Account

Just a piece of writing for my degree. As ever all spelling mistakes are jokes.

The reflexive surface of the plastic reflects the room around it and occasionally my body, but this makes perfect sense as my body, the cube and the room are all one and the same. With the piece being back lit as it is, it is hard for me so see my eyes in the reflection but I am gifted instead the light of the room through the edges of the cube. The light that lights the cube, is the same light that is shown through the cube. The same light that lights me so that I may be seen in its reflective surfaces. It is all one, and I banish the images in my mind of the light hitting the object and bouncing into my eye.

I turn the light off and my sight becomes black with yellow, or gold, or white pox marks or scars.

I turn it on again and try to think of something original.

The three visible sides of the cube have become inverted. They no longer meet at a right angle jutting out towards my body, but to one caving away, so that the eyes in my head fit into the object as I look and wear it like a mask. The object now exists in a state somewhere between a small room and an inside-out glove with my middle finger touching its middle finger.

It is undeniable now that the state of the cube exists only within my perception of it and yet there is an exterior nature to it still. I find this hard to place as my knowledge of the cube is whole in my, and its, presentness.

It is seems merely to be planes of translucency and reflection until I step up and curve my body to the right-angle of the cube and look down. The cube is placed upon a newspaper upon a table. The words on the paper are brought up to the level of the upper face through the cross section of the plastic. It is like when one is given at school a lump of glass and encouraged to place it on a piece of writing. The glass ‘brings’ the image on the page up into itself and places it on its upper most side, it does not warp the image like a lens might, but merely carries it, unchanged, through itself and presents it again. I can see a tiny amount of newsprint through the cube, but what I can see is not distorted nor tarnished. Where a telescope or microscope would endeavour to enlarge images for viewing, the cross section of transparent plastic moves them closer to me.

It works as my eye works, it is part of my eye, or part of my process of seeing. I now see the entirety of the room, the object and myself through a 4mm splice of plastic.

R B Grange

Pom: more

In trying to find someone who knows about Pom I am confronted by and with myself, again.

Half an hour ago I decided to take a closer look at her images on Select. I had discovered that one is able to save images from the website by changing them into PDF files in an effort to print them. My ‘closer look’ led me to the corner of one of her images, the quite blurry one (there used to be two). The bottom left corner of this image said what clothes she was wearing and who designed the metal tiara (just about visible on her head). I typed into Google exactly what the legend bore: “metal tiara husam-el-odeh”. Two pages came up, the second being a blog about fashion. After quarter of an hour on the same page I decided to broaden my search, this time I merely typed: “husam-el-odeh” into Google. I went on his website (he’s a jewellery designer), he’s been in Dazed and Confused and ID, and so has Pom, I then proceed to trawl through the images provided by GoogleImages.

After seven pages of images, none of Pom, they ran out. I returned to just his normal search and clicked in the second result; Husam-El-Odeh’s CV. He’s 28, German born, he was a practicing artist in his homeland until he came to Britain, studied here and graduated in 2005 from MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY.

This girl seems to grow in importance to me. I know nothing of her but the things surrounding her; my endeavours to find out about her are all near misses – with a boomerang.

R B Grange

Newstalgia

I have been listening to Radiohead’s song Nude on and off for about six years now. I have been watching E.T. for even longer. The song first came to my ears when I purchased the documentary Meeting People Is Easy. In the film, which I recommend you should watch if you like the band or not, Radiohead perform probably their most depressing song. Not only is the melody plodding and makes use of a hollow organ sound, but the lyrics too get you down from the start.

“Don’t get any big ideas, they’re not going to happen … now that you’ve found it it’s gone, now that you feel it you don’t.”

Yesterday I downloaded the new Radiohead recording In Rainbows. It’s some tracks that they’ve been playing live but which they’ve decided to being out in consumable form. The tracks are quite poppy but some put me very much in mind of Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box. Nude is on here too, but it is very different to other versions I have heard. I’m fine with this, I can appreciate this new Nude with the song they were playing in 98 (Thom had an idea that this song would be called Failure to Receive Payment Will Put Your House At Risk but feared it wasn’t catchy enough).

