For the last week I've been drawing for about an hour a day. Here are a selection of the ones I like.
Recent Drawings
I made a decision to draw more. I want to start exhibiting my drawings - showing things as opposed to time based work. And not just that, but things which are of things. That show off their thing-ness. Drawings of dense, weighted things. Things with mass.
For the last week I've been drawing for about an hour a day. Here are a selection of the ones I like.
Chain of Spheres, pen on paper, 2012
Closed Dark Box, pen on paper, 2012
Coffee Cup, pen on paper, 2012
Coin or Chip, pen on paper, 2012
Connected Balls, pen on paper, 2012
Cup and Liquid, pen on paper, 2012
Curled Tape, pen on paper, 2012
D, pen on paper, 2012
Dropped Pringles, pen on paper, 2012
Fingerbob 1, pen on paper, 2012
Fingerbob 2, pen on paper, 2012
Flaming Torch, pen on paper, 2012
Growth Rings, pen on paper, 2012
Monitor, pen on paper, 2012
Open Box, pen on paper, 2012
Precious Ball, pen on paper, 2012
Precious Balls, pen on paper, 2012
Return, pen on paper, 2012
Scissors, pen on paper, 2012
Stepping Stones, pen on paper, 2012
Weighted Feather, pen on paper, 2012
Y and Right Bracket, pen on paper, 2012
For the last week I've been drawing for about an hour a day. Here are a selection of the ones I like.
Guston
Paintings and drawings of clearly defined things (i.e. distinct, separately discernible objects or figures) by Philip Guston from the MoMA collection in chronological order
J A P A N
I make music under the name of Dogtanion and today my first album, JAPAN, is released.
I'm excited for obvious reasons - it is my first album! You can buy it in the shops! etc. etc. But I'm not excited in the way I thought I would be when I first started writing and recording music as a teenager.
But then I was thinking about it, and I realised that my teenage self would still be really proud of me, even if he was annoyed that I wasn't rolling a massive spliff to celebrate, because this is an idiosyncratic collection of songs, all made by me, my own way, without any feeling of compromise or pandering to what I think people might like. The album is stupid, serious, obvious and complex, and as a 16 year old hard core music fan - which is the best, most devoted sort of fan - that would have got my approval.
And that is more than enough for me.
You can buy it digitally from iTunes here.
or
You can order it in physical reality from HMV here
Thanks to everyone who has been involved in Dogtanion at any point, for whatever reason. But special thanks go to Will Evans, head of Tape Club Records, for devoting himself to music that he believes in - and for some reason that including me.
xx
Attendant
Attendant, two channel sound installation for gallery toilets (male, female), 2012
[Commissioned by South Square gallery]
[Commissioned by South Square gallery]
Fame at last
So, really this is just a re-blog from Vanessa Bartlett, a writer and academic in London.
Vanessa kindly wrote an introductory essay for the last film I made with Ben Jeans Houghton as the ARKA group. It was a brilliant dissection of the themes and references in what was quite a dense, experimental film.
(You can read Vanessa's essay, From biophiliato bibliophilia……and then back again, by clicking here.)
Yesterday, Vanessa posted on her website a new version of the text, a parody authored by one Chris Warren, a second hand bookseller and typewriter aficionado. The parody is called Three Miles Wide: a decontextualised mushroom omelette, and I can say, as someone who has read Vanessa's essay quite a lot, it brilliantly re-works the language and scholarly references in her original text.
It's funny, picking apart the technical language of critical theory without being cynical, and what fascinates me the most is that, in its own more visual, anecdotal way, it manages to make pretty good points about the film, without the author having seen it.
Also, now that the ARKA group has been parodied (well, parodied by proxy), does that make us famous?
Vanessa kindly wrote an introductory essay for the last film I made with Ben Jeans Houghton as the ARKA group. It was a brilliant dissection of the themes and references in what was quite a dense, experimental film.
(You can read Vanessa's essay, From biophiliato bibliophilia……and then back again, by clicking here.)
Yesterday, Vanessa posted on her website a new version of the text, a parody authored by one Chris Warren, a second hand bookseller and typewriter aficionado. The parody is called Three Miles Wide: a decontextualised mushroom omelette, and I can say, as someone who has read Vanessa's essay quite a lot, it brilliantly re-works the language and scholarly references in her original text.
It's funny, picking apart the technical language of critical theory without being cynical, and what fascinates me the most is that, in its own more visual, anecdotal way, it manages to make pretty good points about the film, without the author having seen it.
Also, now that the ARKA group has been parodied (well, parodied by proxy), does that make us famous?
Attendant
I've just been commissioned to make a sound piece for the toilets of South Square gallery, just outside Bradford. I'm going to work with toilet attendants to tell a story about space and ownership, economics and piss.
I want to speak to toilet attendants about their experiences, record interviews with them, and then use their words along with sound recordings of the toilets in which they work to make the piece. I'm interested in the precarious nature of their jobs, and I also want to ask them about their occupation of transient space. Toilet attendants work in places not designed to accommodate them - both economically and physically.
The gallery is in a rural setting, and I want the urban-ness of toilet attendants to be at the forefront of the work. The idea of a toilet attendant is only possible in places like clubs and bars - places where a job (if not a living wage...) can be sustained simply by the volume of people passing through.
I'm just starting to research toilet attendant culture, and one thing that comes up is the jokes and rhymes that are used by the attendants. Toilet attendants seem to often take on the role or persona of a 'smiley', humorous and friendly man.
