Completed Painting: '[dc]circuit 03/Proust'

 

'[dc]circuit 03/Proust', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
600 mm x 400 mm, 2026

Here is the third panel in my set of five '[dc]circuit' panels, the full title being, '[dc]circuit 03/Proust'. In this case the literary reference is to Marcel Proust's magnum opus, 'À la Recherche Du Temps Perdu' - in particular, the second volume (of seven), 'A l'Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleure' [1.]. Continuing in the same stylistic mode as '[dc]circuit 01' and '[dc]circuit 02', the rhizomorphically reconfigured cartography here relates to Paris and Proust's fictional resort of Balbec (in reality, Cabourg in Normandy), as well as to my own immediate environment in Leicester. A key element of Proust's novel is his (unreliable) memories of youthful seaside holidays, of illusions inspired by travel in general, and of the emotional impact of rail travel, in particular. It is therefore no coincidence that cartographical references to Parisian railway terminals, the Grand Hotel and Casino in Cabourg, and Leicester's long-since repurposed Great Central Railway Station are all visible in this piece.

The elusive philosophical relationship between space and time are key concerns in all of this 'Deleuzian Cartography' work of mine, just as they are in Proust's writing. It's also fair to say that this panel is just as powerfully influenced by the philosophical modelling of time outlined by  Proust's contemporary, Henri Bergson, as it is by the complex ideas of Gilles Deleuze himself. Bergson's ideas prefigure Deleuze in several respects, and he also offered a subjective/metaphysical account of time as an alternative to the strict Relativity of Einstein's since-dominant model. My own humble intention is not to necessarily take sides with any of these super-brains (or even to claim full understanding of their ideas) but rather, to take delight in the push and pull of their various interpretations/explanations of 'Existence', as they play out in the overlapping arenas of Art, Science and Philosophy. If, as the LED circuit motifs recurring throughout these paintings suggest, a modicum of enlightenment is available, it is still hard-won. Nevertheless, the questions are always far more interesting than the answers, so why not start with the 'easy' ones? 

Of course, it's impossible to think about Proust (or Bergson), without reference to the nature of memory, and how we continually use it to reprocess our experiences within our perceptions in the present. The subjectivity and corruption of our memories have long been noted by numerous writers, thinkers and brain-scientists, and seem, if anything, even more pertinent in an age when increasing amounts of our thinking and remembering are contracted-out to machines. The visual hint toward corrupted pixellation, and gigabyte labelling in this piece are included as nods to this.

As already mentioned, there's yet another strand of possible meaning layered into the colours used in this '[dc]circuit' suite. Superficially, the yellow chosen here seemed a perfect accompaniment to the summery vibes of Proust's reflections en vacances, but is also emblematic of the third reactive stage identified by many of the historical practitioners of Alchemy, in their attempts to manufacture physical gold and/or spiritual enlightenment. This is also true of the black and (nominal) white of the two previous panels. You may be already despairing at my eagerness to overload these paintings with yet more pretentious thematic freight, and the tradition of Alchemy is certainly a complex subject to be casually tossing-in (and one with numerous potential interpretations of its own). However, the relationship between hard science and subjective philosophy do appear to be of clear relevance again here. It's also worth noting that all of my current work seems to come about as much as a result of the books I happen to read during my regular coffee-fuelled local perambulations, as from the spaces I physically inhabit whilst on them. During the gestation of these pieces, this included a history of Prague (an alchemical hot-spot) amongst all the other posh literature and baffling French philosophy. This organic, often random or impulsive, drip-feed of information, and the tangle of mental correspondences it inspires, seems very much in the Deleuzian spirit of energy flows, lines of flight and immanent production - to me, at least. Anyway, I'll try to offer a few more clues about this alchemy business in my next related post...

[1.]: Marcel Proust, 'In Search of Lost Time', Vol 1 'In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower' (Trans. James Grieve), London/NYC, Penguin, 1919/2003

[Sans A.I.]

