Completed Painting: '[dc]Victory Machine 01'

'[dc]Victory Machine 01', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
400 mm x 400 mm, 2026

'[dc]Victory Machine 01' is the third in my recent trio of small paintings, produced fairly spontaneously in response to the currentsituation in the Middle-East. Unsurprisingly, the war triggered by Trumpo the Clown is far from reaching anything resembling a clear resolution, and has seemingly become one of those 'forever wars' that hubristic American governments have been unable to resist down the years (and which Trump himself stood for election in supposed opposition to). Indeed, one could argue, I suppose, that the perpetual enmity between America/'The West', Israel, and radical Islam (as represented by Iran and its proxies), is the very definition of a forever war. Nevertheless, the news cycle churns on in its default state of attention-deficit (even as the on again - off again - on again  hostilities seem set to crash the entire global economy, along with energy/food/medicine supplies), Trumpo is incapable of staying awake, and I myself feel like I have other artistic fish to fry over the second half of this year. Therefore, this is possibly the last of this little group, for now. Who knows if I'll feel provoked to produce any more? - I'd love to think it might not be necessary... 

Anyway, as any sense of a coherent internal logic behind Trump's gesture war-mongering has never really been evident (Israeli motives may be a little more basic), the narrative essentially devolved into a futile battle over who can claim at least the perception of 'victory' in a world turned upside-down. And the current situation really seems to be one in which all good sense is inverted - given the total impasse all sides claim to be in control of. Trumpo's desperation to claim definitive victory, and an associated end to the conflict (he can no longer hope for a swift conclusion), sees him seemingly concede more and more to a nominally 'losing' side, whilst remaining unable to admit it. Meanwhile, Iran, whilst denuded of much of its original leadership and traditional weaponry - and with much of its infrastructure seriously compromised, has proved itself able to hold the world to economic ransom and demonstrate an ability to subvert any illusory peace 'deal' at will - stripping the American regime of yet more status and credibility in the process. Just as is simultaneously demonstrated in Ukraine and Russia, any clear notion of 'winners' and 'losers' in modern warfare, or of the power dynamics between them, appears much harder to divine of late. No wonder then, that the struggle to control narratives becomes paramount, when events and facts  themselves prove so intransigent. In the context of Iran, can anyone really be surprised that a repressive fundamentalist theocracy might be a match for a narcissistic game-show host when it comes to propagandising? [1.] Perhaps it was always thus - but truly, this feels like the spirit of our age, in all its spectacular delusion.

Analysts are keen to point to this conflict (and to the parallel Russia/Ukraine one) as defining the very nature of 'asymmetric warfare' in the twenty-first century, and so it seems only fitting that images of an Iranian drone and an American fighter jet should take flight across the surface of my painting. The tools each side might employ to gain the upper hand are clearly no longer equivalent in scale, sophistication, or indeed, cost. The degraded field beneath them contains yet even more comprehensive allusions to the idea of 'corruption', as well as fragments of text from Reza Negarestani's 'Cyclonopedia' [2.] (both discussed in my previous post) - along with a barely-discernible mapping of the strategically critical Straits of Hormuz. As before, this painting also employs an element of oily varnish, and multiple weapon-site motifs, for obvious reasons. The latter are somewhat smaller now - but also more numerous, helping to reinforce a slightly greater 'all-over' quality in this painting. If that contributes to a sense of reduced resolution intelligibility - that's perhaps only appropriate.

[1.]:  I note that Iran's recent multi-day funeral demonstrations for its slain Supreme Leader (as reported, at least), appeared to model a scale and supposed unity of purpose only dreamt of in The White House.

[2.]:  Reza Negarestani, 'Cyclonopedia', Melbourne, Aus, re.press, 2008

Completed Painting: '[dc]Petrochemical Machine 01'

'[dc]Petrochemical Machine 01', Acrylics & Mixed-Media on Panel,
400 mm x 400 mm, 2026

Here’s the second of my recent Middle-East war-related paintings, ‘[dc]Petrochemical Machine 01’. Although slightly larger than its predecessor, it’s still pretty modest in scale and  also arrived relatively quickly as the news cycled. Iran’s Kharg Island reappears once again - in slightly more detail this time, meaning we’re still in the world of ‘Deleuzian Cartography’, as far as I’m concerned. Weapons-sight motifs also recur in this one, for obvious reasons.

