Wednesday 19 October 2016

Sinus Trouble (It's Draining, Men)



All Images: Clifton, Nottingham, July 2016


It's impossible to ignore the advantages of employment in Education, and an academic year punctuated by regular holidays - for any artist who also requires a day job.  Admittedly, it can lead to a slightly stop-start approach to creativity.  However, over recent years, I've learned to lay up as much groundwork and pre-planning during term time; in order to hit the ground running with whichever project I have in hand - as soon as the next block of really usable time appears.




This time round, I'm very much at the start of things - having drawn some form of mental line under the four strands of work that featured in last month's 'A Minor Place' exhibition.  The intervening weeks have involved the inevitable pause for artistic breath, and the physical readjustments attendant on commencing another school year; but also the tentative collection of material and weighing-up of possibilities for new artwork.

It's far too early to predict how things will ultimately pan out, but there are various trains of thought starting to coalesce.  One such involves putting far more emphasis on using writing as the starting point for a given project, and it was my intention to pay this some proper attention during the current Half Term hiatus.  How frustrating is it then - that I've spent the last five days laying on my bed with my head in the bucket of a really heavy cold?  It's far from life threatening of course - just a routine bout of 'Man Flu', really; but certainly enough to rob me of any energy or focus.  It is also the down-side working in schools, I suppose.  Looks like, as is usually the case - I can't have my cake and eat it.  




So, instead, all I've really had the energy or motivation to do so far, is to half-heartedly sort through my photographic archives, and write the last couple of posts from a semi-prone position.  Amongst the half-forgotten photos were these - commemorating a cycle ride I took into Nottingham's Edgelands, earlier in the summer.  They don't really relate to anything much, apart from a general interest in tunnels, subways and underpasses, but they do seem to chime with the images in my last post, both formally and, perhaps - psychologically.

There's clearly a spare geometry about all these images, - something I'd have to fight hard to keep out of so much of my work.  And they also display a similar tawdry banality - of the kind that so easily flips over into mild, dystopian glamour.  Indeed, I flatter myself the final one might be a still from a certain, slightly cliched, variety of Brutalist Science Fiction film.  To be honest, they're really not far removed from the kind of images I've generated before, on numerous occasions.






But, I'd be lying if I said there isn't a kind of persistent psychic resonance to be found in that idea of moving through darkness towards the light, and possibly - towards a dimension of greater promise beyond.  Let's face it, 'the light at the end of the tunnel'  is hardly an original idea - is it now?

So maybe, this and the previous post are really just a minor pictorial essay on having one's forward motion frustrated, and on being forced to struggle through the gloom for a while.  Today is the first when I started to notice the first signs of possible recovery and, as these images suggest - that I'm slowly moving towards the end of the tunnel, (just in time to go back to work - no doubt).

There - how's that for turning a routine episode of viral infection into a full-blown, self pitying, existential crisis?



    

Sunday 16 October 2016

"Access Points To What...?"



Central Nottingham, October 2016


For me, (and I suspect - for many others, who consciously think about these things), one of the chief pleasures of living in a city is the sense of inhabiting an infinitely complex, fractal labyrinth.  Major roads spawn minor roads, which in turn open onto pathways, cut-throughs and, as here, alleyways and passages.  There's a point at which public becomes private, of course, but still a great pleasure in knowing one could explore for years and never map the entirety of technically accessible thoroughfares.  The temptations of (benign) trespass shouldn't be discounted either.

There's an even more palpable thrill - often tied to an edge of implied danger, to be had from not knowing  what's in those obscure shadows -  or around that blind corner.   Progress down passages and corridors, pregnant with suspense, is, of course, a standard trope of the 'scary movie'.  And it's not one beneath supposed auteurs like Ridley Scott, whose first 'Alien' film made great play of it, or David Lynch - whose lens has habitually peered into obscure, linear spaces at moments of maximum psychic disturbance.


