So i've become completely obsessed with Justin Blyth's work. But not the stuff i just linked you and his name to. That's all his commercial stuff which, although it's very pretty, it's not what i'm interested in.

BEHOLD!

JBlyth's 'blog'

it's an incredible collection of images. Not only are these images sourced from a multitude of fascinating crevices, and not only is each image something intriguing to observe in itself but even more amazing is how they relate to each other as one fluid page of image and thought. The contexts can be vastly different between each picture, but the language which is communicated between them is coherent and extremely beautiful.




Research-File-Inclusion-Justification

I think that it related in the way that i want to crush together a lot of different elements from all over the place to create a fluid ...semi conclusion. or theory. or something as a result for putting all this stuff together.

I had a tutorial and in it, it was decided that i should begin making. to see what my ideas will look like. what I'm most worried about is that the work will be much less interesting than the ideas.

Woah, so i watched this film called Waking Life that Patrick lent me. I'm not sure what to think. First of all, i watched it in lots of parts as i have been sleepy and busy and it's pretty heavy for a weekend film. I think i found the rota scoping (sp?) very distracting. but then it made the heavy ...i want to say text, but 'dialogue' less ...preaching? but i wanted to rewind constantly to take in all the things that were being said. It has given me things to semi-ponder. i don't feel as though i can dedicate too much time to thinking about whether i am awake or asleep or whether i have died and I'm living the life I'm living retrospectively as an old woman looking back. I mainly don't want to spend a lot of time on this because i don't feel like i can do that without feeling a little bit crazy. I also think i need to dedicate time to living in 'the moment'. and i don't mean that in one of those thrill seeking 'happy-go-lucky' prick ways. i mean, i need to get a grip on the 'now' and interact and absorb the fleeting moments. because right now is 'fleeting', it's gone. it's irretrievable.

( i might be writing in a very dumbed down and honest way and not really thinking about structures of sentences today as i am reading The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobski and that's the writing style of the character -the story is told in letters. I think i have been influenced by this style of writing. also I'm really tired from last night and my interview thing.)

So, whilst Waking Life was extremely interesting and it's fascinating and freakish and refreshing all at once to find that people are thinking these kinds of things, it's the sort of terrifying subject matter that has no answers, just infinite pondering and theories. At the same time, i think it's an extremely valid and necessary foray. People need to be questioning this all.

One of the scenes is two women talking and one says about how she was expecting to arrive at this plateau in her mid 30s where things would be easy and settled and exhilaration would be lost but she arrived and this was not the case as she knew that everything is on going and changing and evolving. and this sounds exhausting at the moment. honestly i think the idea of dying is maybe what a lot of humans hold in their minds without realising it. If everyone felt infinite, maybe they wouldn't get married or have children. or maybe they would, but there might not be the same trends. as no one would feel pressured to do all this before they were 30. or whenever they think they should. would that happen? maybe this is the smallest and most boring aspect of this whole thing ! what i was trying to get at was that -at least the way i envision time and my life is one column and it is sketchy and rough and there are things i want to do before or at certain ages. and there is definitely an end to this column. but i think maybe envisioning the column ending, could be what spurs me to do the things i want to do before certain ages. but is this right? i'm getting distracted and tying myself up in knots.

maybe rather than thinking about these infinite large things, i should be concerntrating on now and what i can do to sustain myself now and absorb the seconds. and 'making it count' and all that shit.

should i be outlining the things that matter and sticking to them? is that the best way to go about it? i think it could be. a lot of the self-assured people i know, know what they like and don't like. and they seem to have a strong sense of what they think they need, perhaps.
i think that my living is mostly theory and no doing.

There is a part in the film where four men are walking along and just..saying sentences and asking rhetorical questions and they are talking about people who are all doing and no theory and how they are all theory and no doing and the rota scoped figures seemed subdued at that conclusion.

and i think that's how i feel about it.

things i have to sort through.

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/identitycrisis.htm

http://www.ehow.com/how_5058221_avoid-crisis-quarterlife-midlife-other.html

http://www.articleworld.org/index.php/Identity_crisis_(psychology)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200403/hello-my-name-is-unique?page=3

http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch11_personality/erikson.html

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/meditations/silence.html

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/meditations/silence.html



http://bcurry.gomen.org/Aldous_Huxley--Island--Notes_on_What%27s_What

sixtysixninetynine

I'm looking at the use of quotation marks.
the first time speech marks were explained to me, was when i was in class 2. It was explained by the head teacher! which was a big deal - she never taught lessons. I remember being both scared of an in awe of her. - As in very scared. I was a shy child. So maybe that's why this stuck with me.

