the fight for free space…

The fight for free space-for wilderness and public space-must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space…Wanderlust-A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit, Verso, 2001 in Occasional Sights-a London guidebook of missed opportunities and things that aren’t always there, Anna Best

absurdity and the art of seduction

…Either people are truly gullible (fascinating hypothesis, but not too appealing), or else one must think that it is by soliciting them in the strangest, the most preposterous way, that they are seduced most easily. Indeed they want to be seduced, that is to say not solicited within their raison d’etre, and the same people who most obstinately resist justifiable, reasonable, explicit requests (requests for help, requests for opinion, affective a psychological requests) are prepared to play the arbitrary and absurd game of seduction. We are, in the end, secretly flattered that something is asked or even demanded of us for no reason, or contrary to reason: It spares us the commonplace and honors us in a more profound complicity. It is on this level that the seduction is played out, and rightfully so: There are few people in whom this basic reflex, this spontaneous response to the challenge of irrationality, has been destroyed by the habits of reason.

Please Follow Me, Jean Baudrillard

Suite vénitienne

Saturday. February 16, 1980

I must not think about it. I must stop pondering possible outcomes, wondering where this story is leading me. I will follow it to the end.

Sophie Calle

what is art?

From the glossary of Relational Aesthetics, Nicolas Bourriaud:

Art
  1. General term describing a set of objects presented as part of a narrative known as art history. This narrative draws up the critical genealogy and discusses the issues raised by these objects, by way of three sub-sets: painting, sculpture and architecture.
  2. Nowadays, the word ‘art’ seems to be no more than a semantic leftover of this narrative, whose more accurate definition would read as follows: Art is an activity consisting in producing relationships with the world with the help of signs, forms, actions and objects.

The first of these definitions is utterly pragmatic; the second screams towards the target, hits the bulls-eye and quivers for a few moments whilst the repercussions reverberate out into the surroundings…

note to self

Alan Watts once wrote that once we understand a problem we’ve actually solved it — that you make a dark room brighter by adding light, not by waving your arms around. Next time you’re waving your arms around in the dark, make sure you understand the real nature of your problem — and not just allow yourself to pout and stay fixated on the desire for your frustration to go away. You probably already know the answer to your problem or you at least know where to find it. Maybe you just don’t know you know it yet.

The funny thing I eventually realized was that I could and often did find the solution to my problem — part way through writing the email in which I was asking for help. I realize this sounds kind of silly, but the next time you’re having trouble figuring something out, try writing a note to yourself.

http://www.43folders.com/2006/02/02/write-to-yourself/

So true!

other people’s words

(unaccredited and taken out of context)

| If my work’s in there too, it’s a different agenda. The whole thing changes. They don’t trust you | encourage people to sit in the space and, you know, just use it | call and return | you’ll be amazed: you’ll learn lots, it’s fun | it’s always been touch or go | it just seems to work | you lower your principles. You lower the standard. It’s just not good. | collaborating is the key to everything | you need to be a name in people’s heads…with work attached to it | the danger of becoming formulaic | very bad translations: doing a very literal translation has a poetic of its own | gamble | my feeling is they are my guests | my influences are not so much other artists but literature; what I hear on the radio; and very bad science fiction | using your imagination to articulate things you don’t quite understand, with the materials you have to hand | terrifiying | make yourself visible | is there such a thing as wilderness? | a shift in cognition | humour is a fantastic tool to draw yourself in | effecting a change with a tiny piece of graphite | loaded spaces | If you go to one of these things, don’t go with any expectations. NONE. | the pressure to have a body of work, but to keep developing | the choreography of the room | if there’s a needle going in at the same time as you’re being amused, then that’s ok | own up to the fact that I don’t have a studio | everything is a choice | promote stuff by using it to create space. Make architecture with it | found, appropriated and put out of context | prove something happens here | I’m based in Birmingham, but my practice isn’t | a very odd person…he’s nice though | look useful | meet a new network | what audience is your work going to reach? | what’s the point in making something unless you know where it’s going to go? |

the scanner photography project

Instead of building a camera that mimicked the functionality of a traditional photographic camera, I had stumbled across a new tool for examining the relationships between time, motion, and image. What I though would be a two week art project has turned into one that has lasted for almost three years, and shows little sign of stopping. My cameras work a lot better now, although most of them still use a lot of duct tape, cardboard, and cheap flatbed scanners.

http://mirror.geo.localizedmedia.com/scannerphotography.com/