Hyson Green, North Nottingham, October 2016


I'm not sure if these two modest images can bear the weight of too much thesis, but they do seem to illustrate the general point.  They certainly indicate how I'm perpetually poking my camera into such nooks, - if only from the threshold, and both contain just the right degree of promising squalor (i.e. not so much as to be the primary subject - but just enough for atmospheric purposes).  I really love that combination of colonnade and deliciously-angled fire escape, in the first - not to mention the bend around a blind corner, and distant zone of impenetrable shadow.

The second is considerably more mundane, but carries the psychologically-loaded suggestion of access denied.  That is, until closer study reveals a narrow back passage running parallel to the brieze-block section.  The potential for a network of connecting thoroughfares, thus, immediately engenders a range of new possibilities.

One might choose to dismiss the overly-glib Freudian implications of all this.  But I suspect  such alleyways are as much access points to the subconscious, as they are to the city's more obscure physical recesses.



Saturday 15 October 2016

Life's A Riot: Jimmy Cauty's Aftermath Dislocation Principle' At NAE, Nottingham



'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle' (Exterior), New Art Exchange, Nottingham, October 2016


Having shone a spotlight on (literally), the darkest corners of Bill Drummond’s creative practice - earlier in the year, it seems only fair to mention his erstwhile KLF colleague, and fellow art provocateur, Jimmy Cauty.  The chance came the other day, with the touchdown in Nottingham of his ‘Aftermath Dislocation Principle’ project, and personal appearance at New Art Exchange.


Jimmy Cauty, 2016

Jimmy Cauty/L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, 'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle' 2014


For those not in the know, ‘ADP’, is an extensive, 1:87 scale diorama, placed within a shipping container, and viewed in intriguing glimpses through multiple peepholes in the steel walls.  The scene represented is a tract of contemporary urban, landscape – based, according to Cauty, on an imagined version of Bedford.  It feels like a kind of notional, Middle England ‘everytown’, and it’s certainly true that, of all the cities in Britain - Bedford is one I have absolutely no distinguishing mental image of.



Jimmy Cauty/L-13Light Industrial Workshop, 'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle', 2014


What really distinguishes this landscape however, is not the topography itself - but the fact that it describes the dystopian aftermath of some non-specific disruption, riotous assembly, or other societal collapse.  It could even be an alien invasion or zombie apocalypse, if you wanted to imagine it - I suppose.  Equally, it might predict the 2017 protests against Government ethno-economic cleansing, the 2020 food riots, or the response to a major epidemic of completely antibiotic-resistant disease, (say, around 2024?)  All we see are clues, in the form of trashed buildings and vehicles, debris, and seemingly bemused media crews and Police.  The Police are everywhere, in fact – accompanied by the flashing blue LEDs of their tiny vehicles.



Jimmy Cauty/L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, 'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle', 2016


The piece has been touring the country for some months now - following an itinerary that corresponds with sites of previous rioting, both recent and historical.  Wherever it alights, the local hosting organisation has contributed contextual information on that particular aspect of local social history.  In Nottingham, the material produced supplies insights into the city’s dissident tradition, dating back to the medieval period, when it was often seen as a bulwark against feudal injustice [1.].   It also takes-in Nottingham’s importance as a Civil War centre of Parliamentarian resistance; and later - as the birth place of Luddism, an important nexus of the Chartist movement, and of violent protest in support of the 1831 Reform Act.  More recent flare-ups include the city’s race riots of 1958 and 1981, and its part in the wave of disorder that swept Britain in 2011.


'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle' (Exterior), New Art Exchange, Nottingham, October 2016
(Never Far From This Guy In Nottamun)


As Cauty pointed out, despite the inherent subversion of the piece, (and pretty much everything else he lays hands on), ‘ADP’ is not necessarily a simplistic hatchet job on the police.  It purports to report a disquieting - but all too imaginable scene; and one in which the tiny police are the only real stars, appearing perhaps as impotently perplexed by events as the rest of us.  In fact, closer examination of the various tableaux visible through the container’s limited apertures seems to reveal some of them to be engaged in subversive or increasingly absurdist acts of dissent of their own.  Faced with devastation on this scale, are they themselves starting to turn native?  Or, could it even be that they are the real authors of all that devastation?  What are their motives, exactly?



