folktronica path

8tracks.com/juliobesq/broken-twigs-winter-leaves

[2]

One of the songer songwriters I featured is Amy Crawford, I’ve singled her out first of all because I think she too is great – I have a thing about a sort of mythical Warren Beatty, Carol King lives next door, I left my mirror shades in my jean jacket under the palms by the pool Los Angeles – and I think she might too. Have a listen and see if you agree.

And the second reason is to point out that not only can you listen to her at the equally-splendid-for-discovering-new-music site thesixtyone, Amy has very kindly allowed us to download most of her tracks for nothing. Spread the word, share the love. www.thesixtyone.com/amycrawfordmusic

[3]

All this folksy vibe, slowness and making music brings us to etsy.com. A site I’ve been aware of awhile now for it’s great Flash interfaces but recently ‘re-discovered’ in it’s true context – a market place for people who make things, by hand. A great time sink and a fabulous present source, from twee as fuck to trendy than thou.

The level of service you get from buying things direct from those who create them is unprecedented, and I like the connection I get knowing that the objects I buy have been created for me, by someone, not just produce waiting on a shelf for anyone. 

So here’s a big shout out to some recent purchases for wedding anniversary presents: Yoko’s “weird” craft knitting (a minnie bow ) from etsy (who shipped abroad by request), and some delightful handmade retro-styled lingerie from emmajaneclothing.com (lace is thirteen years and when Emma Jane became aware of the reason behind the sale she added lace, gratis,  to the second pair), see what I mean by service.

And finally, for my present I got brought a ninja bunny hat. OK, it is a mass produced product, slightly against the grain of this post, but it can’t really be that mass produced given it takes a certain sort of person to want to wear one. Luckily for my wife, I am that kind of person. Fantastic for cycling, you can even pop your bike lights into the ears between rides, and get this – they pop a squeaky thing into one of the ears – Bunny Wearz you rock! (This post would have had some photos of the things I brought but I’ve chosen the slow route of wet photography so have to wait to finish the roll and get them developed.)

My laptop is a giant antennae plugged into the sky. Isn’t the internet great?