In contrast Becky purchased E.T. yesterday for my birthday. I had been hankering to watching it for a few week now and was overjoyed to find Becky had got it me. But at the same time very worried. As I’m sure you are aware Spielberg is a tinkerer. In his older age he has decided reedit some of his films, putting Jabba the Hutt into Episode 4 was an ok move in my mind, but E.T. is not the same anymore.

Steve fails to realize that playing with things he has already ‘finished’ with is not right. Once an object leaves the artist’s hands he has no more power over it. The CGI E.T. is too fluid and quirky to be believed in. this is not be taken in a childish manner, but E.T. is real, this computerized imposter is not.

Of course the two objects do not belong to me either, but I feel a great affinity with both and I believe them to excellent at things being done well and poorly.

There is a word of this remaking of the past. Newstalgia. I first experienced this in the late 90s when I was purposed remember how great the 70s were, which would then lead me to purchase a Zippy pencilcase, a yoyo and a spacehopper. Newstalgia is a meathod of selling items which have a proven record of saleability.

R B Grange

Commodification

This post refers to an art object mentioned in an earlier blog (my Myspace one) that can be found at my ‘old blog’ link at the bottom of the page, Dec 22 06 Untitled. The piece of work is my first visible plaque:

UNTITLED
Anonymous
(Dimensions Unknown)
(Date Unknown)
Destroyed

My exploration of the ‘the absent exhibition’ is in direct response to this work conceived almost a year ago.
The reason for me referring to it in this blog is best explained in the form of an anecdote.

Last Friday was the first day I concentrated all my studio time to making a ‘60x60 Exhibition’ (a system of representation of my own design). As ever the theme or intent was the depiction of absenteeism through sign and symbol of the art world. I made use of some of my ISBN, a processed MA show poster, a storage box, a certificate from the Hayward and pieces of masking tape.
Viv came round and enquired about ‘it all’. I mentioned the above plaque and how I had lost it somehow (a nice piece of poetic justice that occurred two weeks ago). This triggered something in Viv’s mind and he proceeded to tell me that the Tate were selling ‘blank plaques’.
I found this quite alarming. For starters I was annoyed that one of the few original ideas I’d actually had in my life was not original nor mine. But what was more shocking was that the Tate was selling these as merchandise, funny little gifts to give to people. To my mind the plaque, no matter how many times it is reproduced, is a single object, not a commodity. It is a concept and a place around which the majority of my art practise is centred, an object to be discussed, not ‘slapped on a plastic lunch box’.
Michael and I went down to Tate Britain to have a look for this object and were unable to find it. I was going to go anyway to see a Susan Hiller thing, but I think this is more important.

Could I actually sell my work? Would it sell? Who would buy it? And for what purpose would it be bought?

I think it must come down to aesthetics. I have designed a means by which I can turn anything into a plaque and therefore the set nature of my work is stylistic even though I do not wish it to be. Even a practise like mine that is wholly concept lead can find a home within the consumable art world, even if it is in the gift shop.

R B Grange

Behind marks

I have been wondering where my current work has come from. Because I do not have an impetus or visible reason for making work it has been a hard thought process (all internal of course). But I have, after three days arrived at some sort of framework into which my ‘absent exhibitions’ may be placed.

On foundation we were asked to me marks. Well, we were first asked to make tools to make marks and then make marks in reaction to music, but this is unimportant. My present concern is what we were then asked to do which was this; to imagine the shapes and textures that were behind the marks, that made up the marks. This was one of the key moments for me on foundation, being asks to look at a two-dimensional splat and imagine an unseen dimension behind the paper, as though what we saw was the base of a tower viewed from underneath. For those of you who know about dimensionality, the concept of ‘Flatland’ comes into play.

This ‘looking again’ at an object; looking around it, at it, though it and as it has influenced a lot of my artistic investigation and finds its latest manifestation in my plaques. Exhibition plaques are seen naturally as what one might call ‘post-object’, meaning they come about in reaction to something that already exists, but this does not have to be the case. I have made plaques and sought out objects to which they are now attributed. So, we have a concept of pre-work and post-work, whether my work is in reaction to something or is something which requires a reaction.

