Iso_late

 

All Images: Southeast Leicester, Summer 2021

Local public health chiefs in England break out from the official government and council B safeguards schemes to combat the so-called rise in coronary cases/ Government says that allowing flexible operating makes things more productive/ frankly insulting. The dedication, professionalism and commitment of hundreds of thousands of public servants/ the prime minister suggested that getting back to the prime minister's office would be important to build an effective work force/ 'the jump'.

As the civil service, the wider public sector and millions of companies in the private sector already know, what trades is much more important than where it is delivered/ it has been seen by those who need a lot of flexibility to work part-time but [not] on full-time salary/

The policy focuses on vaccine rollout:

• Hyundai stings over 50s, vulnerable health workers.
• Single jabs for 12-15 year olds.
• Encouraging others who have not yet been vaccinated to look forward.
• We don't always fly on bicycles on airplanes across the ocean.

They paid their digital subscriptions - people who subscribe to their fleet of smartphones and other devices - by 472% to about 625,000 flown.  The company said it now has more than 4.4 million users/ There have been several studies that show employees will be richer if they are allowed to work more flexibly, including experimental remote workers in China/ That's something like a mite, for an average person, 60 to 70 people per week/ Some find it easier to live in an office without baggage from their colleagues, not only attracting more customers, but also working harder.

The government will probably encounter questions as to the reason why local authority public health experts feel it is necessary for the national government/ technology technology to flow to its technology technology last year as the pandemic academies shut down, but the company has struggled to support this requirement for months, leading to long delays and frustrated periods dependents/ at the moment, workers wait six months. You will also consider today's process and whether employers would suggest alternatives if you would like to decline a request/ Soon we will enter the winter season, which is always a very difficult time for vulnerable members of our community and for our health, care and workers.

Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke: 'Displaced' At T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, 3 July 2021

 

Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions 2', Acrylic on Canvas, 142 cm x 114 cm, 2020

As our various freedoms of movement have been partially restored in recent weeks, I've already attended a few small exhibition openings in the Midlands.  The most recent of these involved a dive over to Birmingham, with my friend, Dave - to catch the first day of the joint show 'Displaced', by my sometime co-conspirators, Shaun Morris and Andrew Smith.  It was also an opportunity to visit the previously unfamiliar (to me) T-Street Gallery, and also to meet its mastermind (and curator of this exhibition) Sevven Kucuk.  I've no real idea about the epidemiological wisdom of The Government's lockdown easing measures - beyond the distinct suspicion we're far from having heard the last of all this viral malarkey.  However, I'm no different from most folks in enjoying the chance to get out and about, and to enjoy just doing stuff again.  Visiting exhibitions, catching up with friends, meeting new art world participants, and sipping the drinks we enjoyed later in the day, are all part of that.  We even managed to catch a little weekend sunshine and avoid most of the jingoistic football nonsense, along the way.  All in all, the job was a good 'un.

Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith, 'Displaced', T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, July 2021. 
With Some Old Favourites by Shaun, and Curator, Sevven Kucuk (C.) 

Shaun Morris, 'The Green Door', Oil on Canvas, 120 cm X 80 cm, 2020

The work of both Shaun and Andrew has featured here on numerous previous occasions, and in various configurations, and the current show represents a relatively small selection of both old and new work - much of which I was at least partially familiar with already.  Nevertheless, there's no substitute for seeing actual work in a room, and it's always instructive to see even well-known work in new contexts.  In this case it was also interesting to view the work of both artists through the eyes of a third party.  I think it's fair to say that Sevven's thoughtful and collaborative curation have resulted in a hang that capitalises on the strengths of both the work, and the two spaces in which it hangs.

Shaun (2nd L) & Andrew (R), with Friends

Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions 5' (L) & 'Collected Redactions 6' (R),
Both Acrylic on Canvas, 121 cm X 91 cm, 2020

Whilst both artists continue to plough their own distinct furrows, there are still enough fruitful conversations between each selection to suggest some kind of loose thematic connection.  In this case, that would point towards a shared meditation on the interraction we've all experienced with both trepidatious outdoor spaces and our own constrained interiors, in the time of Covid.  In Sevven's words: 

"We've been forced to reflect upon our relationships with areas and places we've been isolated too and enclosed in and how our methods of communications connect or disconnect." [1.]

