I saw a bird

I saw a bird give birth to it's head.

Sadly, it broke.

Ways of Seeing : Advertising

Very, very interesting documentary series by John Berger : Broadcast on the BBC in the 70's

'The Undemanding Object'

Joseph Kosuth

Saul Steinberg

Daniel Spoerri

Claes Oldenburg

"Our attitude towards function is not neutral. Most objects occupy a ‘psychological temperate zone’ - they make few emotional demands on us. To the designer, the most relevant issues are those pertaining to performance characteristics and the consequent choice of appropriate forms, but certain kinds of objects elude esthetic criteria simply by being what they are (chairs for example). These undemanding objects often have a friendly appeal but are not impinging on our connsciousness
by being explicitly beautiful.
The emotional content we associate with them depends on more than the object alone. Hidden associations may be revealed when one object is related to another, or otherwise taken out of its familiar context, or when even a single detail is removed or altered."

(Full article)

Bruno Munari

Beelitz : retrospective

*

*Probably this may potentially at some point become quite important : Beelitz 2009

Photo by Nick Santilan.

The Man Who : Oliver Sacks

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat.

"Here Dr. Sacks recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders: people afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations; patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks's splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human."

(Website)

TIME : The Synergic Zero

EXPLANATION AND THEORY:

Central eye = The self (observer)

Horizontal line = World time zones from -11, 0, to +12.

Left and right extremities = West and East* *(Triangle within Vesica Pisces)

Top and Bottom extremities = Space (Black holes)

Four circular points = Retrospective view of the self (observer)

If you were to travel to the East you would be traveling through time literally for a maximum of 12 hours into the future. If you were to travel West you would be traveling backwards through time for a maximum of 11 hours into the past. If you were to walk forwards into the past, or walk backwards into the future, in both instances you would technically be going against the flow of time, and therefore standing still. The borders of time zones imply that you can condense 24 hours into a single hour by a single step, either backwards or forwards. This creates many implications.

The first of these being; if you travel back into the past with the 1:24 hour ratio from the future, the paradox of a 'future memory' is created. This implies that 'past memories' are easier to obtain whilst walking forwards to the East. The constant back and forth throughout time and space in East/West directions, either traveling backwards and forwards can split the experienced short term interpretative reality stored in the amygdala, with the long term reality of the hippocampus. This raises the possibility that if you were to travel Westward, whilst walking forwards, with your head facing behind you, you would be able to see your future self in a past memory of a future time. (All the while creating a duality of past/future observants). (This has to strain the capacity of storing memories within a specific time and date)

Secondly, if you were to go to sleep whilst traveling through to a different time zone, you would literally wake up in the future* (of course, everyone actually wakes up in the future) but if you were traveling backwards from West (-11) to East (+12) you would actually end up in the future by traveling back through time. This would rase the problem of ever knowing the correct time (universally speaking).

Thirdly, and possibly most convincingly, the appropriation of past memories of future selves and future memories of past selves gives rise to 'The Present Self.' The Present Self can exist infinitely in duration and multiplicity. The present Self occurs on the borders of -1 and +1, existing within the paradoxical nothingness of 0. The 0 of the time scale facilitates the existence of The Present Self to exist within the borders of every incremental time zone. This 'Central Observer' (indicated by the eye) is otherwise known as 'The Synergic Zero', as without this nothingness, no thing would exist from a central point, confining time to be finite. 'The Present Self' or 'Synergic Zero' is infinitely unobtainable and unnoticeable; the perpetual 'standing still' of the borders of time. This brings about the final point. The perpetuation of the 'standing stillness' of the Synergic Zero is the creator of Black Holes.

The reason for this is because of the black hole's Event Horizon, where from an outsiders perspective, time appears to slow down for infinity, making the object passing into the black hole seem stationary (gravitational time dilation). At the same time, all the processes on this object slow down, causing emitted light to appear redder and dimmer, an effect known as gravitational red shift.

To summerise: If you were to walk forwards towards the West whilst looking to the East, you would have a past memory of your future self that would cause a rift in reality as you crossed the border of future to past (12 to -11) creating a paradox in space, where you would go against the flow of time, manufacturing a Present Self that stands still for infinity. This would then precipitate the creation of a black hole.