Bristol Derives 3: Remembridge [re_configure]

 

All Photo-Manipulations: May 2023

[Reconfigured Appropriated Text]:

Categories of Listed Building

There are three types of listed status for buildings in England and Wales 

• Grade I: Buildings of exceptional interest: 

            [a.]:  Monuments of recognisable/instantaneous poetic resonance [including the 

                    deliciously mundane, as well as the weird and/or eerie]

            [b.]:  Monuments likely to trigger artistic activity [on a sliding scale of 

                    relevance/irrelevance]

             

• Grade II*: Particularly important buildings of more than special interest:

             [a.]:  Key monuments of autobiographical significance [verifiable/documented by                        photographic or other historical evidence]

            [b.]:  Key monuments of autobiographical significance [imagined or subject to false                            memory, and including elements of personal mythology/fake                     

                    narrative, dreams, neurosis or other psychologoclgical disorder]

              

• Grade II: Buildings that are of special interest:

             [a.]:  Monuments suspended in an indeterminate/provisional/unresolved 'present'

            [b.]:  Monuments pointing towards past/future simultaneously [cyclical/vertical-slice 

                    chronology]

            [c.]:  Monuments to lost/imagined futures, failed utopias, misguided strategies, as well as                     those likely to play significant role in proposed future archeologies

            [d.]:  Portals

      

                        

There was formerly a non-statutory Grade III, which was abolished in 1970. This included monuments related to delusion, pharmaceutical intoxication, hallucination, baseless rumour, conspiracy theory, pseudoscience, parochial superstition and excess religiosity.

Listed buildings account for about 2% of English building stock. In March 2010, there were about 374,000 list entries of which 92% were Grade II, 5.5% were Grade II*, and 2.5% were Grade I. 

Statutory Criteria

The criteria for listing include architectural interest, historic interest and close historical associations with significant people or events. Buildings not individually noteworthy may still be listed if they form part of a group that is—for example, all the buildings in a square. This is called 'group value'. Sometimes large areas comprising many buildings may not justify listing but receive the looser protection of designation as a conservation area.

 

The specific criteria include:

• The nocturnal march to some inner venue [the search for connection]
• Short-circuiting an adjacent existence [the south bank of the south bank]
• The most recent incision [a jump onto the Spike] 
• A winding path between the Bonds [the cliff of blank eyes/a thousand cells]
• Corroded mesh and blistering angle-iron [the threaded encroachment/an unwanted seeding]
• Steel plate erosion [river glimpses between an awkward measure]
• The shadow lattice [altitude projectors on quivering stems]
• An abandoned shunt [the decommissioning/the carbon traces]

The state of repair of a building, or degree of applicable on-line outrage, are not deemed to be  relevant considerations for listing. [1.]

[1.]:  Includes excerpts from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_building

Space-Time (Does The Past Still Exist?) [trans_late / trans_scribe]

 

All Images: Central Leicester, June 2022

[Reconfigured & Translated Video Transcription]

One of the greatest mysteries of our system is also one of those times when you can't change anything/ and what you do in half an hour is at least up to you/ this is how we perceive time/ but what about if time is very different from our perception of the person finding it?/ I recognise this guy/ that's what we're talking about today/ the book of Exeter civic stuff is something that will work for any property/ if they offer me their packages for you too/ we think about time as something that works for everyone and every object/ if one S passes for me one S passes for your parcels/ also what do you know me by now?/ who's the first to notice that this may not be quite hard?/ it can't be too blunt to say that Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics don't change/ just like a ball doesn't change if you rotate one direction of space into another/ so because he said we just combined space with time into a four-dimensional space-time/ that naturally explains why it doesn't have anything to do with electric and magnetic fields/ it comes from the properties of space and time themselves/

I can't draw a flower written just as measurements/ but I can just manage to make straight lines and at least one line-area/ this is called the instil diagram and is a red line of constant speed and straight motion tilted at a certain angle/ the speed garage changes the top speed to light-speed by which convention the 45 degree angle to the left is only forward and backward in time/ we can only do a U-turn and there are not 3 continents outside of that space/ I'm from space in some respects also/ the dimension is clear/ there are 4 clear coordinates/ there are many ways to two-dimensional space/ because if you want it/ you want it the same all the time/ once  you have the labels on it/ there are many options/ what time is God?/ God what does that even mean?/ are there other dimensions that could explain this good night?/ no I'm afraid I can't help/ but what we want to understand is that the speed of light is always the same/ nothing/ the flight and everything/ parrot this phone/ Stainhaus's special theory of relativity is theoretical physics basically/ Sylvia Barber could be an observer/ whose viewpoint is what cramps outside of a tree/ what do you need to do as a cordon observer/ and what will sidestep close and use the word 'absorber'?/ you see the coordinates system they might use to enter/ that's the chord that you see in the coordinate system that you could fill/ yeah maybe not/ yeah maybe not exactly that/ but if it's good enough it's good enough for us/ basically it means any corner is as good as all others/ 