Shaun Morris, 'No Particular Place To Go', Oil on Canvas, 50 cm X 60 cm, 2021

Shaun Morris, 'Lock Up' (Top) & 'Lock Up II' (Bottom), Both Oil on Canvas, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2019 

Shaun Morris, 'Lockdown', Oil on Canvas, 75 cm X 50 cm, 2020

In Shaun's case, this knowledge serves to re-frame the palpable melancholy (or indeed, 'displacement'), that has always suffused his nocturnal visions of Birmingham's suburbs and edgelands.  His customary stationary vehicles, architectural corners and street furniture continue to resonate under sombre urban illumination - partially abstracting themselves amidst dramatic patterns of coloured light and deep shadow.  But now they also loom out of the darkness like ghostly presences encountered during our brief, officially-sanctioned exercise sessions.  The tension between restriction and those snatched moments of lonely 'freedom', are now palpable - even in works made long before the pandemic.  Whilst reassessing the past, I was also intrigued to see that Shaun has recently revisited the subject matter of his elevated motorway pieces of a few years ago.  The modestly-scaled motorway painting he now shows ('What Happened to All the Friends We Used to Know') may be less immediately dramatic than previous efforts, but it's a real slow-burner.  Complete with its incongruous ghostly horse, it gradually reveals itself from the prevailing gloom, like something from Sickert.  The painting emphasises just how accomplished Shaun has become at depicting the effects of restricted light and colour at night.

Shaun Morris, 'What Happened To All The Friends We Used To Know', 
Oil on Canvas, 50 cm X 60 cm, 2021

As usual, Andrew's recent output is a rather more oblique and open to multiple potential interpretations.  It's a feature of his work I've always relished - even if he has occasionally joked that he reads my blog posts to find out himself what his work is actually about!  As ever, he now presents work in multiple media, with notable diversions into experimental writing and video.  However, his main contribution to the show is split between painted-over photographs, and somewhat larger, nominally abstract paintings.  The former are, by his own account, grabbed (direct from the screen) from the popular T.V. property show, 'Homes Under The Hammer'.  Knowing Andrew, as I do, there'll be at least some satirical intent there, but in the context of this exhibition, the main effect evoked is one of unsettling enclosure within alienating domestic spaces.  How many people have found their familiar surroundings transformed into psychically overloaded terrain under lockdown conditions - I wonder?  How many were unable to relocate within their preferred time-frame?  How many more found themselves frittering their enforced imprisonment whilst staring blankly at facile T.V. shows?

Andrew Smith, 'Cubist On The Water (Homes Under The Hammer'. Acrylic on Digital Print,
58 cm X 43 cm, 2021

Andrew Smith, 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appalling
(Homes Under The Hammer)', Acrylic On Digital Print, 58 cm X 43 cm, 2020

Andrew Smith, 'Landscape With Empty Light Subject (Homes Under The Hammer)',
Acrylic on Digital Print, 58 cm X 43 cm, 2021

Andrew Smith, '...(The Caretaker Edited)', Video, 2020

If the paintings seem a little more straightforwardly formalist at first viewing - they soon prove to be no less layered and mediated in their unfolding.  Their interlocking, flattened shapes and compositional arrangements are assembled from multiple digitally filtered and superimposed photos of scarred and stained exterior walls.  If (like Shaun) Andrew has found himself  focussing on quotidian details in a time of reduced horizons, he's also wasted little time in distilling them into yet-more unfamiliar environments via the expedient of heavy digital intervention.  What really hold these pieces in slightly wonky balance are the occasional (very) vestigial clues to an original subject, and also the the push-pull of small painterly accidents, versus possibly arbitrary decisions made at the keyboard.  Should the colour schemes suggest some degree of more elegant respite in trying times - Andrew himself reminds us they are often the chance result of the mechanical translation from photograph, to digital file, to painted canvas.  Again, we're prompted to question how much of the everyday experience we once took for granted, has been driven yet deeper into the digital domain - or reflected back to us on mis-calibrated screens, in the last eighteen months.  Will that do, Andrew?