Minutes ago I was singing I am the very model of a modern Major General to myself (I was aided by a MIDI file and the libretto on screen). The song is a con. Major General Stanley tells us what he knows, but neglects the detail. He says he knows what ‘commissariat’ means but does not tell the audience. Now, after some research, it turns out to be a joke but the song overall acts beautifully to illustrate my work – the ‘saying’ of things that may well be untrue, but which are based in a vast amount of rhetoric, to declare one thing as dubious brings all grammar and endeavor into question.
Or as Tom Lehrer puts it when describing Gilbert and Sullivan:

“… full of words and music; and signifying … nothing.”

R B Grange (I don’t actually believe my work to be the ‘saying’ of things etc, but the blog needed an end.)

Sale

What I make doesn’t sell and therefore a website, directly affiliated with my BA programme, set up to sell student’s work is a waste of him for me. I cannot imagine people who purchase art off of the internet wanting the work I do. I know what people buy from the internet and it’s pictures of cats; anyone who’s cottoned onto this (see my friend etourist and Libby’s friend [I forget his name] for details) will be rolling in it.
I believe that a website like this would be detrimental to students’ work, placing ‘hack’ work before serious intellectual debate. It may sound glamourous or, more accurately, accessible to say that one can purchase your work from a website, but what does purchase mean? I’ve never really considered what it would mean for someone to own my work. if it were in catalogue or book form I could easily see someone picking it up in a shop and having a glance. But owning it? What would they use it for? What would they get out of it?
The answers to these questions may be found if I look into what my ‘medium’ is. Medium is a word that is chucked about a lot. You can apply it to lots of things but the key is to use the word itself in an interesting manner. For example: I said last year that I would look into the medium of correspondence, but what I actually did was look round correspondence and applied it to other things. The medium in this context meant a way of reassessing a situation or action.
I do not believe my medium to be ‘word’.

R B Grange

Cultural Quarter

I've lived in Wood Green for a year and have always thought that the sign bearing the words: 'Cultural Quarter" was a joke. I like WG, well, some bits I like - I'm in a more privileged opposition this year as I live more towards Muswell Hill. I can be seen to very visibly make a conscious social choice when I live my house; Go up the hill to Muswell Hill, or down to Wood Green. If I want pretty books, art supplies and to hear children practicing the piano I'll turn left to go up the hill. If I want toilet paper, cheap envelopes and to hear gun shots I'll go right and down the hill.
The above is quite a simple and therefore incorrect analysis of the geography or socialgeography (or whatever Will Self’s column is called in the Independent’s Magazine on a Saturday).
Wikipedia has helped enlighten me on what the ‘Cultural Quarter’ means. It is a development of regeneration by Haringey council based around the arts. The Chocolate Factory seems to be at the centre of this; a large artistic studio that looks quite nice in publicity pictures on its website.
So for my evening walk I’m not going to do the usual Ally Pally stuff, I’m going to go down to Coburg Road and have a look for myself.
Not by myself, obviously. I like walking on my own, but prefer to look with other people.

R B Grange

Firsts

First day back into college and I decide to collect all the left overs 'objects' from the MA exhibition. I have put these up in a rectangle on my jutting wall space; this was a simple sketch in the grammar of exhibiting. I have an idea that I would like to document to the Degree show at the end of this year, and this seems like a nice piece to get me going on that - looking at what is left after an exhibition.

The debris on the all does not look melancholy, or rueful, or any of the 'supposed' emotional aesthetic of 'things left behind'. The objects state what they are and it is only the fact that there are so few of them that gives any indication that something may be missing.

On missing exhibitions; a piece of mine is currently on at MXXXII (I've added a link at the bottom of the page).

R B Grange

Come friendly bombs

Have finally purchased The ‘Black’ Office DVD and have discovered something as good as the Go-motion raptors in Jurassic Park. On the second disk of the first series there are, as with most DVDs, deleted scenes. One of these, more of a full version of a scene than a deleted piece of footage, is Brent reciting Betjeman’s Slough.

This ‘extra’ features Brent consulting the index in a book of collected poems to see where else JB does not like. More writing shall appeal on this lovely piece of paraphernalia soon. I plan to transcribe the scene (that is if it does not appear in the script book of Chris’s).