Of course, the overriding theme here is the importance of oil and other petrochemical products to any discussion of conflict in the Middle-East (or of global politics, economics and trading relations in general, to be honest). None of that is exactly a secret. Whatever other twisted agendas may have sparked this grubby little punch-up (regional hegemony, apocalyptic religious mania, Israeli expansionism, nuclear paranoia, megalomaniacal hubris, macho over-compensation, mortality denial, feigned concern for the oppressed Iranian population - what else have you?) the real story rapidly became how any impediment to the flow of Middle-East oil, gas, fertiliser, etc. effectively equates to a global economic crisis. It’s perfectly consistent with the absurdism of our age that a state supposedly denuded of both military capability and regime leaders within a matter of hours, could subsequently hold the rest of the world hostage, possibly indefinitely, through simple facts of geography. If US threats to obliterate Kharg Island were an early feature of the conflict, it soon became apparent that whoever controls the Straits of Hormuz is the more urgent issue. Cartography, indeed - but I guess reading terrain and interpreting maps is really just the kind of treacherous behaviour one might expect from a devious enemy or nay-saying ‘experts’.

The whole idea of flows, rather than fixable or controllable territory seems key to the current situation, be that flows of liquid oil, flows of commerce and finance, flows of the sea through the Straits of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, flows of information and propaganda, or, indeed, flows of energy/desire/becoming in a Deleuzian sense. Indeed, it may be that an appreciation of fluidity (or failure of same) as a quality, is a key differentiator between the assumptions of ‘The West’, and Middle-East Eastern/Persian/Arabian mind-sets.

In relation to this, it’s worth mentioning ‘Cyclonopedia’ [1.], a work of 'theory-fiction' by the Iranian writer and philosopher, Reza Negarestani. Whilst I don’t doubt Negarestani’s intellectual rigour or academic respectability, it’s fair to say that ‘Cyclonopedia’ is so arcane and convoluted a read as to become almost unintelligible, in large part, to the lay reader (or is that just to me?). Indeed, were he to admit that the whole thing is actually just a massive philosophical joke, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. However, it is also one of those baffling works by which the sensation of bafflement actually becomes a strangely pleasurable sensation. Though a complex concoction of global politics, geology, Middle-Eastern studies, oil trade mechanics, post-Deleuzian philosophy, esoteric/occult insights, hyperstitional invention, dollops of satire, and much else besides, Negarestani somehow hints at an alternative, distinctly metaphysical schema for interpreting the region’s pivotal significance in a world lubricated by oil flows.

I won’t attempt any more insightful analysis than that, other than to say that ‘Cyclonopedia’, does at least supply some kind of unofficial account of how we may have got here (yet again), when - let’s face it, none of the standard strategies can claim any greater credibility. If the desert terrain of the Arabian/Persian world might be seen as a cradle of the nomadic desiring engine (‘War Machine’) that Deleuze and Guattari outlined [2.], perhaps the idea of a ‘Petrochemical Machine’ is no more far-fetched a concept - as motivating impulses go. Certainly, it’s fair to say that this latest Middle East conflict only seems to reinforce the sense of oil addiction being the ultimate hit as well as the craving that kills. Ultimately, flows gonna flow - for better or worse.

Given all this, it seemed only fitting that my painting should include some physical component of an oily nature. This appears in the form of polyurethane varnish, tinted with black enamel, which continued to slide down the painting for about 36 hours, before coalescing into the slicks and runnels that now remain. Although I habitually employ a variety of media, the majority tend to be water based, or at least fast-drying. Using the varnish was a reminder that nothing else quite replicates the viscosity of oil-based media, or their slow oxidisation.

In addition to the cartographic, textual and oleaginous elements on show, I’d also draw attention to the apparently pixellated geometric field occupying the painting’s upper section. This is something that has recurred several times throughout my ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ work. I’ve come to think of it largely as a signifier of failing or corrupted memory - both metaphorically, and as it might appear on a screen. However, in the context of these war-related pieces, maybe such motifs could imply other forms of corruption too. Whether that’s the corruption of moral integrity, of international law, of political credibility, of democracy - or purely of the venal kind (such as allows real estate deals to be struck on the side of supposed conflict resolution talks), I’ll leave for you to decide...

[1.]:  Reza Negarestani, 'Cyclonopedia', Melbourne, Aus, re.press, 2008

[2.]:  Particularly in: Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, 'A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia', (Trans. Brian Massumi), London, Bloomsbury, 1987/2001.