Jimmy Cauty/L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, 'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle', 2014


Whatever our interpretation, this certainly feels like a comment on the contagious nature of despair and apocalyptic collapse, but also an indication of how absurdity increases and accepted assumptions fail in direct proportion to intensifying authoritarian repression.  As one is drawn deeper into the microcosm of ‘ADP’ – the more it reveals a wealth of gags and sly, dystopian humour.  It makes the piece exceedingly apposite in our current situation, - perhaps even more so even than when Cauty began work on it in 2013.  Britain suddenly feels well and truly through the looking glass; and a place where sardonic humour may prove the best defense of sanity.


Jimmy Cauty/L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, 'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle', 2014


Cauty himself frames the container’s progress around Britain as a form of pilgrimage - highlighting the degree to which the history of political and social dissent has often had a powerful religious strand running through it.  This has often displayed a distinctly messianic or ‘end of days’ character.  The accompanying ‘ADP’ publication includes a revealing essay by Jonathan Downing [2.], which reveals that Bedford itself was the source of Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ [3.].  It was also the home of Mabel Balthrop’s twentieth century Panacea Society – a group who believed their communal residential garden to be the original site of Eden, and the location to which Jesus would reappear to the world.  Anyway, having been aware of the container’s movements for some months, I was determined to catch up with it at some stage in the year.  Its tenure in Nottingham was my nearest opportunity to do so.


'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle' (Exterior), New Art Exchange, Nottingham, October 2016


As it turned out, my own little pilgrimage was nearly stymied by the presence of Nottingham’s famous Goose Fair - just up the road from New Art Exchange.  That meant Saturday afternoon traffic was even more congested than normal, and local parking a near-impossibility.  Having finally dropped lucky several streets away, I arrived a few minutes late - to discover Cauty and his ‘ADP’ collaborator presiding over a room packed with people, and had to satisfy myself with straining to hear what was said from the fringes.  Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear their reflections on the project, and responses to the various questions posed.




Jimmy Cauty/L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, 'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle', 2016


Cauty himself was a study in diffident humility and mild bemusement.  Or possibly, just exhaustion - the whole project appearing to have completely absorbed him as it’s expanded in scope and ambition over the months.  He claimed to be no model-maker, though admitted to being quite good at it - which I’d say is an understatement.  Regardless of one’s response to the motivations behind it, the sheer quantity of work and attention to fine detail involved in the model is properly impressive.  I was struck by the contrast between the painstaking work involved in its construction, and the apparent chaos it depicts.  In passing, I wonder if he was also responsible for the elements of model making in several of Last Century’s glorious KLF videos, (damn! – should have asked).





'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle' (Exterior), New Art Exchange, Nottingham, October 2016


It was intriguing to learn that this is actually only one of three ‘ADP’ dioramas, and that the whole thing will finally come together in a grand culmination in Bedford itself, at Christmas.  It appears that one of the remaining sections depicts the Police constructing a kind of fortified, concrete Tower of Babel, suggesting that they may have a New Jerusalem/New Bedford aftermath agenda of their own - to the exclusion of the displaced survivors.  The construction of walls, exclusion zones, and protected enclaves, along with an ever more paranoid fortress mentality, feels particularly prescient.  It may be well worth the trip to take in the full story, in December.



'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle' (Exterior), New Art Exchange, Nottingham, October 2016
(There's That 'Legal Name Fraud' Again).


As the audience dispersed, I made my way outside to join the other curious visitors who clamoured to press their eyes (and lenses) up to the container’s spyholes.  My own photos can only give the merest suggestion of what was visible inside.  However, I did collect numerous images of the tangle of graffiti, stickers, posters, anarchist tracts and guerrilla knitting - augmenting its exterior walls.  Indeed, it’s fair to say the piece is a true example of democratic outsider art.  Despite the main attraction within, (and the element of Arts Council funding now subsidising it, somewhat ironically) - the exterior is nothing but an organic and authentic bulletin board of just about every variety of voice from the streets.