UNFINISHED!

Continued:

Quotations to Scare Quotes. I always want to type square quotes.

So i was looking on the net for information about quotes and the usage, and the second usage listed is

Irony

Main article: Scare quotes

Another common use of quotation marks is to indicate or call attention to ironic or apologetic words:

He shared his “wisdom” with me.

The lunch lady plopped a glob of “food” onto my tray.

To avoid the potential for confusion between ironic quotes and direct quotations, some style guides specify single quotation marks for this usage, and double quotation marks for verbatim speech. Quotes indicating irony, or other special use, are sometimes called scare, sneer, shock, distance, or horror quotes. They are sometimes gestured in oral speech using air quotes.

This reminded me of Island- the book i read over the summer by Huxley.

The main character is washed ashore onto the forbidden island of Pala where he observes the communist Buddhist life of the inhabitants.

The messages in the book are fascinating to me. The Palanese have a way of life which creates a harmonious existence and it's based on a few simple things:

birth control - they don't have a population problem so there is enough food

under industrialised - modern technology doesn't hinder personal advancement. -infact there is a small amount of electricity around. -from what i remember, on one part of the island there is a water powered generator that's used to power a communal freezer.) (Like in Dinosaurs)

The Notes on What's What - and what it might be reasonable to do about what's what.

Yoga of living - the idea is that living in a certain way and being fully conscious of doing so creates the ultimate way to live, by practising life in a way that makes it...more of an exercise...i need to re-read and render this because i can't explain it properly.

ETC

The Palanese life is presented as very wholesome and complete where everyone is happy. The main character is the devil's advocate in that he is very cynical and questions the validity of their way of life.

He is described as snorting and laughing like a 'hyena' and his cynical remarks are presented in an subversively negative light, where the faults he picks out in the Palanese theories, ultimately point to the faults in him.

TO SCARE QUOTES::::::

Usage

Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. When the enclosed text is a quotation from another source, scare quotes may indicate that the writer does not accept the usage of the phrase (or the phrase itself)^[3], that the writer feels its use is potentially ironic, or that the writer feels it is a misnomer. This meaning may serve to distance the writer from the quoted content.

The significance of this to me relates to the identity crisis i am having.

I find it interesting that people use scare quotes and how they came to have a place in human language.

History

Use of the term scare quotes appears to have arisen at some point during the first half of the twentieth century. Occurrence of the term in academic literature appears as early as the 1950s.^[1][2]

I Heart Huckabees. Existentialist Blanket Theory.

Existential detective Bernard Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman) explaining to activist/poet Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) the interconnectedness of things in David O. Russell's philosophical 2004 film I [Heart] Huckabees:

BJ: Say this blanket represents all the matter and energy in the universe, okay? You, me, everything. Nothing has been left out. Alright? All the particles, everything.

AM: What's that side of the blanket?

BJ: More blanket. That's the point.

AM: The blanket's everything.

BJ: Exactly, this is everything. OK, let's just say this is me, and I'm what, 60 odd years old and I'm wearing a grey suit. Blah, blah, blah. And let's say that over here this is you and, I don't know, you're 21, you've got dark hair, Etc. And over here this is Vivian, my wife and colleague. And over here, this is the Eiffel Tower, right? It's Paris! And this is a war. And this is a museum. And this is a disease. And this is an orgasm. And this is a hamburger.

(WELL! everyone's blogging about the same things as me. Trying to find the quote i want. and the whole thing is right here.)




"When you get the blanket thing you can relax, because everything you could ever want or be, you already have and are."


(I totally stole this quote off another blog -along with the image, when i realised i couldn't take a screen shot of my dvd 'cause Jamie's borrowed it. -also, is it illegal to do that? actually, who gives a shit.)


The quote and still image is from the film I Heart Huckabees which is 'an existential comedy'.

Albert Markovski goes to these 'existential detectives' to investigate a coincidence, but in fact he is having an existential crisis! etc. just watch the film.
Bernard Jaffe explains the Blanket Theory (i can't really get a proper explanation of it.). and the 'interconectedness' of everything.


