ARTISTS TALKING

# 61 [13 December 2010]

ROUND OBJECTS TO THROW THROUGH hollowed HOOPS

[the basis of circulatory flow]

"When thinking of museums I think of paths to museums and paths back again after the experience, our minds often flooded with the objects we take in our heads. These places need hollow halls at the top and open platforms to the sky..."

Across the causeway towards the rock that sits in the middle of the sea we walk. I turn to my friend and say that if the tide was in our heads would be submerged in water - to this she replied we would need weights attached to our ankles to walk still on the path. This is true. Once at the rock she collected round objects and arranged them on the beach. To what affect I am not so sure, perhaps to make an order of things.

At the top of the rock we climbed there stood a house built on top of another house to rest from the wind - it was no lighthouse simply a watchtower with winding stairs and hollow halls. It was very ordered in its architecture and at the top a platform jetted out into the stream of open sky. There we stood and watched the disappearance of the path aforementioned. The tide had swallowed its rock pools, swelled back to the shore, and we were fully surrounded by the waters below. The sun was loosing itself over the hills in the distance and we had naught to burn for warmth or for light. The halls were hollow.

If the tide was in our heads it would most likely be in our bellies and in our lungs. We'd be flooded with the tide.

If the tide was in our heads would like to be above the brim of the water's edge so as not to freeze: so as not to have the tide in our bellies and in our lungs. We would avoid being flooded with the tide.

We risk having the tide in our heads and use the round collected objects on the rock's beach, put them in our socks and weight ourselves down. We then walk the path together holding our breath until the shore.

# 60 [11 December 2010]

Brief description

I knew this person in Leeds when living in Montpelier, a Victorian gated community of flats with a lawn at the front. It used to be an orphanage. These may still be the days where you fit everything you own in to one room because one room is all that you own and have to yourself - her room in Leeds was full of herself. I used to sit on her bed and draw for hours whilst she inspected insects collected throughout the day at her desk at the foot of the bed. To the left of the bed on the wall an original piece of artwork hung framed on the wall. The work was by her father a successful rock climber in the world of rock climbing and a notable artist too.

Here in Bristol her room looks pretty much the same. Its full of all the same objects and houses the same person - there is however but one addition to this - a strange object rather like a medal draw or a draw to keep different beads of varied shapes and sizes. Turned on its side and propped on top of the same desk against a different wall it has many compartments for her many micro-objects to be shelved. They collect dust but hang pretty: each of them holding an aspect of her personality - when she is out of the room I quickly lick one of them clean... a different one each time, replacing it before her return.

Back in her old flat in Leeds (I know someone else who lives there now) upon the wall in the living room, hangs another of the compartmentalised draws used as a shelving unit - it too holds many objects that are apparently unrelated.

One day I'd like to stand them both side by side and cross-reference them looking for any difference or indifference in repetition...

# 59 [10 December 2010]

Final question: What is the language of the mind?

The other night I dreamt of licking my best friend's partner. We were in a building that resembled an assemblage of architecture - a mixture between Oxford's Christchurch grounds, Glasgow's University erection and Leeds' modernist definition. Running around as we used to it just happened and my tongue sort of slipped. I licked her.

We used to count chevrons on the road driving from East Anglia to Bristol. "Chevron" resounded in the car every time one shoved itself under the nose of the bonnet: unison of intonation announcing our situation on the road. Chev-ron. We said it a lot. The journey felt longer but was better for it.

In Bristol the two of them live apart but together in two separate houses around five minutes cycle ride from each other. There are no chevrons on that route. Just short cuts and back alleys to navigate with peddle and bike lights. At her partner's house we cook vegetables together that have been cut together in a pan together. We do everything together we light the stove with a cook's blowtorch together because the gas ignition does not work.

I now display my affection for this girl on her Facebook page. I like everything on her wall with a "like" and shout chevron to myself at the back of mind with each indulgent click. Then at the top of her page I announce I have licked everything in her status. A strange difference there is between liking and licking - does one come with the other? Do you like someone because you lick him or her or do you lick someone because you like them?

My French teacher used to say (with little affect other than this, as I have forgotten the French now), make sure you get your accents right, make sure you're using the correct sort of intonation. An example she used to use was: if you do not use this sort of accent correctly you could end up saying "I lick Cliff Richard" rather than - what I assume she meant us to say - "I like Cliff Richard".