T-Street Gallery Windows, Birmingham, July 2021

To conclude, mention should be made of T-Street Gallery itself.  It occupies a modest, but perfectly serviceable space as the adjunct to a long-standing shared studio complex, at the interface between the leisure/cultural hotspots around Broad Street, and the more down-at-heel environs of Ladywood.  In recent decades, many striving artists in search of studio or exhibition space will have become connoisseurs of run-down, post-industrial premises.  Nevertheless, T-Street occupies what must be one of the more dilapidated examples of the breed.  Luckily, I myself find it hard to trust anyone who can't appreciate a proper bit of urban grunge.  The fabric of the building includes numerous fascinating infrastructural clues to its previous incarnations, amongst crumbling masonry  and cracked panes.  Nevertheless, I couldn't help noticing that the somewhat questionable integrity of the roof has been carefully shored-up, immediately above the gallery space, and it's testament to the energy and determination of Sevven Kucuk, that she's been able to carve out such a venture, almost single-handed.  She's also achieved it in the face of pretty limited resources, it would seem.  If our relatively brief conversation is a reliable indication - her motivations seem spot-on, and if any form of grass-roots Art scene is to survive in this country, it will doubtless be through the efforts of such folk.

Vertiginous Post-Industrial Ambience, T-Street Gallery, July 2021

'Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke: 'Displaced', continues at T-Street Gallery, Top Floor, 55 Great Tyndal Street, Birmingham B16 8DR, Until 18 July 2021.

 

[1.]:  Sevven Kucuk, Exhibition Guide Notes, 'Shaun Morris & Andrew Smith/Hr Smoke, 'Displaced', T-Street Gallery, Birmingham, July 2021.

Music Re-View 9

 

All Images: November 2020

This is a frustrating and shallow analysis / so, keep that in mind while reading this review (which I promise is coming).

Well this has suddenly cheered my year / it's like i just swallowed a barrel of mdma / I'll be properly soaking this one in / just gotta wait on my force gauge so I can install this new cartridge then ill finally get to jam / I had already scheduled a week off immediately following release date / I’m a simulated trans dimensional emissary from an ancient hyper intelligent race that existed many aeons ago / I grew up during a time when glitch was entering mainstream music sound, and it simply brings me nostalgia and joy / this the duo at their most approachable for a long time / the heads get it and nod in appreciation while new fans will enjoy / a peaceful landing platform for the wild ship we’ve been riding for some time / for all the fuckery of 2020, there is always meaning hiding around the corners of chaos / oh, and geez, has this year been schmefd am I right? / the effect is like hurrying down an airlocked gangway in the wrong-sized shoes.

The album begins intimidatingly, with a synthetic growl that might be the heptapods in Arrival discovering the ills of gluten / diverse and enthralling, it grows and enraptures over repeat listens, Always on headphones, always at night / something of a mental bear trap, it’s easy to get stuck in its vice-like grasp / the artwork could be better, tt’s not terrible or anything, just meh / it certainly tones down the relentless but admittedly compelling inhumanity of much of their music / what is daunting about their work is less the mystery in how it’s made and more the spectre of supreme disregard that lurks in the margins of / algorithmic machine learning / everything feels distinctly open to possibility, powered by a non-human lifeblood pulsating through the veins of each track / there are rumbles, and soft buzzes like someone tuning a radio, and distant hums and zaps / they have found new ways to make their favourite materials sing / sheet metal, soapstone, and pumice / some humming and whistling / the taste of copper / and even some clapping / every component is perpetually shape-shifting; good luck enumerating all the discrete elements in play / a cloud of powdered pigment ricochets off a cymbal in a soundproof room / a piece breaks off slowly and moves away in a contorted fashion into the air-conditioning / I like the track that sounds like it was made by a fish.