Additional information: it is now apparent that the Diamond is the intrinsic shape between space, time and ultimately existence, with the central of the diamond being the synergic zero. This is particularly interesting as diamond is pure carbon, with the atomic number of 6. There is quite a lot of nothing in between the electrons in a carbon atom

BFG : Coming soon

(Beards For Girls)

John Baldessari

His most recent work consists primarily of film stills of faces and bodies that are largely covered over by layers of paint or collage or altered by the superimposition of paint over the foreheads and eyebrows. The fact that the faces are partially concealed makes them impossible to identify. The images are charged with the glamour of the advertising and film world. The frequently present element of humour in the compositions plays with the viewers’ expectant attitude by allowing them free scope for association and interpretation and by offering a wide range of possible meanings. The black-and-white photographs are partially coloured, whereby the accentuated coloured facial features are particularly striking. Baldessari uses colours as a kind of colour code. For instance in Raised Eyebrows / Furrowed Foreheads (with Apple) a woman is shown about to bite into a red apple suggesting the associative connotation of red with danger. Or the pictures of the guitar player with a blue guitar in front of a blue background refers to the romantic mood of the music, whereas the photo placed higher up of a furrowed forehead and eyebrows more readily suggests a dissonant piece of music. Thus Baldessari reinterprets the fragments of the pictures according to his own ideas. At the same time, his collages plumb the depths of an in-between world, which we can only intuit, from stories with visible and invisible elements.

(contemporary art daily)

An interview with Baldessari and Frieze Art : CLICK

New additions

New additions to 'The Transcendental Chair' poster series.

Birds : Collaboration project

Series coming soon

(berlinphotography)

The Outsider : Albert Camus

Mersault, the protagonist of the story, takes the news of his mother's death with ambivalence. He simply doesn't know what to feel, and struggles to find an emotional reference point for what is an otherwise devastating circumstance.

This short novel explores many themes including existentialism, but primarily and more specifically the themes of anomie, absurdity, stoicism and atheism.

Mersault's 'deterministic demise' continues when he writes a break up letter for his friend Raymond to a girlfriend suspected of infidelity. Instead of presuming the 'expected emotion' of intitially getting involved, Mersault sees no reason not do fulfill this request, as it will inevitably please Raymond.

As 'the existentialist', Mersault is living only in the present and sees 'regret' as redundant semantics.

Later, Raymond is confronted by the girl's brother and his Arab friend, who attack him with a knife. Further in the day, Mersault takes a pistol from Raymond's apartment in an attempt to prevent Raymond from making any rash decisions. This subsequently conspires against Mersault, as he encounters the Arab man on his way home, shooting him five times.

Part Two of the novel begins with Mersault in prison, and describing his arrest.

His trail concludes in a death penalty (public decapitation) yet the basis of this punishment is focused more on his lack of remorse for his mother's death, rather than the act of murder.

The final paragraph of the book ends with Mersault's realisation that all life is condemned.

"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother, really — I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hatred."

Joseph Kosuth

Kosuth is an American Conceptual artist who's work portrays a high sense of 'objectivity' which is integral to the art's meaning. This tends to be a consistent theme throughout his work, with the main response to be the questioning of 'art' itself.

Above is the work entitled 'One and three chairs', where a physical chair sits alongside an enlarged photo of the physical chair, alongside the dictionary definition of 'a chair'.

"Perhaps all three are chairs, or codes for one: a visual code, a verbal code, and a code in the language of objects, that is, a chair of wood. But isn't this last chair simply . . . a chair? Or, as Marcel Duchamp asked in his Bicycle Wheel of 1913, does the inclusion of an object in an artwork somehow change it?"

(MoMa)

Predominantly questioning the 'nature of things', Kosuth's work also extends rather unsurprisingly into the realms of language and semiotics, as highlighted in Four Colours, Four Words.'

In 'Art After Philosophy', Kosuth tries to explain this objective formality that is often used to term 'art'.

"The 'value' of particular artists after Duchamp can be weighed according to how much they questioned the nature of art."

He continues, "Being an artist now means to question the nature of art. If one is questioning the nature of painting, one cannot be questioning the nature of art. If an artist accepts painting (or sculpture) he is accepting the tradition that goes with it. That’s because the word art is general and the word painting is specific. Painting is a kind of art. If you make paintings you are already accepting (not questioning) the nature of art. One is then accepting the nature of art to be the European tradition of a painting-sculpture dichotomy."