I ask myself the following questions:

Why did I let my tongue slip?

Do I like my best friends partner?

Did my French teacher have a sexual fantasy about Cliff Richard?

Did she dream of Cliff Richard?

Why did I dream of licking my best friend's partner?

Did I just get the intonation of the dream wrong?

Do ideas like this have - or indeed any other ideas have "intonation"?

How can a marking on a road become a chant?

What is the point of me writing this?

Answers:

My tongue slipped as it often does, I'm not good a holding my tongue at the best of times

I do like my best friends partner but not in a sexual fashion

My French teacher would have liked to lick Cliff Richard at some point

Everyone dreams of Cliff Richard

I didn't really lick her I shouted lots at her - this made me hide behind the joke of licking her.

Yes I did get the tone of the dream incorrect I think

I think ideas do have intonation - ideas are visual and words that have meaning are also visual

A chant is a repetition of a word - a marking on a road that repeats itself, if announced every time one is passed does then become a chant

The point of me writing this is to make a point about the levels of intonation and meaning and the connection behind visual language, vocal language and the language of the mind.

# 58 [7 December 2010]

Museum collection (related objects apparently to do with ciculatory flow)

[built inpart with The Mutual's members show at The Glue Factory]

OBJECTS INCLUDE:

Fimo supports (varied colours)
Plywood panels with black/white oil paint
three small orange plates sourced from Istanbul
apects of Dean Clough exhibition poster
postcard from Hayward Gallery 2005
Glass jar with light
3D slides from 1958's World Fair, Brussels
Slide covers
Builder's light (casting shadows)
Shoe rack
hand made ash tray from Gran Canaria street merchant
Glass paperweight
Extension lead
Wall mounted photographs of exterior and interior of Leeds City Museum

SOURCED FROM:
(all locations possible museums)

Glass jar kept from BA in 2006
Leeds City Museum basement
Istanbul via Newington, Edinburgh
The Henry Moore Institute
The South Bank of Thames
Charity shop across from CCA, Glasgow
Cardboard box in garage, Dronfield, Derbyshire
Same cardboard box
Glue factory, Glasgow
!950's exhibition van
Gran Canaria, via Newington, Edinburgh
Lea road, Gainsburgh, Lincolnshire
Wilkinsons, Leeds
Leeds city museum

# 57 [28 October 2010]

Drawing board

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

# 56 [20 October 2010]

taʎːaˈtɛlːe and cut

Ah, what a jolly day that was I thank you both so much for ferrying too and fro: Anne for delicious pasta the other night and Francis for extreme courage in harmonious duty. Sups in October, coffee will be heavily caffeinated I promise. Love Jessie x (postcard from Whitley Bay on the North Sea).

One day, sooner or later, whether you find it by looking or having it looked for or whether it reaches you by mail in six years time - that is how long it has taken me to shake my vengeance - you will have this letter in your hands and you will finally know why and how I killed your daughter. X

Recipe for delicious pasta (disaster)

"I always use fresh tomatoes and anchovies, no tomato paste. Always fry your onions in butter for the best of buttery results and meanwhile prepare your broccoli on the chopping board. Use vegetable stock and take stock at all other times, keep calm and collected. Fresh tagliatelle, tagliolini or tagliare is the best type of pasta for strangulation. Boil this separately until half cooked and add it to the stock, tomatoes and anchovies. Add the broccoli too at this point, don't cook it through leave it half raw - give her something to choke on."

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
In this lies anything but sinister edge but the relationship between two texts and the negotiation of a fiction brought together from the two. Jessie wrote her words on the back of a postcard that she left in an art gallery; I found the postcard that was addressed to Francis and Anne, in London. I copied the text and then posted the card. The text on vengeance came from a book I was leafing through at the time. The recipe comes from an artist friend of mine who works in publishing - she's very quick at giving good ideas and lying out recipes and structures for text on the page.

