That odd time

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'Ah, now! That odd time - the oddest time of all times; the time it always is… by the time we've reached the "w" of "now" the "n" is ancient history.'

Michael Frayn
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Unworkable Shadow Working

Two shadows can't overlap, Letratone [10% or 65 lines per inch] on paper, 2008

Studies in Indirect Communication vol. VI: A Lifetime is Not Just a Succession of Breaths

Pascal Baes

For far superior quality films from Pascal Baes, the full-length glossy versions - which with this kind of work really is a must - follow this link and this link. Thank you to the rather marvelous Alexandra Falagara for alerting me to this, all the way from Stockholm… She, and he, have made me want to pull out my cranky old Super 8 camera and make a film again. Especially since I heard that they're going to stop manufacturing Super 8 film. Ever contrary, this news only spurs me on even more.


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12.01.10
UPDATE:
Thanks to Pascal Baes for new links sent via Comments. Apologies that the two links above no longer work. But to view more of his work go here, here and here (my personal favourites - particularly Come Back to Hotel and Medley). Seriously beautiful and poignant stuff. Good to be reminded to look at these all over again.


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Seeking Inspiration

So I'll be talking about my thing at St Bride's Seventh Annual Conference: Seeking Inspiration on the 15/16th May in London. It doesn't come cheap at £100 for the two days - although all profits go towards keeping the library tip-top, and the line-up of speakers is great. To name a few from many: Karel Martens, Eric Spiekermann, Jake Tilson and Sara de Bondt, all talking about boundless creativity and ways to get it out on paper. Or one surface or another. Or harness it somehow anyway…

Somewhere-Nowhere

‘I see the next-door house from a certain angle, but it would be seen differently from the right bank of the Seine, or from the inside, or again from an aeroplane: the house is none of these appearances… But what do these words mean? Is not to see always to see from somewhere? To say that the house itself is seen from nowhere is surely to say that it is invisible? … The house itself is not the house seen from nowhere, but the house seen from everywhere. The completed object is translucent, being shot through from all sides by an infinite number of present scrutinies which intersect in its depths leaving nothing hidden.’

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, 1962

Backward Glance

'The term orphism* comes from the mythic persona of Orpheus, son of Oeagreus, king of Thrace, and Calliope, a muse. The god Apollo gave him a lyre and the Muses taught him how to use it. With his lyre, Orpheus seduced and charmed ferocious beasts, trees and rocks. After a stay in Egypt, he came back to marry Eurydices. One day, Eurydices met Arsitée, who tried to rape her. When she tried to escape she stepped on a snake which killed her. Orpheus tried to bring her back to life by going to the Tartare, the underworld. There he seduced Cerberus, the three Judges of the Dead and Hades himself, who gave Orpheus the permission to bring back Eurydices to the upper world. The only thing that Hades asked of Orpheus was that he did not look back at Eurydices to see if she was following him back to life. Having looked at her, she dies, and Orpheus returns alone to the upper world where he becomes a recluse in the forest.'

www.ditl.info



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* Orphism |ˈôrˌfizəm|
noun

1 a mystic religion of ancient Greece, originating in the 6th or 7th century BC and based on poems (now lost) attributed to Orpheus, emphasizing the necessity for individuals to rid themselves of the evil part of their nature by ritual and moral purification throughout a series of reincarnations.

2 a short-lived art movement ( c. 1912) within cubism, pioneered by a group of French painters (including Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, and Fernand Léger) and emphasizing the lyrical use of color rather than the austere intellectual cubism of Picasso, Braque, and Gris.

Studies in Indirect Communication vol. V

Painting in a small convent in Mexico City, where the nuns had all made vows of silence. [There were also mummies in open caskets in the cellars. Didn't think I'd be disturbed by the sight - but really was.]

Studies in Indirect Communication vol. IV

Ways to not talk and yet say everything
or
Ways to talk and yet say nothing

Dance Inferno at Green Lawns

Just a good Sunday thought after a thought-ful Saturday…

There's been a lot of talk of swimming lately… what with all my coaching sessions at Helston pool. But when there's an evening free, there's a lot to be said for the local, but stunted, hotel pool. OK, you can't quite pound it in the same way as the 25 metre biggie, but there's the benefit of a jacuzzi and sauna to take into consideration.

Better still, there's always the chance that you'll get to witness an unapologetically trashy hotel disco as you depart, with items of clothing abandoned in the Shining-esque halls and kids going awol to the scream of 'Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizzahut…'.

A good reminder of simple pleasures. Does it actually get better than being inspired and going to bad discos every once in a while?

