Tuesday 28 February 2017

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 2'



'Untitled (From The New School) 2', Acrylic & Paper Collage On Panel,
30 cm X 30 cm X 106 mm, 2017


Here's the second in the 'From The New School' series of small panels.  The rationale behind these can be read here.  suffice it to say, this new one already shows a small degree of controlled evolution, in terms of handling and media.



'Untitled (From The New School) 1', Acrylic On Panel, 30 cm X 30 cm X 106 mm, 2017




At a time when my creative energies are diffused  across numerous projects, these are providing a pleasing diversion into methodical, small-scale painting.  Everything here is very deliberate and controlled - not least the recourse to the purpose-generated collage elements.  It's all something of an antidote to the  painterly freedom and random collaging of last year's 'Vestige' paintings - even if the recourse to overall formal geometry is still evident.



'Vestige 3', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Ink & French Polish On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2016







Monday 27 February 2017

The City Shrugs...



Site Of The Former Corah Knitwear Factory, North Leicester, February 2017


...And casts off more history - like so much discarded clothing. 







Monday 20 February 2017

Kenneth Goldsmith, 'Uncreative Writing'






Product details
            Paperback: 192 pages
            Publisher: Columbia University Press (30 Sept. 2011)
            Language: English
            ISBN-10: 0231149913
            ISBN-13: 978-0231149914
            Product Dimensions: 1.3 x 14 x 21 cm
            Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
  See all reviews
 (2 customer reviews)
            Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 233,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
                        #86 in Books > Reference > Writing > Poetry
            #259 in Books > Reference > Language > Communication
                   #1358 in Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism >  
                       Literary Theory & Movements
        








Product Description

  Review

    What Goldsmith argues has significant implications for the world of poetry, poetics, and    
    pedagogy. His book contains brilliant moments of exegesis and archival documentation,
    and its keen attention to, knowledge about, and currency in artistic practice makes it as
    much a user's manual as a scholar's tome.--Adalaide Morris, The University of Iowa

    Brilliant and elegant insight into the exact relation of contemporary literary practices and  
    broader cultural changes, explaining how the technologies of distributed digital media
    exemplified by the World Wide Web have made possible the flourishing of a particular type
    of literature.--Professor Craig Dworkin, author of "The Consequence of Innovation: Twenty-
    First-Century Poetics"

    In these witty, intelligent essays, Goldsmith brings his encyclopedic knowledge of radical
    artistic practice to bear on how the rise of the internet has irrevocably changed, or should
    irrevocably change, our existing conceptions of poetry. Goldsmith's practice as artist and
    critic is deeply interesting. His book is sure to generate lively debate among poets, artists,
    literary historians, and media theorists.--Sianne Ngai, University of California, Los Angeles

    Goldsmith achieves a very difficult feat with this book: he writes lucidly about complex and
    avant-garde ideas. As a result, he opens up a vital debate for anyone who cares about
    literature, between notions of traditional creative writing and the set of practices he labels
    "uncreative writing."--Douglas Cowie"Times Higher Education" (01/01/0001)

    Good.--James Franco, actor

    Multimedia artist and executive manager of words, Goldsmith writes a provocative
    manifesto for writing in the digital era, with a treasure trove of ideas, techniques, and
    examples that allow us to make it new--again!--Marcus Boon, author of "In Praise of
    Copying"

    Brilliant and elegant insight into the exact relation of contemporary literary practices and
    broader cultural changes, explaining how the technologies of distributed digital media
    exemplified by the World Wide Web have made possible the flourishing of a particular type
    of literature.
    --Professor Craig Dworkin, author of The Consequence of Innovation: Twenty-First-Century
    Poetics

A stimulating and provoking read, which lays out Kenneth Goldsmith’s ‘Uncreative Writing’ agenda in accessible terms, whilst suggesting plenty of strategies for dragging writing screaming into the digital era.  Goldsmith rightly asserts that literature has failed to take full account of recent technological convolutions, or to properly build upon the advances made by certain pre-digital, Modernist writers.  As he admits, the logical conclusion of his ideas about appropriation or bald transcription, may be a future in which origination or human authorship dwindle away altogether – to be replaced by the automated transfer of information as an end in itself.  That implies our current age may be a mere interim state - but one in which we might still have lots of fun playing with his conceptual strategies, whilst awaiting our ultimate deletion.  Alternatively, (should things prove to be not quite so one-directional as that implies) It's tempting to speculate whether such diversions might equally represent a more resilient ‘spirit’ - one capable of subverting algorithmic logic in somewhat less predictable ways.
- Hugh Marwood, Artist & Blogger.   