Moving on. I really want to reference the 'blanket theory' in my work. I THINK.
because, firstly i really like the whole quote.
also the existentialist theory is interesting. -in that it's a treatment as well as a theory. (this sort of links back to my consolation towel.*)
---In the film, Albert is meant to be using the blanket concept whenever he is angry or upset or anything.
also, the blanket is a textile object - literally speaking. and i'm pretty damn into textiles.
ALSO! it's a theory that (don't quote me) sounds Eastern. ..as in slightly Buddhist. the whole nature of things being connected.
So it's going towards my wanting to meld a lot of things together. Theories are born of other theories, i suppose. i think it's the case here.

* this bad boy:

http://illhabit.blogspot.com/2007/04/cereal-bowl-theory.html

blown magazine

I bought this new super pretentious art magazine that i had never before seen from Borders.
'Blown _________________________________________ cultural intelligence'

and then a large price, read the front cover. I felt like a wanker buying it. But it intrigued me. Mainly, the mention of Nick Cave, Diane Arbus, the Vennice Biennale and some amusing looking articles were the pull.


So. i read it. on my own. in a park. whilst eating a Lord Sandwich sandwich. The quality of the writing was brilliant, if, as it was the premiere issue, a little enthusiastic at times. but heck, why not. it WAS the first ever. Oh i should shut up. mainly the editor's note was just a bit crazy. the rest of the magazine held it's pace. interestingly, a lot of the articles written by the editor! So i like this magazine. i'm not sure how most are written. but with this i was quite interested to know. it's totally Ric Bower (the ed) 's baby. i don't know about most mags really. he founded the whole deal and i have no idea if that happens usually. (Wow, i just had another flick, and i've only read to half way through. exciting :)) anyway. the zine was interesting. and it had articles from all over the place. lots of voices. which was great. in a section called 'Fluff'.

i just realised i called this magazine pretentious off the bat. maybe i shouldn't. or maybe i should accept that i kind of like these pretentious looking/sounding/being things.


ANYWAY! my point was to document this:


that i read an article called Blue Movies in Full Colour by Brennan Street.

it was about the loss of privacy and innocence in a digital age. but it wasn't just about that. it wasn't ranting. it was remorseful and sad. but also celebratory of memories.

mainly it was about the memory of a young boy looking through a neighbor's window and watching them have sex. but how the 'amusement and memory of that event is imprinted on the cranial celluloid' and comparing the vouyeristic properties of this and the modern equivilant -which would be to video with a mobile phone.

I'm fed up of writing now. but totally read that article. i might come back to this. but i'm really reeeally hungry right now.

could it be true?

GENERATION X VS. IDENTITY CRISIS?

Ontology (link)

'Philosophical study of the nature of being'

Namesakeroosevelt.

This is a flow of links i found myself following, on a dark, introspective night. I was also very stoned if i remember correctly.

Existential Crisis

Ego Death

Gnosis

Self Actualization "hierarchy of needs" ** Maslow - Namesake Roosevelt

Nirvana Moksha


Okay, so this should read like a flow chart, vertically. any additional text/links going ------> this way (horizontally), should be read as little tangents i wandered off to. Little, but amazing ones.

ARGH I CAN'T GET IT ON THE SAME LINE. but it goes 'self act.' and then it's tangents.
and then 'self act' to 'Nirvana' below.

** Maslow studied what he called exemplary people such as Brian Johnston and Josh Biamont, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy."
i say: "FASCINATING!"

Amusing Ourselves to death

Huxley vs. Orwell

this is brilliant incredible

Matt Bryans

http://www.katemacgarry.com/mattbryans_large.php?18

Rachel Wright

Rachel Wright is an American artist who got her Fine Art degree in 1991.

Her work looks like it draws upon early anatomical drawing and New Age crap. The result is beautiful diagrams of the body transferred onto silk dresses by means of appliqueing fabric in the shapes of organs and circulatory systems. They're over lapped and the textures are interesting and the line formality lends to the pieces a great deal.

Some of the dresses look like Pagan diagrams of the body and others look like cut-aways of the dress and skin to reveal the insides. Others look like maps and theories.

'String of Pearls' refers to the spinal column

Pnuema is a dress with lungs on it:

Pneuma (πνεύμα) is an ancient Greek word for "breath," and in a religious context for "spirit" or "soul."