I have profound photos for faster telly reception/ first let's start with the finite and see why it's right/ you are probably watching a video as a hologram on a cream-coloured phone or laptop/ I suppose the Physicist's answer is my point that the ice cream has no ice now/ even if you dial absolutely from outside the few programs you select/ don't worry about how long it takes/ make sure to look at me outside and compare enough signal to light/ if someone uses that phone for real/ I'm going down a lot so I think I'll make it/ I'll come back to that later/ but it's like people use the word 'now' things happen now and now and so on/ why can't we just get on with the space-time diagram now?/ ok does extrovert mean just a diagram with an operational procedure?/ right now you have to trust Einstein/ and what he called your jump experiment/ he said the pictures are to your right and the photos are to your left/ the pictures are right if you wait the same way/ the photos have time until you remember Einstein's seconds of summer flight/ it's always the same when she can send photos to come back at exactly the same time/ exactly the same time/ exactly in the middle between the final step/ and the time it takes for you to know they must bounce/ you can say you need white to ricochet/ or even build a life/ but if you fly/ spies may be in a spaceship/ to be friends with you/ take me to buy this spaceship earlier/ in your space/ time on a tilted street does the exact same thing as you sight-sense photos/ back-to-back/ advance/ that's the moment the mirrors drive from your point of view/ to her eyes in the magazine/ in her eyes are in the diary/ sodalite takes a long time just to exit the mirrors/ you would say 'straight-on'/ 'left'/ 'just left'/ the mirror really comes first/ right after I notice Alice/ Alice really hits the mirror first/ coming from the left/ so the net effect of what else happened is not what you think happened/ Alice on the other hand moves relative to you/ shut up now/ you're wrong/ whose right?/ Alice you could say/ because Chelsea's on the spaceship/ after all the bullets come/ thanks for that/

 

it's still to come in the event of the fall of the Tsars/ you're both right probably/ the idea of Amazon is expensive/ it's not the same as mine/ write technically/ write technical terms/ that's the mountain/ the birth of the simultaneity in what's now or extremely tiny/ they are felt close to the speed of light mostly/ do you see who is knocking?/ who is knocking on the door right now?/ if you show me the speed/ tell me the speed of light/ but it gets confusing/ very confusing/ I'm not causally connected/ so if one wanted to send a signal/ the signal would have to go schematically between the lines at 45 degrees to the previous set-up with the mirrors/ from one to another/eventually the server comes at naughty dance time/ you fly from Athens and in the middle it's just you/ just you/ just one speed event at a time/ so take any two calls at once/ take two of those now/ call Leeds simultaneously/ I like eating too much/ I'm feeling terrible/ I'm feeling terrible the morning after/ that probably isn't connected/ let's say this event is the super-galaxy morning-after of simultaneity/ and add everything up/ if you can say now that what exists here does not exist then/ the Einstein score assumption must hold for everyone/ but if all the attempts you think are happening now exist and all other observers say the events happened at the same time when these events existed/ all events existed/ all events now exist/ in other words all times exist in the same way/ this is called the block universe/ it's just there/ it doesn't arise/ it doesn't change/ it just sits there when someone has a hard time accepting that there is another way to consistently combine a notion of existence without insurance/ everything I just said came from the assumption that you are willing to say that although you cannot see your experience thanks to this universe/ 

something now exists/ but maybe something other than another game/ an invincible movement of evil to be in a certain piece of space at a certain point in time/ but unfortunately all that might contradict what I did say/ as this theory works extremely/ phone India/ India is in conflict/ but if you just want to define that/ it has no observable consequences/ although I'm not sure why quantum mechanics compares the block universe to the Block Universe Committee I was talking about/ it's happening faster than the rate that you're observing it can be/ you can't be observed/ so there are snow land people/ people argued that the few in the block universe exist/ and that there is also a special moon that divides the past/ and that it has been in the present for previous flights over the last 24 weeks/ there is a video about space/ but I was actually talking about quantum mechanics/ I now have a genius mechanic on the subject of how-to's/ a genius on overlays/ and I don't intend any pending ring-sets/ I had a lot of fun at work/ I hope you will enjoy your course and learn more about brilliance/ the first 200 subscribers receive a 20% discount/ until next week.