    What Goldsmith argues has significant implications for the world of poetry, poetics, and
    pedagogy. His book contains brilliant moments of exegesis and archival documentation,
    and its keen attention to, knowledge about, and currency in artistic practice makes it as
    much a user's manual as a scholar's tome.
    --Adalaide Morris, The University of Iowa

    In these witty, intelligent essays, Goldsmith brings his encyclopedic knowledge of radical     
    artistic practice to bear on how the rise of the internet has irrevocably changed, or should
    irrevocably change, our existing conceptions of poetry. Goldsmith's practice as artist and
    critic is deeply interesting. His book is sure to generate lively debate among poets, artists,
    literary historians, and media theorists.
    --Sianne Ngai, University of California, Los Angeles

    Multimedia artist and executive manager of words, Goldsmith writes a provocative
    manifesto for writing in the digital era, with a treasure trove of ideas, techniques, and
    examples that allow us to make it new--again!
    --Marcus Boon, author of In Praise of Copying

    Goldsmith achieves a very difficult feat with this book: he writes lucidly about complex and
    avant-garde ideas. As a result, he opens up a vital debate for anyone who cares about
    literature, between notions of traditional creative writing and the set of practices he labels
    "uncreative writing."
    --Douglas Cowie"Times Higher Education" (01/01/0001)

    Good.
    --James Franco, actor


Kenneth Goldsmith



 About the Author

    Kenneth Goldsmith is the author of ten books of poetry and founding editor of the online
    archive UbuWeb (ubu.com). He is the coeditor of Against Expression: An Anthology of
    Conceptual Writing and the editor of I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol
    Interviews, which was the basis for an opera, "Trans-Warhol," that premiered in Geneva in
    March of 2007. An hour-long documentary of his work, Sucking on Words, premiered at the
    British Library. He teaches writing at The University of Pennsylvania and is a senior editor
    of PennSound, an online poetry archive.




With thanks to: https://www.amazon.co.uk  https://www.amazon.ca and (as ever), Andrew Smith - for the reading list.




Tuesday 7 February 2017

Couched 6



North Leicester, January 2017


The contestants undergo training by a Polish military officer for the second stage of the Susceptibility to Globodera pallida Pa 2/3,1 challenge.  Higher levels of nitrogen are required to help reduce DM.  The process begins with a simple fitness test, followed by an exercise in the mountains that forces the recruits prone to tuber greening and susceptible to Sencorex, to go without sleep for 36 hours.  They are also told to perform origami, to demonstrate their ability to focus their minds while under pressure.






Monday 6 February 2017

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 1'



'Untitled (From The New School) 1', Acrylic On Panel, 300 mm X 300 mm X 106 mm, 2017


After several months of tentative beginnings, and with several active projects still yielding little in the way of final product, it's pleasing to actually reveal something finished.  The salient points are as follows:


  • This mode of painting is clearly a fairly dramatic departure from everything I've produced in recent years.  It is something that I think of as a somewhat conceptual mode of painting; one in which the strategic adoption of a particular style is a conscious decision which points to an underlying theoretical or philosophical framework.  The deployment of hard-edged quasi-Modernist, semi-abstraction, enjoyable though it may be, extends a little further than the purely visual.


Andrew Smith, 'The New School', Acrylic & Digital Print On Canvas, 2016


  • It is also something of a given, as the image is itself a blatant act of appropriation.  In fact, this painting's central motif represents a cleaned-up and slightly developed quotation from Andrew Smith's painting, 'The New School'.  This is clearly a relatively faithful, distillation of Andrew's own collaged allusion to a mid-twentieth century aesthetic and possible hint toward associated ideologies (or the passing thereof).


Andrew Smith, 'Divining Of The Fumes', Acrylic & Digital Print
On Canvas, 2016

Andrew Smith, 'Fracker', Acrylic & Digital Print On Canvas, 2015

'A Minor Place', Artists Workhouse, Studley, Warwickshire, September 2016.
(L.): Shaun Morris, 'Artic Landscape', (R.): Andrew Smith, 'The New School'.


  • This act of appropriation is actually intended as but one step in an extended dialogue.  Some time ago, I proposed a project in which Andrew and I would participate in a kind of ongoing remix project, in which each would rework, reinterpret or even physically disrupt the work of the other.  I put this idea on hold, in order to concentrate on my contribution to our 2016 'A Minor Place' exhibition, with Shaun Morris, but was intrigued to discover that  three of Andrew's pieces in the show actually incorporated veiled allusions to my own 'Vestige' paintings.


'Vestige 2', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape, Ink, Spray Enamel & Misc Solvents
On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2016


  • Of these, 'The New School' was the one which drew me across the room most rapidly on first viewing, and which triggered, almost immediately, whole new trains of thought, stimulated as much by its allusive title as by its obvious visual appeal.  It also shows clear evidence of having used my own 'Vestige 2' as a clear starting point, and of preserving evidence of that image within the texture of its background fields.

  • The importance of 'The New School' as a title, and as an idea, is such that I am currently working on a wider body of work around that theme.  That will reflect not only possible interpretations of that phrase, but also, elliptically, my own daytime employment within a rapidly mutating state education system.  The intention is that this will include elements of photography and writing, as well as painting.




  • This piece is clearly representative of the latter strand, but is itself intended as the first of a series of closely-related, but consciously mutating paintings - each derived from that central, architectural motif.  It is proposed that the chosen modes of depiction and paint application should differ from piece to piece, even if only subtly.  This is, of course, yet another take on the idea of 'the-same-but-different' that underpinned all of last year's work.  'Untitled (From The New School) 1' is merely a starting point.




So, it seems to be the case that ideas, and possible responses to them, are currently expanding exponentially before my eyes and in my mind.  As ever, the issue is finding enough hours and energy to effectively digest and act upon them all, but gratifying to know that each burst of creative activity just seems to engender yet more, these days.  To the point indeed, where I no longer even consider not being engaged on at least something, pretty much constantly.