Whatever else it may or may not evoke, ‘Aftermath Dislocation Principle’ feels like a powerful, multi-dimensional study of both the official and the unofficial; the governors and the (invisible) governed; and perhaps more importantly - of the ways in which they abrade each other.


'The Aftermath Dislocation Principle' (Exterior), New Art Exchange, Nottingham, October 2016





[1.]:  Something that may account for its memorialisation, in folklore - as the home of Robin Hood.  New Art Exchange itself is situated close to Nottingham’s Forest Recreation Ground, and only slightly further from its Sherwood district.

[2.]:  Jonathan Downing, ‘“A New City Will Be Built”: Apocalypse, Bedford, And The Aftermath Dislocation Principle’.  In: Jimmy Cauty, ‘The Aftermath Dislocation Principle 2016 Tour Guide’, London, Prophetic Promotions Press, 2016

[3.]:  John Bunyan, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, London, Nathan Ponder, 1678




Wednesday 12 October 2016

The Game Of The Name



What’s this all about then?


West Leicester, October 2016

After driving past a couple of times - and deciding I couldn’t immediately decipher it, it was inevitable I’d feel the need to dig a little deeper.  Add to that my abiding interest in urban texts of all shades, plus the fact that it’s situated on the very mental mapping route in Leicester  that fed last year’s ‘Map 4’ painting.  Anyway, I quickly decided it needed recording and commenting on, at the very least.


'Map 4', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2015

West Leicester, December 2014


It seems to fit into a similar category as the ‘Cultural Black Spot’ campaign I mentioned a few years ago, both in it’s arresting visual impact, and its use of an allusive, but unexplained legend.  In fact, like that previous example, it seems to have recurred in various locations around Britain - and to represent either some form of art prank, or slightly more obscure conspiracy theorising.


Central Leicester, December 2009

West Leicester, December 2009


Routine, superficial, on-line delving quickly throws up reports of its numerous occurrences, and speculation about its meaning.  It also leads one to the Legal Name Fraud website and the blog of a certain Kate of Gaia (and a plethora of possibly deranged theorising, cod-philosophising, and conspiracy paranoia over a variety of subjects).  This particular campaign seems to focus on the idea that the application of our own names is some kind of fraud perpetuated by ‘them’ rendering our own use of the same illegal without the State's express permission.  The issue seems to be one of ownership of our very identities, and the conclusion - that  any contract (or law?) based on assumed acceptance of its validity should be rendered null and void. 


Photo: Middlesborough Gazette, June 2016


Now, I love a good quasi-Situationist prank as much as the next old Leftie, even if this piece of gleeful mischief-making is clearly based on some particularly scrambled thinking.  The logic of this, however, does seem to point only towards unworkable chaos, and the undermining of any workable system of identity.  Even that is intriguing as an intellectual exercise, or an art gesture, but it leaves one burning (and also slightly paranoid) question in my mind...


West Leicester, October 2016


Who the hell is financing what must be a pretty expensive nationwide poster campaign?  And why?  The Kate of Gaia website suggests nothing more than the bedroom construct of a motivated online provocateur, of the sort that pepper the Internet, and cost nothing to compile.  It even makes use of pretty cheesy word art graphics, for goodness sake, whilst legalnamefraud.com uses the 'Comic Sans' typeface, - both of which makes me wonder just what kind of serious creative entity could be behind it?  The posters, however, demonstrate more serious design chops, and must be costing a fortune to distribute.  Who would bankroll a sniggering teenager or student prankster to that degree?  What’s in it for them?

Ultimately, for me, it’s just another of those physical portals in my local landscape - that opens onto an expanding mental landscape and raises more questions than answers.  But, does anyone know the real story?