travellingonemptyplatforms

a day in London - meetings and exhibitions - the work exhibited at Carroll/Fletcher is of the moment - Neoliberal Lulz - upstairs there is a detailed examination and critical unpicking of capitalism - appropriating the very tools used in the pursuit of gain - I love The New Gold Diggers by Emilie Brout and Maxime Marion - a special mention has to be the wondrous infomercials by Constant Dullaart - DullTech. Downstairs is quite beautiful - Manfred Mohr has created systems to generate some sublime shifting/moving shapes - Mohr insists that old techniques of drawing and imagination are not to be imposed on the machine - it may be a new way of making but the references are there - it has echo's of the serial art of So lewit's cube/line work. Whitecube Bermondsey - The history of nothing - a show whose starting point is a film by Paolozzi - highlights for me were the actual film - a startling prescient observation that both underpins and undermines some of the work in the show, although Josh Klein's use of a real face time substitution program to explore ideas of 'post-human' made me laugh but what was I laughing at? In the larger room we have Sergej Jensen's (great name) use of money bags (bags that coins, change is transported in) as both a canvas to work on and as the/a reference point for the work itself gives the work an immediate set of codes to read - I kept thinking about minimal abstraction and people like Alberto Burri, Barnett Newman and Robert Ryman - maybe that's the point - referencing and referential all around.

Our meeting at The House of Commons was truly exciting - lots of thoughts about duality - dialogue and conversations, back stage and theatre, old and new - especially around technology. Lots to think about. I came away thinking about a part of our conversation concerning Pugin - the idea of the haze of detail and the need for a neo-gothic revivalist architectural style at that point in history - the image of an idea manifest in a building. Later, full of connections and connectedness, thinking about the Suffolk fairs of the early 70's - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sun-East-Norfolk-Suffolk-Fairs/dp/0950870102 again reviving a style to enable a rethinking, a retelling of what it is to be English, relinquishing the now, using a neo-romantic image of the past, that had itself been revived to create a new future......what goes around comes around.

lostintranslationundercover

Looking through the images from the weekend and a couple of photographs need a re-file - an image that highlights the gap between words within translation - the embedded power of a word within a specific geographic context alongside its cultural resonance and an image to add to my collection titled 'stuff covered over in the street'.

still moving through Girls which is becoming more disturbing but took a break to watch Rock the Kasbar - a film that's not sure what it is or wants to be but I think I enjoyed it. 

bloodbloodandblood

a full weekend in the South of France - clear, bright and
blue skies - a stop off in Marseille to see the latest museum - a fantastic
space created by having a wondrous surface of latticed poured concrete and
metal. Then after wandering through areas supposedly off limits to tourists around
a great market with giant octopi and numerous varieties or squid onto a
stunning show of photographs at La Friche - http://www.lafriche.org/fr/ detailing
the everyday in Israel - what is everyday? - it's in a great space housed in an
old tobacco factory with a cafe, studios and surrounded by a skate park full of
people who are drifting into the indoor spaces. Then onto imprints in Crest - while
there thought about the idea of a creating a 'French(ness) mood board' so took
a mass of photos whilst wandering around on the way to a boudin noir stall in a
local car park. The stall was basically selling a mixture of blood, cream, eggs
and herbs all siphoned into a tube - boudin noir - quite possibly my favourite sausage!
I got to film the guys blend it - a faintly medieval experience with the
inclusion of injection moulded plastic - vats of blood - the colour was
fantastic and fresh from the boiling cauldron the texture was like velvet.

bondingmagic

working on more bonded pieces - creating structural bookworks with welded rubber within the heat press - the colour comes from the materials used - place settings and not-slip mats - the films will be interesting due to the patterns/colours. meanwhile watched secrets in their eyes - a dark, complex film with a great cast with a tragic twist you may see coming. 

unchainedwood

a cluster of randomness - an interesting blog post from Tim Burrough, a
student on the MA Book Art course at Camberwell - worth a view http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/camberwell/2016/02/05/ma-book-arts-student-profile-tim-burrough/#more-11112 A really sweet film people places things, always great to see Germaine Clement (he of the wonderful flight of the concord) and here he is supported by some moving drawings as he plays a comic book artist. A new film by me that is supported by the sounds of Aiden Johnson aka Clerk 37 - check out his soundcloud site https://soundcloud.com/clerk37 My annual leave form has come through so time to start planning - Marseille, Rome, and New York are on the cards. 

abookinabookinashow

I'm in a book! - a bookwork called are there any limits is in a show called Buch Kunst Objekt at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart http://kunstmuseum-stuttgart.de/index.php?site=Ausstellungen;Aktuell&id=59&bereich=Sammlung_Kunstmuseum_Stuttgart&1455530118 - The work was commissioned a few years ago and has essays by some interesting people from the book art world that have been set within paper structures that explore the content of the texts - if anybody is interested there are still a few copies left - £25:00 plus postage!

patterntestinthehand

a busy session of heat bonding - first taking apart the material I used to make the capes as they no longer have a purpose and reusing the material to make structures for the hand - I managed to create pockets within the material, fusing rubber and using silver foil as a barrier within the structures.

bondingspace

playing with the properties of heat bonding on a range of materials to create a collection of sculptural bookworks - tools for the hand - reflecting on the images and films is a way of listening to what your eyes tell them. Wading through some terrible films recently after such a wonderful array of Oscar nominations but Ashby is a winner with Mickey Rourke giving a mesmerising performance and Macbeth where the mist is a main character with the stunning cinematography overshadowing the whole thing. late to the party but enjoying the cringe inducing girls - fabulous.