Negarestanian Diversion 5.0 (Porous Spaces/Memory Games)

 

All Images: Clifton, Bristol, February 2023

“If syntheses of memory are always time-dominated, memory distractions and memory gaps take advantage of the exploitation of time outside of chronological progressions. Memory holes introduce gaps, discontinuous tunnels and porous spaces into the chronological sphere of memory, thus making it more prone to time-lapses, abrupt schizophrenic katabases (personality-pulverizing blackouts, descents free from the hegemony of solid and void), and loss of wholeness. In Zoroastrianism, playing with graves and memory are both forbidden: While one deserves a physical punishment, the other will bring eternal torment – because playing with memory (i.e. inventing lines of iteration through memory other than mere remembering functions) sorcerously reinvents events not as localizable beings but as deathless (in the sense of demonic restlessness) and inexhaustible germ-lines. 

"Playing with memory, beyond the legitimate activity of remembering, enmeshes memory as a playground of agitated activities in the past which break the organizational consistency of the past in regard in regard to present and future. The past as a static chronological horizon intrinsically tends to sedentarize all time of activities in itself, or to make itself the stabilizing ground of activities in present or future: The past belongs to the Divine and tradition." [1.]

[1.]:  Reza Negarestani, ‘Cyclonopedia’, Melbourne, Aus., re.press, 2008

Negarestanian Diversion 4.2 [S.C. trans_script/trans_late (aug_mented)]

 

All Images: West & Central Leicester, June 2022

[Augmented, Reconfigured & Translated Audio Transcript]: 

I don't judge the crack-heads, the lovers, or the painters, as immobility is usually associated with the symptoms of memory gap paralysis. In that case, a person cannot access the memory (if the memory gap makes it difficult to access the subject). It is also marked so that it can be accessed from the other side. Can you comment on how to access these memory slots?

The subject and character of the questioned subject is not the soul of the thing (nor of anyone). If this is unreal, and kept in memory until 16.00, memories of Holzer gates and reverse access points are remembered. we all have our vices in this life, trying to break us. Correlations of behavious and patterns of external memory below to the outside.

Animals smuggle and retrieve non-human data in an attempt to remember themselves (including recall of external memory gaps with the function of time spent in space with the whole group). The dentist is in no hurry to sleep in memory. Remembering the world is to bring home the void.

(With thanks to S. Chhana & Anon.)

Negarestanian Diversion 4.1 [E.M. tran_script/trans_late]

 

All Images: Central Leicester, June 2022

[Reconfigured/Translated Audio Transcription]:

Usually, the university to remember is related to symptoms of memory hole paralysis. In which case, the subject is unable to access the memory of the memory holes that caused the subject's access problems, because they were specifically designed to be accessed from the other side.

In this sense, the memory gaps are not available to the subject, and are independent (because they are outside the subject and do not concern anyone). If retrieval is unrealistic and useless, in terms of the memory hole, then there is a reverse memory gap at the gate (and access points). Then other access patterns are memories that belong abroad.

Here are channels for transferring and retrieving data from the other side, and making a human  or mental effort to remember what we should not (from the outside too). The memories of memory cats (in a short time) work like a full vessel. None of the creatures whose dreams do not, attack. The holes in our global memory are the way back home.

(With thanks to E. Marshall).

Negarestanian Diversion 4.0: Memory Holes

 

All Images, West Leicester, June 2022

"The inability to remember is usually associated with the paralytic symptoms of memory holes; in this case the subject is not able to access the memory. If memory holes cause such accessibility problems for the subject, it is because they have been specifically designed for being accessed from the other side. In this sense, memory holes are accessed not for the subject and its integrated self but for that which is exterior to the subject and has no self (no one). If remembering is unrealistic and futile in terms of memory holes, then inversely memory holes are gates and access points; they conduct remembering and other modes of access towards a memory which belongs to the outside." [1.]

"If memory holes are channels for trafficking data and retrieval from the other side, then each human or subjective attempt to recall involves an invocation of, or a stepping into the memories of, an outsider. Memory gaps, with their Space-Time lapses, function as a ()hole complex through which nether entities seep, rush toward our world; memory gaps are the instruments of their homecoming." [2.]

[1.] & [2.]: Reza Negarestani, 'Cyclonopedia', Melbourne, Aus, re.press, 2008.

Negarestanian Diversion 3: Openness

 

All Images: West Leicester, June 2022

"In economic openness, affordance does not refer to either the restrictive or restricting affordability of one or multiple systems, but the whole reciprocal horizon in which both the subjective and objective sides of economical openness must survive and undergo a dynamic but economical participation. Affordance does not work on a univocal or a unidirectional line - from the subject of openness to its objective or vice-versa. It is economically collective. Affordance moulds an horizon of economically-secured openness which accommodates both sides as bodies synchronous to each other. Correspondingly, openness is dynamically determined by the survival of both subjective and objective sides as a mutual living process, rather than survival as the evasion of peril. If affordance cannot be subjectively or objectively dismantled, this is because it is established mutually. In regard to its subjective and objective poles, affordance is basically mesophilic, meaning that it always comes in-between. Participations, becomings, lines of tactics and communications must all be based on the meso-sphere of affordance and its survival machineries." [1.]