# 55 [15 October 2010]

She sat on the red sofa in front of me eating a cup cake, head bent low over the table between us, and read the following text on a piece of parchment littered with scribbles and marginal errors:

After a bare-footed mountainside climb he found himself half way across a river hanging from a rope swing. Whilst hovering just two inches above the water he recalled his initial excitement that was now debased by the present situation. He thought of the feeling as his tired feet left the ground and his weight and momentum were transferred to his hands clasped around the rope. But he never reached the other side and on his return failed to touch base. Now he hangs like a broken pendulum listening to the voice of the water and the story told by his partner who sits on the riverbank:

Breaking from the text she crossed her legs, swallowed the last of her cake, brushed the crumbs off of her lap on to the floor and continued to read:

In the town where I grew up a couple that live in a house with many rooms of many colours hold feasts celebrating the twelve days of Christmas. All the community are invited and for each woman and a cake is baked. In two of these cakes they hide a gold ring - one for a man to find, another for a woman. Whoever finds the rings takes to a throne for the remainder of the festivities: they demand an audience and decide upon the fate of the community. Decisions are made; the community acts and things change with each year. This is a memory but I do hold an experience close to my own: one year I took ill and found I could not eat my cake so decided to keep it - one of the rings was never found...

She then took the parchment, folded it in front of us and turned her attention at last to me asking: "What made you decide to disown your work and give these moments of experience and this effort as an artist away? Does your work have no value to you?"

To this I replied: "I wanted them to think of my work not as a commodity but as something they could own for their very participation. They experienced it so they have access to it as an experience: and through this it ceases to be ephemeral."
"What are you getting at?"
"How an audience and their relationship to the artist can sometimes get stuck in the middle (the artist can also be stuck in the middle fully exposed). I wanted to elevate this relationship, pass over the ownership of my work"
"How did you meet them half way?"
"As the artist I took an anonymous role and entered in to the domain of the spectator. As the artist in disguise I approached people watching my film (that clearly featured me) and engaged them in polite conversation. Slowly I revealed who I was and released my anonymity."
"How?"
"I gave them fragments of the film burnt DVDs I hid in my pocket."
"Do you think this worked?"
"Yes it worked, I am no longer stuck in the middle, it gave me momentum to either return to the beginning away from my present position as the artist, or to continue ahead. But with each element given away their was less of a title for the work and less of me. Soon enough I disappeared entirely."

She stopped at this with a sigh under her breath, unfolded the parchment and read the final paragraph out loud:

"For him nothing was tight or durable enough. From his publisher we know that his proof reading habits were the despair of the typesetters. The galley proof always went back stuffed with marginal notes and not a single misprint had been corrected. All available space had been used for fresh ideas. Thus the laws of remembrance were operative even within the confines of the work. For an experienced event is finite and a remembered event is infinite as it is only a key to everything that happened before and what is to come after."

# 54 [14 October 2010]

Man in green jacket lined with white fluffy material: "How would you feel if I gave you a piece of this artwork?"

Mersey River rower: "What do you mean, it's a piece of video installation, how do I take a piece of it home with me..."

Ubiquitous is everywhere action and thanks to the small tight stairways leading to the first floor of Greenland street's foundation beginning with A my work remained anonymous - just like myself as a performer or artist in the presence of an audience on the opening night.

Boots were bashed trousers were ruined and self-performance exuded across the widening floor as light and colour danced upon the walls - and the objects I brought with me, they made friends with the ghosts of each hallway stairwell and barricaded windowsill. Dust was all and Perspex sheet (scratched upon the surface) rendered heavy efforts beautifully reconciled.

These moments were then given away - fragments of a whole film reel were offered to the audience. Value and spectator as embodiment of an artwork's worth were both explored through conversation: conversation with space, object, interaction and displacement of "a set piece ever changing".

Man in green jacket lined with white fluffy material: "Each film is a fragment of what you see before you. You have seen it and your presence gives it a title. Here's the title..."

He takes from a rip in the right hand side of his jacket a silver shining disk embellished with an intricate drawing and hands it to the rower - this is a votive act - an offering of ritual and shared experience an opportunity and tangible object of touch...



# 53 [30 August 2010]

The sun is facing us so we must be heading west for a while. Cathie is her name and her surname is Fields. She lives just over the hill in to the sun.

"There is a perfect hill of pine to my right, crafted by the landscape, which dances around in the pallet of green in the breaking evening sun before it's setting. And then a tunnel in to browns and greys and yellows and blues. The falsity of late summer that looks warm but hides rain around the corner and damp under your feet. And the train still hums on."