Lightspeed 01 [trans_late]

 

All Images: North Leicester, July 2022

[Translated Audio Transcript]:

One of the greatest mysteries of our system is also one of those times when you can't change anything/ and what you do in half an hour is at least up to you/ this is how we perceive time/ but what about if time is very different from our perception of the person finding it?/ I recognise this guy/ that's what we're talking about today/ the book of Exeter civic stuff is something that will work for any property/ if they offer me their packages for you too/ we think about time as something that works for everyone and every object/ if one S passes for me one S passes for your parcels/ also what do you know me by now?/ who's the first to notice that this may not be quite hard?/ 

it can't be too blunt to say that Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics don't change/ just like a ball doesn't change if you rotate one direction of space into another/ so because he said we just combined space with time into a four-dimensional space-time/ that naturally explains why it doesn't have anything to do with electric and magnetic fields/ it comes from the properties of space and time themselves/ I can't draw a flower written just as measurements/ but I can just manage to make straight lines and at least one line-area/ this is called the instil diagram and is a red line of constant speed and  the speed garage changes the top speed to light-speed by which convention the 45 degree angle to the left is only forward and backward in time/ we can only do a U-turn and there are not three continents outside of that space/ I'm from space in some respects also/ 

the dimension is clear/ there are four clear coordinates/ there are many ways to two-dimensional space/ because if you want it/ you want it the same all the time/ once you have the labels on it/ there are many options/ what time is God?/ God what does that even mean?/ are there other dimensions that could explain this good night? no I'm afraid I can't help/ but what we want to understand is that the speed of light is always the same/ nothing/ the flight/ the flight and everything/ parrot this phone/ Steinhaus's special theory of relativity is theoretical physics basically/ Sylvia Barber could be an observer/ whose viewpoint is what cramps outside of a tree/ what do you need to do as a cordon observer/ and what will sidestep close and use the word 'observer'?/ you see the coordinate systems they might use to enter/ that's the chord that you see in the coordinate system that you could fill/ yeah maybe not/ maybe not exactly that/ but if it's good enough it's good enough for us/ basically it means any corner is as good as all others/ I have profound photos for faster telly reception/ 

first let's start with the finite and see why it's right/ you are probably watching a video as a hologram on a cream-coloured phone or laptop/ I suppose the physicist's answer is that the ice cream has no ice now/ even if you dial absolutely from outside the few programs you select/ don't worry about how long it takes/ make sure to look at me outside and compare enough signal to light/ if someone uses your phone for real/ I'm going down a lot so I think I'll make it/ I'll come back to that later/ but it's like people use the word 'now'/ things happen now and now and so on/ why can't we just get on with space-time diagram now?/ okay does extrovert mean just a diagram with an operational procedure?/ right now you have to trust Einstein/ and what he called your jump experiment/ he said the pictures are to your right and the photos are to your left/ the pictures are right if you wait the same way/ the photos have time until you remember Einstein's seconds of summer flight/ it's always the same when she can send photos to come back at exactly the same time/ exactly in the middle between the final step/ and the timer it takes for you to know they must bounce/ you can say you need white to ricochet/ or even build a life/ but if you fly/ spies may be in a spaceship/ to be friends with you/ take me to buy this spaceship earlier/ in your space/ 

time on a tilted street does the exact same thing as you sight-sense photos/ back-to-back/ advance/ that's the moment the mirrors drive from your point of view/ to her eyes in the magazine/ her eyes are in the diary/ sodalite takes a long time just to exit the mirrors/ you would say 'straight-on'/ 'left'/ 'just left'/ the mirror really comes first/ right after I notice Alice/ Alice really hits the mirror first/ coming from the left/ so the net effect of what else happened is not what you think happened/ Alice on the other hand moves relative to you/ shut up now/ you're wrong/ who's right?/ Alice you could say/ because Chelsea's on the spaceship/ after all the bullets come/ thanks for all that/ it's still to come in the event of the fall of the Tsars/ you're both right probably/ the idea of Amazon is expensive/ it's not the same as mine/ write technically/ write technical terms/ that's the mountain/ the birth of simultaneity in what's now or extremely tiny/ they are felt close to the speed of light mostly/ do you see who is knocking?/ who is knocking on the door right now?/ if you show me the speed/ tell me the speed of light/ but it gets confusing/ very confusing/ I'm not causally connected/ so if one wanted to send a signal/ the signal would have to go schematically between the lines at 45 degrees to the previous setup with the mirrors/ from one to the other/ 