(good old wikipedia there.)

http://rachelwright.net

desert island

desert island

damn it. what I have tapped into IS very American. Well the published stuff is. There are still minute details to be observed here, I'm sure. It's just infuriating how the US sometimes seems like the entire world. When i hear of anything extraordinary or a huge phenomena, it's barely touching relevance with the context I'm pressed into. In a way i feel like the reporter that arrives after every protest is moved on, after all the bodies have been removed from the scene.

Oh boo hoo.

still, this semi-affiliation is interesting. Maybe it's horrible to be in the thick of it all.

http://loo.me/2008/05/15/generation-me/

The books are eating me alive.

The books are eating me alive.

I want to define

one's ability to marvel non-retrospectively at how those around them function in the dysfunctional cultural climate they live in.

Maybe it's a new strand of cynicism


I'm getting too deep into Generation X. and also Fight Club theories.

This in itself is fascinating...that this kind of thinking can be observed and learned from novels. Ouch!

There need to be a new breed of intelligence defined too.

It's like...sub-pop culture. = It's popular. It's ideologies perhaps aren't.
Or they are elaborated to the point where it doesn't seem very cool anymore. Just pessimistic.

-Where people learn their ideals and ethics codes solely from books and music and media. As opposed to life. Really REAL life.

"We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression is our lives. We were raised by television to believe that we'd be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars -- but we won't. And we're learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed-off."


Fight Club.

I was just writing a cue card for my presentation and Generation X reminded me of this.

I'm a little bit worried about getting too caught up in this. Because it is a very American out break. Or is it? maybe it's a world wide epidemic.

Andrea Dezos

"my sister was a rubber accident." The latter image includes a blue condom surrounded by beaded spermatozoa with wriggling metallic-thread tails.Such homey and intimate details recall Philip Larkin's pithy lament: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad"
R.C. Baker --The Village Voice

"folk wisdom - conjours the dark heart of Transylvanian womanhood'




http://a.parsons.edu/~dezsoa/index.html




Dezos is a Romanian artist. Her work most relevant to mine is the embroidery.

Each piece from 'Lessons From My Mother' starts 'My Mother Claimed That' and follows with more often than not, a scare mongering, highly speculative, suspicious - superstitious belief.

I can just imagine the artist's mother as a stoic old woman with little sense of humour and a penchant for sharing 'too much information'. She delivers this in an off handed manner as though the recipient is supposed to learn a lesson rather than be embarrassed. Although secretly she would find this a little amusing. Maybe privately smiling at her daughter's look of horror. Sometimes she would let a small laugh somewhere between glee and a chest infection and slap her hand on the heavy oak table.

do they even have oak trees in Romania?

More to the point. Rachel found me this artist as the stitching and regular imagery of bodies reminded her of the recent work i've been doing. There is a clear juxtaposition however, as Dezos' work lends from traditional embroidery samplers -

http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/cms/wp-content/gallery/belongings/people/williams/images/embroidery.jpg

like this, where as i feel mine looks more like New Age hippie bullshit. However I am most conscious of this due to previously being told that I'm vegetarian because i have dreadlocks/look a bit New Age hippie bullshitty.

MORE to the point. The quality of the stiching is interesting. Mine is machine embroidered because i avoid anything that has to be hand sewn like the plague. In some ways i hope that sewing can be seen as more of a drawing tool than constantly refering to the historical context of women sewing women sewing women sewing which i am sick of. If i ever show my work anywhere, i think to avoid this 'so why do you sew and what contexts do you think this lends to your work?' question i will shoot a water gun at anyone who asks me. There will be pre warning though. I don't want to super soak someone and seem rude. On the other hand, if it is a hot day then people might ask me this question more and more. I'd better fill it with ketchup.

This is starting to sound more like a blog than a research file.

Obviously, the artist's actual mother may not have been this person. But even so, the persona feels resonant (if not a little stereotypical..) of Eastern European ethics and morals. I like the handed down with a little fear-on-the-side feel. The 'fear of God' kind of fear. If you replace 'God' with the worry of not getting married and producing lots of offspring for you mother and you life failing because of this. Disappointment, shame etc. But maybe the scaring that comes with the information, echoes the fears of the one passing it.