Sometime in 1999, an AIM user with the handle “chemical_redux” sent me a massive block of text around 2am / the composition is an affirmation of the melodic skill cleverly illustrated in their earlier releases, but bent, contorted, lensed and refracted through / non-human / ocular implants / I’ve attempted to digest it all. All with gratitude and nothing but a grin on my face / she was a criminal forensics student / we never met,  it didn’t matter / the only way we can communicate from one aeon to the next is through gravity waves / I probably should have expected that / with a culture as ass obsessed as Latin America there was never a slight possibility the Catholicism would win over horniness / it’s there, but on the periphery of the structure, bending the edges and augmenting the biological input values.

The duo's influence on the greater music scene at large cannot be overstated / to put it simply, they create a lot of work, and are unabashed with their serving sizes / they are indifferent to us by design / sometimes, naturally, this kind of thing can get exhausting / but the hallmarks of their style have never been as prominent as now / either way, it is a new era of their creative efforts / the subtle tweaks to their approach, in addition to the fact that their sound mazes never quite sound the same, lead to / an actual fully automated pseudo-mechanical large appliance techno-orgy like what used to be made / the survivors can only stare in bewilderment until their senses takeover and they take fight or flight / contrary to some beliefs, it’s more than just a matter of punching-in some numbers and letting the machines do all the work / more like how in TV show there a reference is a character’s performance in another film / which way does the sign point? And are we being misdirected? / we know that they can’t be trusted / they have put out some of the most influential / nOisy nON-SeNSe ElecTRoNIk muZiK / designed as a fuck you to the government / in the end, it is enormously pleasurable and a must-listen for / an autonomous being / that’s really all I need from these dudes omg.

If I’m going to start distributing CDs at some point I’m going to start putting a Madagascar bonus track on them that / far surpasses the limits of your preceprehension / there can be no nobler goal.

Chairs Missing

All Images: November 2020

"I shake you down to say 'please', as you accept the next dose of disease" [2.].

[1. & 2.]: Wire, 'I am The Fly', From the Album: 'Chairs Missing', Harvest Records, 1978

Viral Communication 2

 

All Images: October 2020

Here's another batch of pandemic-related signage, and related material, encountered in the workplace.  As what we must now refer to as 'the second wave' breaks over us here in Britain (and, indeed - in many other locales), the limits and restrictions on everyday life contort themselves into an increasingly confusing profusion of configurations.  Generally, they seem belatedly reactive, and beset by the kind of all-to-human compromise that must surely be of little use in the face of a highly efficient (and by its very nature - disinterested) virus.

I have no doubt that the suppression of many of our perceived 'freedoms' can play a major role in suppressing the spread of Covid-19.  The resulting effects of a reasonably comprehensive, and moderately well-adhered-to (if slightly tardy) lockdown, earlier in the year, certainly seem to endorse that.  However, as the whole sorry affair drags on, crisis-fatigue ramps up, and 'miracle' cures and quick-fixes prove predictably elusive, the waters of pure, mechanistic science, and practically-focussed expediency are muddied by competing narratives.  A fear that the economic or societal side-effects might be worse than the disease itself grows.  Individual fight-or-flight responses begin to outweigh any sense of the communal good.  Cynicism, conspiracy theorising, and possibly understandable paranoia ('one rule for us - another for them'; who is already seizing power/wealth?; how much of our customary liberty will be restored, etc.) all proliferate.  Any scope for concerted, coherent action, and its implementation by consent, is further compromised.

As ever - nothing is simple, and Cock-up Theory (always my favourite of the theories) holds sway.  'Defeating' the virus (or, as I suspect is more likely, adapting sufficiently - in order to manage it as just another existential threat with which we all live) will require a variety of negotiations.  Not least amongst these will be some consensus over acceptable risk levels, over what constitutes personal or shared freedom (and how much might be sacrificial).  Equally desirable could be some consideration of what exactly is meant by this 'normal' so many are so desperate to return to, and just how desirable its unchanged restoration might really be. And, while we're at it - a little clear-eyed honesty about the vagaries of human behaviour, and less denial about certain, inconvenient Darwinian or ecological truths, probably wouldn't hurt either.