Studies in Indirect Communication vol. III

Source: The Encyclopedia of Ephemera, Maurice Rickards, 2000

The deeds on my house state that as it is classed as a residence, it is illegal to run a business from within my own four walls. In the past, people got round this problem of letting the 'right' people know that they were working from home by discretely placing small 'adverts' within their windows. Small and decorative enough to be difficult to read unless you were in close proximity, they were also explicit in their communication once you made the commitment and ventured nearer…

Studies in Indirect Communication vol. II

Motion picture & method of producing the same, C.F. Pidgin, September 1917, Patent: 1,240,774

Domino Visor or Impassive or Studies in Indirect Communication vol. I

Source: University of Delaware Library, Special Collection Department

Illustrated Catalogue of Papier Mâché, Linen, Wax, Wire, Gauze, Show and Curtain Masks, Noses, Wigs, Beards, Etc.; Findlay; The American Mask Manufacturing Company; 1915.

The Negatives of Behaving

The Mexico Chapters: Noteworthy Banalities vol. II

'Where is the rest of it, the rest of our lives, the rest of what really happens? How can we give an account of what goes on every day and goes on going on from day to day - the banal, everyday, obvious, common, ordinary, infraordinary, habitual background noise of living? How do we approach it, how can we describe it?'

Georges Perec

Forgotten note

Note - in my handwriting - found under a pile of paper yesterday:

'Make something with the salt from tears.'
' ' , ' , , , '
, ' ' , , ' , , , ,
, ' , ' , , , '
' ' ' , , , '
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After thought:

Collect tears with a pair of goggles.

A practical and - I think - ingenious solution.

The back of the plan-chest

One thousand-thousand notebook gazes, 2000 - 2002

The Mexico Chapters: Noteworthy Banalities vol. I

/ / / / / / / / / /

1. Position
2. Activity
3. Quotations 1
4. Quotations 2
__________________

5. Number
6. Role
7. Third sector
8. Motive?
__________________

9. Walls
10. Floors
11. Period
12. Place
__________________

13. Style
14. Furniture
15. Length
16. Miscellaneous
__________________

17. Age/Sex
18. Animals
19. Clothes
20. Fabrics (nature)
__________________

21. Fabrics (substance)
22. Colours
23. Accessories
24. Jewels
__________________

25. Reading
26. Music
27. Pictures
28. Books
__________________

29. Drink
30. Food
31. Small furniture
32. Toys
__________________

33. Feelings
34. Paint
35. Surfaces
36. Volumes
__________________

37. Flowers
38. Trinkets
39. Manque
40. Faux
__________________

41. Couple 1
__________________

42. Couple 2
__________________


The 'List of Lists' from Life A User's Manual, Georges Perec.

The Mexico Chapters: Laundry list

Sulky clouds // Dehydrated oranges left hanging beyond the wall // Deluge // Car stalls on barely-lit cobbled streets // Contemplate one thousand plastic rams in a bag // A collection of non-buckets // Hot-chocolate with almonds, honey and cinnamon - the best hot chocolate I've ever had made for me.

'MC: This work has a very long title: "Flying Saucer: Rainbow/Two Cyclists/Dog/Gorilla and Bananas/Chaotic Situation/Couple/Tortoise/Gunman (Fallen)", 1992.

JB: I just wanted to get everything in there.

MC: Like a laundry list.

[…]

JB: I've explained them as being how we experience the world. If you walk into a room and you have a lot of trash in your hand you're going to see the trash can and probably not see very much else or if you do, you might see a colour some place or whatever and everything else might be avoided. The next day you might be hungry you might see the potatoes and everything that's not of interest will be avoided. So they're really lessons in seeing what's important. What things do we see first? Do we focus on what's of use or, for visual delight. What things are we not interested in?'

Randomly found the other day, in an old sketchbook from the RCA, in the days before I religiously referenced everything that I pilfered. Think this is John Baldessari talking about creating paintings from photographs.

Love lists.

Notes on feathers, message flimsies & papillons

Feather letter, 1811. Source: The Encyclopedia of Ephemera, Maurice Rickards, 2000.

i. Volante; volantissime! [Fly; as fast as you can!]

ii. Per postas, cito, cito et fidelis. [By post, swiftly, swiftly, and faithfully.]

iii. Birds as emissaries: imperial despatches in ancient China were carried by homing pigeons.

iv. The feather = speed

v. A feather flight in your seal:
- Symbolic of urgency, and used to indicate army mobilization orders in China in the first century AD.
- Express post in Scandinavia from the 1780's.
- Birds printed on the inside of contemporary envelopes still indicate speed, efficiency and lightness.

vi. Tiny written scrolls attached to besiegers' arrows and fired to agents within the city walls of Potidaea, 5th century BC.

vii. Siege of Metz, 1870, defenders of the city flew messages out of the city via balloon. The notes, written on flimsy sheets of coloured paper were named papillons - butterflies, or just called flimsies.

viii. Pigeongram / airgraph / aerogramme / catapult mail / rocket mail

ix. Dead letters: 'Stamp found eaten off by snails', Looe, Cornwall 1946. 'Destruction by tomtits', Exeter, 1957.