"To become open or to experience the chemistry of openness is not possible through 'opening yourself' (a desire associated with boundary, capacity and survival economy which covers both you and your environment); but it can be affirmed by entrapping yourself within a strategic alignment with the outside, becoming a lure for its exterior forces. Radical openness can be evoked by becoming more of a target for the outside. In order to be opened by the outside, rather than being economically open to the system's environment, one must seduce the exterior forces of the outside: you can erect yourself as a solid and molar volume, tightening boundaries around yourself, securing your horizon, sealing yourself off from any vulnerability ... immersing yourself deeper into your human hygiene and becoming vigilant against outsiders. Through this excessive paranoia, rigorous closure and survivalist vigilance, one becomes an ideal prey for the radical outside and its forces." [2.]

[1.] & [2.]: Reza Negarestani, 'Cyclonopedia', Melbourne, Aus, re.press, 2008

Negarestanian Diversion 2: Hydraglyphic Alphabets

 

All Images: West Leicester, June 2022

"Beyond an involvement with the flexuous qualities of Hydra (sinuosity, ogee, curvature and curlicue), Hydraglyph emphasizes how the visual shape of consonants deviates from vowels and how such shapes express the nonlinear and barbaric musicality of such consonants, Hydraglyphs are the diagrams of cacophonic and sonic aspects of middle-eastern consonant alphabets, or abjads.

"The term 'snake writing' associated with the excessive curvature of letters, as in Arabic and Pahlavi languages, is more than anything a diagrammatical approach to the sound of these consonants, which is a nonlinear but continuous process of vocalization formed by different intensities, vibrations and forces employed in different phases of vocalization. Hydraglyphs or draconic letters of middle-eastern consonant alphabets are barbaric musical notes in themselves.

"Close observation of the letters of Pahlavi, Hebrew, Arabic or Samaritan alphabets will reveal that they diagram an exploded view - as in industrial drawings, the view of an object after a controlled explosion in space - of a greater coil (the Mother of all Monsters) or entanglement. To write in these letters is to indulge in dracolatry, a worshipping of ancient serpents. Hydraglyphs, as letters of middle-eastern consonant alphabets, are disentanglements - remaining wreathed and coiled in themselves - of dynamic complexities; they are written and characterized by gates and thresholds.

"The first element of a novice's initiation into middle-eastern calligraphy is to learn to apply different but constant forces and pressures - not in the sense of a constant increase or decrease of forces - to various regions and each part of the letter in flowing manners. Such forces and flows are commonly epitomized as a series of movements including lateral undulation, sidewinding, side-pushing and concertinaing. The application of a new force during the process of writing is usually accompanied by a twisting of the tip of the pen and a deviation from the already-established path into a new twist; the letter is constituted of a thousand gates passing onto each other. Every twist constitutes a temple-pylon to a new region demanding new forces, unforeseen developments, variations and dynamic surprises - Tiamaterialistic miracles of all kinds.

"Greco-Roman letters are shaped by applying nearly constant or invariable forces on different parts; each letter possesses an architectonic coherence between the beginning and the end. Hydraglyphs, however, perpetuate themselves through the ceaseless emergence and subsidence of forces passing through different thresholds. Shape, in this sense, is defined by gradients (antechambers) rather than fixed boundaries (ostium).  The outcome of this fluctuation is a spiralistic configuration or a coiling structure which characterizes middle-eastern alphabets.

"In the majority of such middle-eastern letters, a precise endpoint, a solid death, never occurs: the calligraphic letter is let loose to slide freely as the shape concludes softly by developing a tail at the point that the letter is written.

"But is the tail the end of the monstrosity? Such immersion into a gradient of softness or decay, as opposed to the emphatic death of the Greco-Roman cast and moulded letters, recurs in the vocalization of middle-eastern vowelless alphabets. When the vocalization does not undergo a death or complete termination (the definite end on the lips) as in the Greek and Roman languages, it is fulfilled by a gradual cessation, or to be exact, a softening rather than a stopping. Death in writing and vocalization is followed by impermeability and linearity of vocalization: for middle-eastern alphabets, however, it is decay that chisels its way through death, to ensure the continuation of softness." [1.]

[1.]: Reza Negarestani, 'Cyclonopedia', Melbourne, Aus. re.press, 2008