The "not in the antarctic" cards have continued to go out. I've been getting random addresses from the Post Office website by typing in words associated with the antarctic, penguin, snow etc. The search engine is a bit intuitive so it tends to come up with some totally unrelated addresses, but that's ok. I suppose that most of them will go directly into the recycling but I am keeping an eye on my website stats to see if there are any hits from Blackburn or Pontefract (among others). Emails have been whizzing back and forth about going to San Francisco next year. Ian and I have discussed: PAL and NTSC (I have no clue); the best way to display my work (I am vague); the joys of panel discussions (fear and ridicule); and whether I will be dragged off to Guantanamo if I try to enter the US with a load of spy cameras, remote controllers/receivers and other electronic devices.
In my spare time I'm doing a bit more writing. I'm going through all the technological devices I own and spinning stories off them in the hope that something interesting might turn up.
I had to drive to Bury st Edmunds today to return some tvs to the gallery. When I got out of the car I had sweated so much it looked like I had wet my pants. I had to mince into the gallery carrying said tvs and simultaneously try not to turn my back on anyone. Alison and Craig were setting up the next show The Beguiling which opens tomorrow. There were lots of interesting things some hung, some half unpacked from crates. I left with the image of Alison's arm poking through a hole in the gallery ceiling 25 feet above me.
At home I am just sitting around still trying to think of ideas to do with "The failures of the ‘human condition’ VS the computer/digital" – bloody title, I might do something about sweating and preferring my online life to my real one.
I am reading Michael Bracewell's St Rachel, its strange how a book picked more or less at random seems so appropriate.
This is getting silly I got a call from the Surface gallery in Nottingham. Apparently I submitted work to them for another show in August. It opens on the fourth. I am beginning to feel like an early in vitro subject about to give birth to sextuplets. I've also been reading back through my blog entries. I've realised that I keep repeating myself and the blog has become extremely disjointed. I wasn't reading them for narcissistic reasons rather I was thinking of using some of the entries for the "Coping with things that aren't human" publication (deadline mid November) but now I'm not so sure.
I've been contemplating failure. My attempts to come up with a great idea for Refutation (the pdf magazine) have been so hopeless that I'm seriously wondering if a blank page would go down well. Now I've said that anything else will seem like a cop out.
I did make another Stargazer film by going bonkers stabbing holes in 16mm film and then pointing a camera into the lens of the projector. I suppose that these films do mark a failure of sorts as they fall well short of the view from my back garden.
Anyway I have other things to worry about now. It looks like "Trying to cope with things that aren't human (part one)" is to go ahead and I'm going to be shipped to San Francisco in January to make an Automatic film or two. Ian wants me to write something for the publication too. Given my terror of adventure it shouldn't be too difficult to find material.
I had a day off yesterday and went to visit a couple of friends who are holidaying nearby. We went for short walks, ate and drank well and talked about shows and stuff. They are starting a residency at Wysing Arts early next year and will be taking a new baby and 3 year old with them (and I get stressed when I have two small shows in the same month). When I got home I'd had a very enthusiastic email from some young artists setting up a new online art mag called Refutation. They want to commission me to make some new work for the first issue in response to the statement { The failures of the ‘human condition’ VS the computer/digital } The deadline is mid September and as usual I haven't a clue what to do, or even what the statement means. But despite being wildly cynical, I haven't got where I am today by saying no to anything.