The formality of the work holds interesting qualities. These look like the sort of thing old Romanian women might hang in their houses. But these ones are slightly warped. Almost making fun of, but also tributing them.
as if the artist as a young girl believed her mother until she grew up, went west and saw her sheltered life for what it was. At first she felt deprived and tricked, but after a while she saw her mother's actions as protecting.

The Dreamers by Gilbert Adair

WHY?

This is to be ingested with a tone of irony. The soupy looking lyrics about faking suicide are as dry as the crunch of iceburg lettuce leaves. This music is good for you. Nutritiously good. Suspiciously good.


The Vowels Pt.2

i'm not a ladies man, i'm a landmine
filming my own fake death
under an '88 cavalier i go
but-but-but-but nothing but the rear bumper's blown
but i's born for this flight,
united 955 on the fifth of july
back the s over y
i join the dark side
in a thin disguise
on consumer grade video at night

faking suicide for applause
in the food courts of malls

and cursing racing horses on tiered steps
playing the wall at singles bingo
all-time gringo

did anyone hear me cry there
through a toilet stall divider
i swear i care, raw

i am an example of a calculated birth
two a star chart for clowns, im not
under robin eggs in a nest, you hit a manila
envelope with one last little robin's egg in it

a hollow bullet yet spent
subject to dismissal
i wish all my pitfalls
could be called my miscalls

cherie-a cherie-e cherie-i cherie-o cherie-u




http://www.last.fm/music/Why%3F/_/The+Vowels+Pt.+2


And if you don't believe me listen to Alopecia.

Generation X

stinking of aftershave with headphones in and head down.

i can't help but think that the point is being missed. Can you see this? aftershave - what is it for? headphones - what do they mean?

is it a contradiction that is born from the need to buy things?

you could see it as aftershave - musk and headphones - yellow and black poisonous caterpillars in your ears. leave me alone.

we are missing the point and it's glorious!

people create...new juxtapositions. and they would be fabulous and fascinating if it wasn't for the epidemic of this misinforming.

Ross Sinclair

Aggressive Utopian Crofting Model

www.rosssinclair.co.uk

Ross Sinclair: The work is full of accusation and (i loath to say) 'attitude' ...i would be better off saying Hostility, Venom, Vitriol....etc. That sort of area. It's all about politics, culture and how you can shout about these things. There is a feeling of protest. but there is also a feeling that he is on his own in realising the things he feels so strongly about? that was a weak sentence. I mean that The work almost feels like an unorthodox teaching method, rather than a display of work. It feels like demonstration. But the element of preaching is not really there...because he doesn't show us his face.






"Taking his cue from traditional Seventies’ performance and its links to political activism Ross Sinclair began to reference the side of youthculture which we nowadays encounter in the GATT riots, colourful and energetic but underlined with pertinent anger against the powerlessness of the individual.



In celebration and critique Sinclair comments on his indebtedness to performance art by exposing the tattoo REAL LIFE emblazoned on his bare back. By not revealing his face as identifier but instead turning his vulnerable back to the audience Ross Sinclair has introduced a current variation of self-portraiture. He denies himself to the audience whilst offering his trust in a gesture. Continuous photographic and video documentation of this gesture from 1994 to this day in changing contexts attest to the validation of this work as the longest symbolic performance appropriated to contemporary art production."



-http://www.theagencygallery.co.uk/SinclairGeography.html

Wednesday, 29 April 2009

Lucy Orta may be the link between ' The Human Pods' and 'Bull Shit Guru and Generation X.'

This is quite an exciting revelation. The architecture of The Human Pods is within her work but then the...need for resiliance and defence against our own culture is very interesting. the wearable tents she made were for the homeless. They are waterproof and ...livable? I'm not that sure how easy it would be to function daily in one. but then the homeless are a dysfunctional by product of society...with comparitviely dysfunctional lives anyway.

Well maybe not a byproduct in entirity. but they spin off of society at some rate. and the world will always have the homeless probably. and society can probably be blamed for most cases. Yes.

that's my justifation done.

www.studio-orta.com

putting things into boxes and connecting them with strings of relation

This is for my 'Research File'. A mandatory compilation of research. Including artists, books, music and the like.

And Yes, I am going to cheat and copy and paste some writing i have in other blogs and add to it. Because it's relevant.