One thing I do know is that the effective untangling of all of that is far beyond the scope of this little blog.  For now, the challenge is to live each day as crisis or neurosis-free as is achievable, and to remain constructively engaged and informed by whatever meaningful information might seep through the cracks.  No real change there, then - in other words.  The maintenance of creative activity is clearly integral to that - for me, at least.  And with that goes the inevitable (and doubtless - perplexingly nerdy) cataloguing of clues and signifiers.  Hence - this post.

As already highlighted in my first survey of such material, the current crisis comes with an ever-expanding array of associated graphics - ranging from the purely functional, to the deliciously emblematic.  Indeed, such stuff appears to proliferate at a rate exceeded only by the pathogen itself.  The examples here continue to reflect the need to coax, direct, prohibit, inform or otherwise crowd-manage within an educational environment.  I have yet to conduct a survey of how much of the information is routinely studied or internally digested.  Many of these are pleasing examples I have encountered recently, whilst venturing trepidatiously into a different  'bubble'/building from that in which I routinely work.  Others are clearly designed to set the scene, and possibly reassure arriving visitors at 'front of house'.  On visual and formal grounds alone, I find the ad-hoc and festooned hazard markings on the outdoor benches especially pleasing.

Enjoy, and stay safe.

Viral Communication 1

 

All Images: Rushey Mead Academy, Northeast Leicester, September 2020

Summer turns the corner into Autumn, and it seems we're sliding deeper once more into the Covid-19 emergency - both at home and abroad.  A couple of months of comparative relaxation (which somewhat passed us by - here in Leicester) are now forgotten, as we all enter a second phase of localised lock-downs and increasingly draconian regulations.

It's also possible to detect a greater sense of unease, and possibly even unrest, brewing around the official responses to what was surely an inevitable result of Summer's ease (this is still a disinterested, impartial virus we're dealing with - after all).  Anger, disillusionment, despair and denial increasingly replace that favourite old British delusion, 'The Spirit of The Blitz', as chosen responses - and a clutching onto increasingly preposterous conspiracy theories takes over from communality or shared responsibility, in many quarters.  Stoicism or reasoned responses begin to fray - giving way to finger-pointing and blame-seeking instead.  Essentially, the novelty has worn off.  The deeper implications of what may yet represent a major paradigm-shift for humanity, feel harder to escape - as shadows lengthen and temperatures drop.  The all-too-familiar fight-or-flight aspects of human behaviour kick-in accordingly.

Thankfully, here in what remains the comparatively insulated and supine (albeit - spectacularly misgoverned) UK, something passing for 'normal', everyday existence still persists on many fronts (for now).  Widespread societal collapse is held in reserve for another day.  And that's not least the case in schools - where I continue to earn my daily bread.  In a new world of 'Bubbles', hand gel dispensers, segregated premises, novel-length Risk Assessments, and online video-lessons, the struggle to provide something resembling a viable educational 'offer' continues, despite numerous obstacles (and not always unsuccessfully - if we are to be even-handed).

One of the inescapable visual clues to all this, is the rash of new signs, graphics, hazard markings and temporary barriers which now adorn our school environment.  As a long-time collector of such deliciously petty H&S-related signifiers, it would be remiss of me to leave this specialised new sub-category undocumented.  In reality, I've been speculating (without much inspiration) about what might constitute an adequate artistic response to our current pickle, for some time.  Maybe this stuff offers some kind of pleasingly emblematic way in - and one that also aligns pretty well with certain pre-existing enthusiasms.  If nothing else, it has the advantage of being right under my nose - whilst also ticking that all-important 'Everyday' box.

Hence - what may well become the first in yet another mini-series of Urban Text-related posts, on a highly topical theme.