Night Soil

Hello Mr John Smith – I was the one next to the Schizoid Redhead

At 5.45pm at HMV Curzon in Wimbledon not even a small crowd had gathered to see a selection of works by CCW students and John Smith, so we got a drink. Not very good with acronyms Annabel and I had only recently worked out that she was a CCW student. Jordan Basemen had announced he was selecting work for showing so in a rush of excitement we had sent him Annabel’s Wonders of the World (version 3 or 4) and he clearly thought it was magnificent. As we usually do we arrived half an hour early for the screening and after browsing suspiciously around HMV soon found ourselves alone in the bar waiting for the Londonites to turn up. I personally was amazed at how laissé faire everyone was about the time. I had had time to buy a ticket, spill my drink on it (and my trousers), mostly dry it out and still no one had arrived. Finally just after six (the appointed starting time) people started to turn up but even then showed no sign of wanting to get on with it. I cracked, clutching my damp ticket in one hand, and Annabel in the other, we headed for the cinema. Eventually juggling glasses of wine, half full bottles and information sheets (we had no information sheet!) the black clad metropolitans joined us.

There were speeches. Then we were told off by Jordan. At least it felt as if he were berating us personally when he said that next time we should bring our friends along. I nearly answered that we have no friends but held myself in check. Maybe Jordan was not targeting Annabel & I in person, maybe, like Clinton, he has a way of making everyone think he is talking directly to them. The room darkened, the students’ films came first; six in all (I think) from BA to Phd, some less interesting than others. Some we very funny, strangely though, even when presented with a frankfurter being pushed squeakily in and out of a hole, nobody laughed. Nobody except Annabel and myself of course. In fact we were laughing so much that when the next film (of an unmoving tented figure sitting in a landscape) came up we continued laughing. Next came John Smith’s films, I am going to name them because he has a google alert set up so that if any are mentioned on line he is instantly informed. This is a great idea, I fancy doing the same.
Girl Chewing Gum
The Black Tower
Worst Case Scenario
An Unusual Red Cardigan
I like his work and have seen some before. There were a couple of new things I noticed.
1. Worst Case Scenario seems to be named after a shop that is often in shot called Würst Kaas (sausage, cheese?).
2. He, in terms of direction, seems to have a sort of god complex.
3. Unusual for a film maker?, he loves the still image.
After the films came the questions Jordan asked some good ones and then opened it to the audience.

panicked silence…

then, next to me, a voice. “My family has a history of insanity…”

Annabel had saved the day.

We didn’t get home until midnight, it was cold in the house and Mr Pig, who has again cheated death, was hungry. We were so tired we slept til’ 12

One of my cress circles died in the night (lack of water), I blame synthetic fabrics, the cashmere one is doing brilliantly and Mr Pig, despite serious provocation has not peed on it yet either.

Dreaming Spires

Another visit to the Cloakroom today. The cress had rotted, to a sort of brown primeval soup and was beginning to smell. Annabel (on constant watch on my mental state) and I spent a little time scraping out the gunge and washing the glassware. Then, in another attempt to wrest some success from the sucker covered tentacles of hopelessness, I built a small crystal tower. It reminded Annabel of Cornell’s girl Berenice who made experiments in a crystal tower. It reminded me of Calvino’s city of glass, a poor imitation of grand proto-crystals that should have ruled the earth.
I am trying to come up with ideas for a phd application it must deal with some sort of investigation of art and technology, an area which seems to have a sickening optimism about it. Like some comic book villain, however, I find my pleasures in moments of degradation and collapse and I am not sure how this might be received, or even phrased as a research question. But the 3 year phd does come fully funded with a yearly wage which, as the world crumbles into economic dust, seems a good bet for survival. In ‘Greybeard’ Aldiss uses a bit of prescient satire in his description of the colleges of post apocalyptic Oxford. They have only survived through their embracing of a sort of economic ruthlessness where everything is seen in terms of cost and investment. I must harness their ideals and continue.

After writing the above in an international coffee chain, the only things that seem to be expanding in this recession, I returned to the Cloakroom with some more glass garnered from the nearest charity shop. While I was sitting cross legged, stacking these blunt cast offs, a security came piling into the room. She looked ready to wrestle me to the ground until I shouted: “its ok I have a crime number”.

I had been feeling a little down about my residency in the Cloakroom. I wasn’t sure why but I was feeling less and less like going there. My avoidance tactics where beginning to seem thinner and thinner. Waiting in for the post, cleaning the bathroom, getting to the next level on Angry Birds. I couldn’t quite put my finger on my unwillingness until Annabel suggested making a list of all the things I had done.

Planted cress in the carpet – Health and Safety was alerted and a man was sent from the council offices in Endeavour House. He declared the cress unsafe and/or unhealthy and scheduled it for removal.Sat alone in the cloakroom watching Chinwe being fawned over by her acolytes.

Set up some cress growing in cars and caravans in the space. – Found I couldn’t get into the gallery because Chinwe was setting up her show, The door was locked, I could see activity through a crack but no one answered my knocking.Returned to find all the cress had dried and gone brittle, so I tidied up and decided to make a film of cress growing.

It was the day of Chinwe’s opening, I wanted to get in to tidy up my space and project a video. – Again
the door was shut while they photographed Chinwe’s show. – My room was dead and abandoned. I didn’t go to the private view.

Upstairs there was an exchange room. People could leave things on shelves where they were photographed, recorded and then exchanged for other objects by later visitors. Hayley Lock dropped off a beautiful collage and Annabel had left some porcelain sculptures. Annabel wanted to swap something with it Hayley’s collage, but I kept forgetting. When we eventually made it into the room, a school party had already been in. My girlfriend’s porcelain doll limbs had gone as had Hayley’s beautiful collage. In their place were: a rotten banana, a tissue, a bus ticket, a museum guide leaflet, a bruised apple, a paper clip and an Iraqi banknote. I took the note and my girlfriend left two cyanotypes she had made of plants from Darwin’s garden. I was left with a deeper understanding of entropy.

I had made a plastic sculpture using a magnetic building toy, it was growing out of the radiator, I had also made some fake lift controls out of cardboard and part of the Harrods magic box Annabel gave me for Christmas. They looked like a bad sci-fi control panel. I put them on the wall. – The plastic sculpture has been dismantled and piled in the centre of the room. The controls had been taken off the wall and left in a pile of cardboard rubble.
I put them all in a bin bag and took them away.
I tried growing cress in cut glass containers using a water retaining gel compound. – The heating was turned up and all the cress seed failed to germinate.
Tried again. – Got depressed and didn’t return to water it.
Decided to put this list up in the space.