(Art After Philosophy)

Hello, Nasty!

Commissioned flyer : Hello, Nasty! : New night at The Elbow Rooms : Leeds : Uk

Funny World #15

He was talking on the phone for three hours before he realised that he wasn't talking to anyone.

"I thought you'd give me more?" He asked tiredly. Unsurprisingly, no one answered him.

Albino bag smiles tell me that you're angry.

I wish I was on a boat projector of galaxies, floating moving atoms evoking ages of sand and marble in your ancient rolling temples.

It has to feel like this. Smiles times two. "Please, it's mine, but I hope you enjoy it."

To this day it still clicks like a broken clock, and reminds me of you. You're probably not the massive cunt that I imagined you to be. I suppose you're just seeing things the way I am.

Now I've built a cave, I can see how obviously recurring these events have been.

Good morning, irrelevance, and how are you? oh, and you, the typical nature of the present? I see that you're eternally turning up unannounced, maybe you can knock next time?

The muffled sounds of the knuckle trumpeter traverse through half an hour of waking dreams.

Nine dimensional reverb, this is what I couldn't explain to the backs of heads.

But it's alright, no one thinks that existence is important anyway. I think this is why I've resorted to believing my own pseudo-pink wafer-justifications.

I look up to see the male figure smiling down on me. I can only see him from the shoulders up. Wearing a white tshirt, stubbled chin like freshly cut gravel and illustrious hair like a golden-brown tsunami.

This is the first time I realised that God was Jack Kerouac.

"Come up here." He urged.

"I can't remember how long my limbs are." I replied disappointedly.

"It's ok. I'll help you up."

I found it humbling that to reach this 'transcendental dimension' I had to climb over a sink and a frail cupboard filled with mugs, passing polaroids of people I knew on the way.

When I reached the zenith, Jack Kerouac had vanished.

"Where's Jack gone?" I asked.

"Oh, he got a taxi about an hour ago, he's got work at nine."

"Ah shit, does he know he's left his coat?"

"Yeah, he text me asking if I could save it for him."

If you lick the chin of Salvador Dali, you can sit in the left temporal lobe of Indiana Jones.

We are all in a two foot space making heads horizontal, surrounded by cushions and a cardboard television with lots of wires but no remote.

95 percent eyes and 5 percent leg holds aloft an infinite curtain rail that she refers to as 'the force'.

The wooden drug dealer with a phobia of fire, cuts his stuff on his square wooden legs. "It's ok, as long as I can listen to Johnny Cash, 'Ring of fire, then I'll be fine" He informed. Which seems entirely logical.

"How much for your legs sir?" I politely solicited.

He continued to butter the ceiling of the temporal lobe with an invisible knife. "Nothing, my friend. I'm a butter sculpture."

"Your legs are like two comfy staples." Said 95 percent eyes and 5 percent leg.

Inky blue eyes gives me a black parcel filled with ineligible messages. It is not until after I leave that I realise this parcel already belonged to me.

Nehe Miah Clifford, I only need to see you when time relapses like a lunar tide. Kinks the tape. Noises repeat and continue as normal.

I only need to see you when time relapses like a lunar tide. Kinks the tape. Noises repeat and continue as normal.

I had a dream last night that I shit orange liquid into my hands. Nehe Miah Clifford, you know exactly what this means don't you, because this part wasn't real.

"The roof is itching three plates at a time."

Nehe Miah Clifford, you know exactly what this means don't you, because you are me, and I'm not real.

Draft

'Draft'
A series of one night Illustration showcases curated by Nous Vous in affiliation with theartmarket.
1st Draft includes
Cameron Steward
Matt Hodson
Nicolas Burrows
Gareth Brew

Ventral will be participating in the '5th Draft' on the 22nd April 2010 : 6pm - 8pm

For more info visit Nous Vous

D R E C K : Cut-ups experiment 3

D R E C K : Cut-ups experiment 2

Limited edition Ventral tote bags

New Ventral tote bags for sale.

4 designs in print runs of only 10.

To find out more, visit the Ventral website.