Blob blog blobby blog. Bloggy bog.
Bogster, blogster, blooog, bloogy bloggy blobbin bloogoid
Hello
Watched a really good Ang Lee film Sat night, The Ice Storm. It was like constantly watching the plastic bag bit in American Beauty for the first time, and it never gets stuck in a tree. Beautiful and balanced through its disturbance, yes.
Yesterday though, I also felt like I was being haunted by my art. It was bizarre but true.
For thirty seconds, everywhere I looked, I kept seeing references to rubbish; bins, litter, street cleaners… like The Usual Suspects crux where the detective pieces all the evidence together. Instead for me, I was feeling the intense need to record information. These symptoms have also manifested themselves before; having to retrace steps my steps to a piece of rubbish in the street and picking it up when passers by have passed by. I recycle crap in both a Duchampian found objects aesthetic sense and also to social-politically empower detritus; oh, the waste of others and its potent alchemy. This has been exemplified in Speed Dated, using footage of street cleaning vans, or Scrap, the installation was made of found objects, and of course, my plaster blobs; embedding broken stuff.
If it wasn’t for the art, I’d be worried about how special I am becoming. Time for a lazy break?
Sunday was spent in the slumbersome lullaby serenity of Velvet Underground and Nico’s Sunday Morning, I didn’t particularly feel like doing anything art/course related, so I didn’t. I listened to the latest Bleep/Warp records a friend has sent me; luckily my Sheffield friends are doing stuff that makes my brain tingle. In fact, their audio life has impacted my art. I chose to write my dissertation, entitled Pop Has Eaten Itself, on the sonification of the gallery space. From the Warp/Lex empire to Stoke’s recent Northern Soul organ recitals, The Vegetable Orchestra’s rootified Kraftwerk renditions to Cage and Marclay I quite enjoyed writing the X trillion word flow expected of us.
I guess an important value is to let my subject, materials and process forge themselves around something I am instinctively passionate about. Otherwise it’s like dancing to garage/rnb in a soulless club; you’re all disjointed and being dictated to by the crap DJ, not losing yourself in it.
From Aphex to Chris Clark, I first began to incorporate audio into my practice for my French Fancies video performance. Straight away though, I felt that I wanted to edit, delete and rehash what was already richly reproduced audio. Then there was the question of copyright, putting my friends through the rigmarole of paperwork hell was not something I wanted to inflict, especially since I tend to appropriate across the label. Consequently, I have turned to creating my own- it’s satisfying. I guess despite my hardcore allegiance to scratch culture following You Know Who’s death and mouse replacing paintbrush etc, a few of my arty molecules still urge me to embrace Hegelian wholeness, invert into abstraction and transcend as art genius.
For instance, Tom sent me Prefuse 73’s latest Security Screenings. Where were the new sonic vibrations? It felt like just a regurgitation of Vocal Studies… and One Word…; I feel a bit cheated. (Battles and Jimmy Edgar on the other hand- bliss.) But then, today, as artists, can we expect to be original? As nth generation pirates, our swag bags are already full of pillaged goods. (I knew Johhny Depp had to come into it somewhere)
I can’t help it though, I really don’t like art that looks/feels /is an outright compendium of all our contemporary extended painting art stars. You shouldn’t want it too much the wrong way and become it rather than taking from it, right? Maybe if you come to the degree show you will discount my installation as a load of rubbish. Hmm, that would be good. Hopefully, and moreso, it will engage you. I don’t think of my art as a question of liking, more of experiencing and triggering a possible learning.
Either way, I hope I never stop getting influenced all from directions. I also hope I won’t end up cutting my ear off or turning to Buckfast. Luckily we have Cove Park and endless private views to disguise regular artist Outsiderness.
Show me your open mind and I’ll show you my blobs. Here they are, in early stages of progress. I’ll tell you all about them next time round.