Plymouth to Barbados in 7 hours

Paparazzi. Thanks to my esteemed colleague, the eagle-eyed Mr Tom Barwick

The Mexico Chapters: Oranges or Unknown?

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The Memory of Light or Between a Rock and a Hard Place

'Rocks (and all other material things) serve as our model for things that behave "well"; certainly they behave very differently from shadows: two rocks cannot occupy the same space, and a rock is no longer the same rock if we smash it to pieces. If we meld two rocks together, we create a new, third rock, and the other two disappear. A rock seems to move through space in a continuous manner. If we leave a rock somewhere, we come back to to find it in the same place; and if we cannot find it, we know that's because someone moved it.'

Shadows, Robert Casati

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Some potentially unanswerable questions of dubious merit:

1. Do shadows exist at night?

2. Is night just one big shadow?

3. Why are shadows regarded, on the whole, so negatively, when they are so utterly and essentially part of our existence? [See question 2.]

4. What's the difference between 'in the shadow' and 'in the shade'?

5. If shadows are the absence of light then does that mean that the inside of an object is in shadow?

6. Are shadows the best, the only example of a two-dimensional object?

7. Can shadows 'layer', or do multiple shadows become one?

Holes in light

Kinnersley Castle, 2001

'We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them. We never tire of the sight, for to us this pale glow and these dim shadows far surpass any ornament.'

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows.

Knit-head

Photo: Jeremy Horner

Photo: www.masksoftheworld.com

These are brilliant. But despite laboriously trying to find hard facts, they still remain somewhat illusive.

The top picture was scanned from a 2004 edition of Death in the Andes (Mario Vargas Llosa), published by Faber & Faber. This was where my curiosity was piqued.The bottom picture came from this site where I picked up some scant information about the origins of these knitted masks.

There are versions of these woollen masks in the neighbouring countries of Bolivia and Peru. In Bolivia they are said to be used by the Qollas of Puno and Paucartambo (other types of cloth mask are worn by the Qusillu of the Altiplano). The masks are hand knitted to depict human features, including curling moustaches, beauty spots, chins and rosy cheeks. It's somehow fitting that the Qollas people use knitting to create these pieces as they are traditionally llama herders who roam the mountains, to which wool and knitting are closely associated.

If you're interested in more information about the rituals in which these masks are used, look at this book review: Shaping Society Through Dance: Mestizo Performance in the Peruvian Andes by Zoila S. Mendoza.

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Nice that when you put on a mask, you reinvent yourself.

But your eyes, your view of the world, stays the same. It's the part that the mask can't cover/alter/enhance. Or at least, it shouldn't, if the mask is to remain practical. I think.

So although you look like someone/something else to those around you, you haven't actually altered your perspective. But I guess the knowledge that your true self is hidden, is enough for some to create an alter ego far beyond the limits of the corporeal.

Maybe a bit like me, when I change my glasses. Or my boots. Never tried masks. Because of the glasses. Must address that.

Jerome

'One day, quite some time ago, I happened on a photograph of Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome, taken in 1852. And I realized then, with an amazement I have not been able to lessen since: "I am looking at eyes that looked at the Emperor." Sometimes I would mention this amazement, but since no one seemed to share it, nor even to understand it (life consists of these little touches of solitude), I forgot about it.'

Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes, Vintage, 1993.

The Mexico Chapters: Gaze-less

Gaze-less, Mexico, 2007

Notes on Gazes

Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Miniature eye jewellery: a portrayal of an individual's gaze as opposed to just a portrait of someone's eye.

Subjective or objective?

The observer and the observed: the difference between being seen, and seeing. Here, in this sense, it's confused. The painted eye views the human eye, views the painted eye, views the human eye… ad infinitum. A never-ending and unspoken reciprocal dialogue.

Anonymity. I know it's your eye. You know it's your eye. Everyone else however is in the dark. And a hundred years from now, certainly, that tacit understanding is entirely lost. All that voluminous emotion embedded into one tiny painting, worn on a finger, across the heart or buried away under a shirt. Vanished. Gone.

But it's still relevant.

We know that someone cared for someone. Maybe lovers, maybe siblings, maybe mother and daughter. And something was exchanged. And we know that some part of that something, the part that is tangible, is ever vigilant in its gaze.

Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

prosopopoeia
(noun)
1 a figure of speech in which an abstract thing is personified.
2 a figure of speech in which an imagined or absent person or thing is represented as speaking.
ORIGIN: mid 16th cent.: via Latin from Greek prosōpopoiia, from prosōpon ‘person’ + poiein ‘to make.’

More information in:
Treasuring the gaze: eye miniature portraits and the intimacy of vision, Hanneke Grootenboer, The Art Bulletin, September 2006.

The Art of Mourning

Not behaving

Misbehave

The shadows are simply not behaving. They keep peeling off the wall and flopping all over the place. They won't stand still. Appropriately.

I like their irreverence. Not like normal shadows at all. And any cheeky character traits are forgivable because they look so damn good under moonlight.