I have been slowly building up to making a new film. It is a continuation of my, so far, reasonably secret space films which, although he doesn’t know it yet, are intended for Michael Cousin’s online project Outcasting. They use various pieces of electronic paraphernalia to create satellites space ships and debris flying through vasty nothingness. A friend, whose husband died recently leaving her with a garage full of oddments donated these objects to me and along with many other things they take up a large part of one wall of my studio. To make this particular film I filled a large glass cylinder with four litres of cooking oil and dropped a satellite made from a small bulb and a resistor into it. I had hoped that the satellite would drift gracefully away from the camera into the gloom. Unfortunately it plummeted gracelessly to the bottom of the tube where it bounced once. A repeat of the experiment with engine oil may be more efficacious. However the grounded space debris engulfed in tiny golden bubbles looks pleasing so I have decided to call it “Phantom”. My main worry now is how to deal with the oil, which sits in my tiny kitchen looking like an enormous urine sample.
My companion is becoming increasingly obsessed with vampires and other blood sucking creatures. She finds it increasingly difficult to sleep as various new ideas come to her. It is as if they are being transmitted from an alien source. She now spends most of the day sleeping in order to recover from the night’s febrile activity. Today I recieved a spell for trapping vampires it seems a bit confused and suggests that the bloodsucker will somehow be contained within a bottle, surely that is for genies?
It has been a week since my last post. Tonight I head for London again to witness a screening of films in the car park of Cell Project Space. The opening last week was an interesting event with quite a healthy turnout. I met Milika who recalled seeing (and liking) a dvd of my work a couple of years ago. She commented that it was one of those things that ends up at the bottom of a pile. I thought at the time that although most of the information I send to galleries must end up as foundation material for more important paperwork that it must, in some small way, impinge on the consciousness of the gallerist. Perhaps I should correspond more often. I have received many other communications of late. Emails have been arriving from Basel, Bath and Bedford and I have been spending much time answering and sending packages by return post. Apart from such business work I have had time for little else though I have started plans for a new Space film using several litres of cooking oil and a few charity shop purchases.
Last week the highlight of the private view occurred when my companion was invited to ‘swing’ with one of the visitors. She declined to travel down with me today.
A shrewish cold galls my throat. Feeling dizzy I was forced to leave my office partway through downloading images from Michael Cousin’s show at g39. I am now writing letters and emails from my bed. So far I have produced: an invoice for Café Artistique; emails to Dan and Owen in Bath (from whom I have not heard much in a while) and a couple of panicky messages to Milika at Cell project space. Despite my worries all seems to have gone to plan and I am looking forward to travelling down to London tomorrow to see the final opening for “Trying to Cope with Things that aren’t Human”. I am even more excited because I have just remembered there is a Vampire story in the publication. Last night my beloved and I watched Peter Cushing in “The Brides of Dracula”. Yet again the heroine survived and the vampire was easily despatched, this time by the shadow of a burning windmill. Mr Cushing was immaculately dressed throughout and inhabited the film with such gentleness and flair that all around him seemed crude caricatures. There was even one moment where he found himself an avuncular sidekick. He was a rotund bumbling doctor, but his name wasn’t Watson. Afterwards discussion turned to a relative who had had to have his boot exorcised after his church was used for a black mass. He was a church warden and it was his car rather than his foot that was in danger. Thinking of Whitstable again I have made a film of a tree growing from the top of a building opposite my lodgings. Unfortunately I had to remove the sound as loud groans and giggling were issuing from my neighbours’ flat.
I am looking forward to the opening of “Trying to Cope with Things that aren’t Human” at Cell Project Space on Friday. Not least because it is one of those galleries that I have tried to visit of many occasions but, largely due to my own failings, have only managed to get into once. That was a marvellous show by David Blandy, absolutely crammed with stuff. I may be arriving at the private view at a run as a last minute change has meant that, as I write, I am burning a new dvd for the show. This and some over vigorous socialising has meant that I have not as yet managed to go to bingo but I feel it will not be long now. I have ordered yet another vampire film “The Brides of Dracula”. Apparently it heralds the return of Peter Cushing the progenitor of my recent obsessions. It should arrive with the early post tomorrow.
