The Parable of the Horse

The parable of the horse is this – One day three men were looking at a horse being ridden along by a human man. The horse started to make a toilet, as it walked, right there on the pavement, out of its bot bot, and then the human man who was riding the horse got down and cleaned up the toilet that the horse had made on the pavement. The first man said 'Wow, look at that horse and how it just made a toilet right there on the pavement'. The second man nodded in agreement and said to the other men, 'Yes, it would be wonderful if we could just make a toilet right where we stood and then another human man had to come along and clean it up', and the third man turned to the other two men and he said,

'Yes, but always remember, though a horse may make a toilet where ever it likes, on paving stone or on roughly poured concrete or in field, and a human man has to clean it up, that same human man will then take the horse back to the horse's special wooden house, and nail metal shoes into its feet.'

A lot of drawings

More drawings.

I showed a lot of these at CAVE Art Fair in Liverpool last week.

I also used some of them as ambient illustration for my performance A Short Essay or Lecture Concerning Anal, but as the term 'ambient illustration' suggests, they were just suggestive of certain ideas in the talk, rather than being illustrative in the traditional sense.

This is ongoing.

 Arabic Mountain Dew, pen on paper, 2012

 Big Mound, pen on paper, 2012

 Big Spotty Pile, pen on paper, 2012

 Cross, biro on paper, 2012

 Flossed Tube, biro on paper, 2012

 Flowing Pile, pen on paper, 2012


 Huge Mound, pen on paper, 2012

 Inner and Outer Ring 2, biro on paper, 2012

 Inner and Outer Ring 3, biro on paper, 2012

 Inner and Outer Ring, biro on paper, 2012

 Jewel Ball, pen on paper, 2012

 Lit Ball, pen on paper, 2012

 Long Mound with Entrance, biro on paper,2012

 Medium Spotty Pile, pen on paper, 2012

 Musical Score, pen on paper, 2012

 Painting, pen on paper, 2012

 Protruding Wand, biro on paper, 2012

 Rounded Box, pen on paper, 2012

 Screw, pen on paper, 2012

 Small Cylinder, pen on paper, 2012

 Small Spotty Pile, pen on paper,2012

 Tall Ball and Cup, pen on paper, 2012

 Tall Cylinder, pen on paper, 2012

 Thin Box, pen on paper, 2012

 Through Road, biro on paper, 2012

 Tongue or Maggot, pen on paper, 2012

 Tongue, pen on paper, 2012

 Tree 2, pen on paper, 2012

 Tree, pen on paper, 2012

 Trumpet 2, biro on paper, 2012

 Trumpet 3, biro on paper, 2012

 Trumpet, biro on paper, 2012

 Tube and Snake, biro on paper, 2012

 Tube, biro on paper, 2012

 Turned Growth, biro on paper, 2012

 Turned Protrusion, biro on paper, 2012

 Two Rings, biro on paper, 2012

Vase, biro on paper, 2012

Tiny thoughts, trying to connect.

I'm preparing for a series of performances and an installation of drawings for CAVE Art Fair. I'm writing something that I can't necessarily talk about yet (until the press all gets sent out), but the more abstract, meta-theme is about subjects and objects, so here are some notes and ideas in no particular order of importance.

-Subjects are internal and objects are external.

-Our digestive system processes objects, but does so via a semi-permeable membrane. Our digestive system, like our skin is an external organ.

-We are a tube, and the external part of that tube is an object.

-Our skin is a visible object.

-Our digestive system is an invisible object, a hidden object.

-Objects are beyond us, as subjects.

-We are subjects, but only to ourselves.

-We are objects to other people.

-Objects are more real than us (me).

-Only other people are objects to other people, for us.

-Objects are. We (I) do.

OR

-Objects act, we (I) react.

-The anus is a producer of objects.

-Art is a subject-object.

-A subject-object is an object whose existence or meaning is related to or predicated on (the existence or processes of) a subject.

-Shit is a subject-object.

-We process objects externally via our digestive system.

-We (subjects) wrap ourselves around objects, but we do not transcend our subjectivity.

-We carve at the joints of reality (objects).

-We are unreal.

-We are less real than objects.

-We are less real than other people.

-I am less real than other people.

-Nostalgia is a yearning for a time that never was.

-Nostalgia is a yearning for authenticity (that never was).

-Nostalgia is a yearning for the transcendence of our subjectivity; our subjecthood.

-Nostalgia is a longing to be an object for yourself.

-(Subjectivity is the only possibility for knowledge [of objects], and also the impossibility of that knowledge [of objects])

-Subjects are false. Objects are true.

-To look into the digestive system is to look into an object, an externality.

-Subjectivity can only hug at objectivity.

-The reason for a subject is to hug at objects. Enclose them. Rub at them. Shape around them as closely as possible.

-Third person narratives allow the narrator to know subjects as if they could know subjects.

-Viewing (images, moving images) allows the viewer to identify with objects as subjects.

-Viewing allows the viewer to identify with subjects as objects.

THEREFORE (?)

-Viewing allows the viewer to identify with objects.

-To look into the digestive system is to peer into our closest relationship with objects, but the relationship is false. We are peering into a hidden object, but still an object.

-To look into the digestive system is to look for a transcendence that we cannot have.

-Subjects can carve to the joints of reality (objects), as close as they can carve, but never closer.