Here is a list of rhymes used by toilet attendants to persuade people to try the aftershave that they proffer in exchange for tips. All based on the popular perception of sex as the consequence of grooming, and an affirmation and definition of stereotypical male/hetro space.
No splash, no gash.
No spray, no lay.
No Armani, no punani.
No Armani Code ya don't shoot the load.
No tissue, no issue.
No CK no BJ.
No Davidoff no suck you off.
Wash you fingers for the mingers.
No Gucci, no coochie.
No Kalvin Clein, no vagine.
I want to speak to toilet attendants about their experiences, record interviews with them, and then use their words along with sound recordings of the toilets in which they work to make the piece. I'm interested in the precarious nature of their jobs, and I also want to ask them about their occupation of transient space. Toilet attendants work in places not designed to accommodate them - both economically and physically.
The gallery is in a rural setting, and I want the urban-ness of toilet attendants to be at the forefront of the work. The idea of a toilet attendant is only possible in places like clubs and bars - places where a job (if not a living wage...) can be sustained simply by the volume of people passing through.
I'm just starting to research toilet attendant culture, and one thing that comes up is the jokes and rhymes that are used by the attendants. Toilet attendants seem to often take on the role or persona of a 'smiley', humorous and friendly man.
Here is a list of rhymes used by toilet attendants to persuade people to try the aftershave that they proffer in exchange for tips. All based on the popular perception of sex as the consequence of grooming, and an affirmation and definition of stereotypical male/hetro space.
No splash, no gash.
No spray, no lay.
No Armani, no punani.
No Armani Code ya don't shoot the load.
No tissue, no issue.
No CK no BJ.
No Davidoff no suck you off.
Wash you fingers for the mingers.
No Gucci, no coochie.
No Kalvin Clein, no vagine.
Chairs
I'm trying to write for a lecture at The Royal Standard in June. I've been browsing through some old photos, seeing if I can reinvigorate any discarded ideas.
I found a folder called 'Chairs'. And it was full of photos of chairs. I remember taking the photos and collecting them together - it must have been around 2005-2006, but I have no recollection of what I was going to do with them.
I found a folder called 'Chairs'. And it was full of photos of chairs. I remember taking the photos and collecting them together - it must have been around 2005-2006, but I have no recollection of what I was going to do with them.
Heygate: NO PARKING
I went down to the Heygate Estate with Elephant and Castle-phile Emma Cummins (Citybound Collective).
I can't believe I've never been inside before. A housing estate built for more than 3000 people which now has three or four occupied flats.
It was the quietest place I have been in London, you could hear the trees in the wind and the birds, but no cars, no people.
Activists and remaining residents have turned some of the communal spaces into allotments, and used hundreds of the abandoned recycling bins for planting food.
The weird thing was that although there was the occasional dumping ground, like these old tires and sofas piled up, there was no rubbish. No empty cans, no drifting plastic bags or crisp packets carried on the wind. The place was sterile.
We walked along the garages and I became fascinated by the hand painted NO PARKING signs that were on many of the doors. They seemed so pointless now, with no use for the garages - empty threats.
But then I started wondering why no one was parking down there, why not? You aren't going to get towed. And why was no one dumping down here? No tires, no sofas, no burned out cars. What was wrong?
In a way, the NO PARKING signs were finally having the desired effect. Only, with the additional consequence of displacing all the residents and eventually destroying the buildings.
Like an incantation or a mantra. A critical mass of language that finally breaks the natural order. Cause and effect reversed: the people had gone because the cars couldn't park there, the buildings have to come down because the garages had rebelled.
The only other garage graffiti was the occasional Eye of Providence (or all seeing eye - the thing off the American Dollar that gets linked with Illuminati bullshit conspiracies).
The garages are watching you.
--
I saw this anti-tory graffiti and nodded my approval. It is nice to feel united by anger.
And then around the corner saw this (HELP TO STOP CANADAS SEAL HUNT), written with the same pen. Surely the Heygate has more relevant problems?
Like the sentient garages...
I can't believe I've never been inside before. A housing estate built for more than 3000 people which now has three or four occupied flats.
It was the quietest place I have been in London, you could hear the trees in the wind and the birds, but no cars, no people.
Activists and remaining residents have turned some of the communal spaces into allotments, and used hundreds of the abandoned recycling bins for planting food.
The weird thing was that although there was the occasional dumping ground, like these old tires and sofas piled up, there was no rubbish. No empty cans, no drifting plastic bags or crisp packets carried on the wind. The place was sterile.
We walked along the garages and I became fascinated by the hand painted NO PARKING signs that were on many of the doors. They seemed so pointless now, with no use for the garages - empty threats.
But then I started wondering why no one was parking down there, why not? You aren't going to get towed. And why was no one dumping down here? No tires, no sofas, no burned out cars. What was wrong?
In a way, the NO PARKING signs were finally having the desired effect. Only, with the additional consequence of displacing all the residents and eventually destroying the buildings.
Like an incantation or a mantra. A critical mass of language that finally breaks the natural order. Cause and effect reversed: the people had gone because the cars couldn't park there, the buildings have to come down because the garages had rebelled.
The only other garage graffiti was the occasional Eye of Providence (or all seeing eye - the thing off the American Dollar that gets linked with Illuminati bullshit conspiracies).
The garages are watching you.
--
I saw this anti-tory graffiti and nodded my approval. It is nice to feel united by anger.
And then around the corner saw this (HELP TO STOP CANADAS SEAL HUNT), written with the same pen. Surely the Heygate has more relevant problems?
Like the sentient garages...