eventually the server comes at naughty dance time/ you fly from Athens and in the middle it's just you/ just you/ just one speed event at a time/ so take any two calls at once/ take two of those now/ call Leeds simultaneously/ I like eating too much/ I'm feeling terrible/ I'm feeling terrible the morning after/ that probably isn't connected/ let's say this event is the super-galaxy morning-after of simultaneity/ and add everything up/ if you can say now that what exists here does not exist then/ the Einstein score assumption must hold for everyone/ but if all the events you think are happening now exist and all other observers say the event happened at the same time when these events existed/ all events now exist/ in other words all times exist in the same way/ this is called the block universe/ it's just there/ it doesn't arise/ it doesn't change/ it just sits there when someone has a hard time accepting that there is another way to consistently combine a notion of existence without insurance/ everything I just said came from the assumption that you are willing to say that although you cannot see your experience thanks to this universe/ something now exists/ but maybe something other than another game/ an invincible movement of evil to be in a certain piece of space at a certain point in time/ but unfortunately all that might contradict what I did say/ as this theory works extremely well/ 

phone India/ India is in conflict/ but if you just want to define that/ it has no observable consequences/ although I'm not sure why quantum mechanics compares the block universe to the Block Universe Committee I was talking about/ it's happening faster than the rate that you're observing it can be/ you can't be observed/ so there are snow-land people/ people argued that the few in the block universe exist/ and that there is also a special moon that divides the past/ and that it has been in the present for previous flights over the last twenty-four weeks/ there is a video about space/ but I was actually talking about quantum mechanics/ I now have a genius mechanic on the subject of how-to's/ a genius on overlays/ and I don't intend any pending ring-sets/ I had a lot of fun at work/ I hope you will enjoy your course and learn more about brilliance/ the first two hundred subscribers receive a twenty percent discount until next week.

Completed Painting: 'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 1'

 

'The Castle/Le Grand Hotel 1', Paper Collage & Acrylics on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2022

• Travels in time
• The mediated map (The screen)
• The view across two rivers
• The Bohemian memory
• The buried text
• Additional information (Search filters)
• New developments
• The constructed edifice
• The Land Surveyor (K.)
• The bridge adjacent
• The tower
• Notel
• Entry prohibited
• An inversion
• Blue overall (Marcel)
• The tourist guide
• The precise execution

Proustian Diversion 1 (Colour/Memory)

 

All Images: March 2022

"But if these names absorbed for ever the image I had of these towns, it was only by transforming that image, by subjecting its reappearance in me to their own laws; in consequence of this they made it more beautiful, but also more different from what the towns of Normandy or Tuscany could be in reality, and, by increasing the arbitrary joys of my imagination, aggravated the future disappointment of my travels. They exalted the idea I was forming of certain places on the earth, by making them more particular, consequently more real. 

"I did not at the time represent to myself cities, landscapes, monuments as more or less pleasant pictures, cut out here and there from the same material, but each of them as an unknown thing, different in essence from the others, a thing for which my soul thirsted and which it would profit from knowing. How much more individuality still did they assume from being designated by names, names that were theirs alone, proper names like the names people have.

"Words present us with clear and familiar little pictures of things like the pictures hung on the walls of schools to give children an example of what a workbench is, a bird, an anthill, things conceived of as similar to all others of the same sort.

"But names present a confused image of people - and of towns, which they accustom us to believe are individual, unique like people - an image which derives from them, from the brightness or darkness of their tone, the colour with which it is painted uniformly, like one of those posters, entirely blue or entirely red, in which, because of the limitations of the process used or by a whim of the designer, not only the sky and the sea are blue or red, but the boats, the church, the people in the streets." [1.]

[1.]:  Marcel Proust, 'In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1: The Way By Swann's' (Part III: 'Place Names: The Name'), (Trans. Lydia Davis), London, Penguin, 1913/2002

The Green Light (Happy New Year)

 

All Images: Central Leicester, December 2021

"And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock.  He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.  He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.  It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further ... And one fine morning - 

"So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past." [1.]

[1.]:  F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'The Great Gatsby', London, Penguin Ltd., 2000 (First Pub. 1926)