The whole journey now sets itself in reverse and all the hilly hill hills look vaguely familiar as they roll in to one. Two, three green brown jade-of-purple heather and heath. The clouds too take on similar shapes, setting the horizon as something altogether inspirational, so to speak.

So, to speak is to sit across from someone you're not sure about, you have a memory of them starting a business in Yoga and or in Palates but you have never been ever so sure of the difference, and of the difference in her. So you speak to her and you ask "how the Yolates business going?" - and she gives you a funny look whilst shoving yet more free paella in to her mouth and washing it down with bread.

This was an art exercise. For us to arrive and climb the stairs, after each flight there was a taster of a menu built up from what the building had to offer - each doorway opening on to a free sample of publication and construction and printing press and chalkboard. We dined in the end at the very top. Two artists were in the guise of chefs cooking a rice dish. We sat on a long thin table. On this table the woman sat opposite me. And conversation eventually flowed after we disregarded the idea of us being placed in a social experiment.

We were fooled by the food as it took us to somewhere exotic via the heavy vegan desert. Upon descending the stairs we took another door on to another street and it soon became evident who was the most prepared. I pulled out my umbrella to shelter from the rain. The woman, she stood as if naked for want of being dry against the sky. The sky, well, that was littered with disused buildings: once printing presses and publishers - brass signs disguising the real goings on and the real deal inside. We then went our separate ways and I won't see her again until I forget what it is she actually does. When we do meet it will merely be a repeated performance - a repeat journey. 

We're now exposed to the maintenance tracks. Such observations would be impossible if there were but a break in the clouds in the sky for the sun: now more houses, more settlements and more trees and common land in between are set behind us. And there's a constant black line that floats beside me on the other side of re-enforced glass - it's not that comforting though it keeps disappearing above the window frame.

# 52 [28 August 2010]

THE CUMBRIA ENERGY CENTRE

"We're now exposed to the maintenance tracks. Such observations would be impossible if there were but a break in the clouds in the sky for the sun: now more houses, more settlements and more trees and common land in between are set behind us. And there's a constant black line that floats beside me on the other side of re-enforced glass - it's not that comforting though it keeps disappearing above the window frame."

There's an age where both Ine and Pie go well together and a new form of energy is created. Right now I am around ten minutes from the border between Scotland and England, heading south east of Dumfries towards the next stop, which is Carlisle. My final destination, after meandering through the hills of Ayrshire down in to the valleys of the Lake District and through to the northern hills of Lancashire, is eventually Manchester.

There was an age when this journey would have been altogether more troublesome and harder to navigate. As the window set to my right dost frame each scene as I occasionally look out, the landscape escaping before my eyes, there's a hill another hill a town a townhouse a church a paddock a river lake tree forest fence and field. All rolled in to one and relative to us as a travelling hanger of internal sound.

We are not reserved - just quiet

Before all these 'objects' of the landscape, the very fabric of a traveller's horizon would have been North South East and West by way of tree, hill, lake and track - all forayed before each step forward. And none of these tunnels or bridges would ever have existed. Right now I think of the short walk books my father keeps in his trunk at the top of the stairs, behind where the dog used to sleep.

The page says jump (with a smile) It was on a walk through the Peak District that I lost one of these books. He blames me as he entrusted the book in my hands. I was the navigator following the instructions set before me with each turning page.

"Walk three miles east of the pink tree set before you and come to a fence two metres in height. From this fence head down a track through a stile and over a dry stonewall. From here see the tip of a reservoir to your left. Follow its line around North West arriving at a dam. Scale the dam reaching midway between water and stone. Jump off in to the water and swim to the shore on the Eastern side. Once there head north to a second stile..."

And so on. I do this with a smile of course, as I'd rather forget how I left the book, having survived its rigorous instructions, on the top of the car - we set off, the gravel underneath us crunching and expanding space beneath our tyres, the book flew off the roof caught by the Winter's afternoon sky.

And we are now in England and the accent is altogether different. Carlisle is as grey as Glasgow's West End on a sunny day and from here the world seems to be not so much as awake as the humdrum of the engine I sit behind. I am facing north west now and there's not a stile in sight, just more bridges and tunnels that disguise our guise as a linear travelling collective machine.