R B Grange

Go Place

I’ve just got out of the shower. I had quite an uneventful wash until it came to my wrists, or arms. I have to actually think to wash my hair and neck but washing everywhere else comes quiet naturally. Recently I’ve been using some special solid shampoo for blond haired people and with being back in London for a month now my neck, as it did last year, has ended up getting very grubby very easily.

On my wrists was a stamp from a club Chris, Clare, Hayley, Libby and I went to a few nights ago, but seeing it (and getting rid of it) just now, reminded me of what had happened during that day not the night.
Rachel had come round for the afternoon. In the morning I was not particularly excited by this – it was merely Rachel, a very good friend, but a person I saw everyday from last September to June. I feel it is a skill of mine, being able to put down and pick up friendships with no tears or goodbyes, or furtive smiles and small talk. But seeing Rachel again in the afternoon made me very happy. I hadn’t missed her over the summer but something seemed complete again in seeing her now and knowing that she’ll be living in walking distance.
We took the train into central London and looked round H&M. Whilst Hayley, Rachel and Clare were trying on clothes I waited on the shop floor, looking at the shop floor. That’s something I don’t like about now; men cannot look at children because people will think them paedophiles, nor can they look at women’s clothes lest they be mistake for transvestites, nor can they look at people in general (probably).
We then retired to a coffee shop where we took part in a pilot episode for a fashion programme on BBC Three. I had to wear a silver belt – I was a bit annoyed.

Now I’ve unpacked and have a soft floor in my room I feel back in my element, and I’ve made a promise to update this thing every other day.

The club thing I went to was full of younglings.

R B Grange

Green jelly - Green cords

Got the train from Wakefield down to London yesturday. A journey I often take now but one that is always reassuringly different. The train I took was delayed and, I llater found out, contained three lots of passengers – one from an earlier train on the same root and one from Scotland or something. The journey is not the main content of the blog so don’t worry. This post is not about how GNER should get their act together and that I hope the company who are taking over the route do better.

Anyway (indeed anyway because the train did not take its usual route [stopping at Huntingdon of all places]) after arriving into King’s Cross an hour and forty minutes late I topped up my Oyster card and descended the escalators to get on a northbound Piccadilly line train.

As one pulled up the image of Kevin Eldon flashed before my eyes. Now some of you may know my many stories about comedians and transport, my theories and links about them etc. But Eldon is very different from Ian Lee or Simon Pegg or Mackenzie Crook. As you can gather from an earlier post, I place much more importance on the career of Mr Eldon; the work he has done over the last decade (longer in fact) has shaped my comedy and my love of comedy more than any other.

When I say ‘the image of …’ I mean he was sitting on the tube I as about to board, the one I boarded about twenty for hours ago. I placed my large wheely suitcase in the bay and sat down beside him. I had already mentioned him to Libby earlier that day so I was able to think about the beauty of London and coincidence.

Mr Eldon was reading a paper, an article about employers and Facebook. He put the paper down and I decided to strike up a hopeful conversation. I respect people’s privacy; I was holidaying Keswick last week and whilst walking through the town centre I heard someone shout ‘Richard Grange!’, it some Sam Thomas and some students doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award. I didn’t really want to talk to them but I did. Back to the important stuff, our conservation when like this:

RG: “Erm excuse me, are you Kevin Eldon?”
KE: “[Funny noise of confirmation]”
RG: “Ah, my friends would have killed me if I hadn’t have said hello”
KE: “They can’t be particularly nice friend if they’d kill you”
RG: “Ah… I wrote about you, how you are important, as a meme. How you and Paul Putner link all good British comedy [I mumble most of this].”
KE: “Oh well [the train starts to stop, My Eldon gets up]. Nice trousers.”
RG “Thanks. They’re corduroy.”

And then he was gone.

R B Grange

Hammer with which to shape it.

Lucky you; this post is about the making process of a piece of current work.

I’m making a new exhibition, just a simple thing, on or about mirrors. Mirrors in art, mirrors in science, mirroring etc. It’s boring and unoriginal, but I think it’s a good place to start with my exhibitioning.
I’ve only been compiling this list of works for a day now and already I’ve come across something that has disheartened me greatly. It is terrible when you find that an artist has already made a piece identical to the one you were working towards; Michael got his degree through quoting and understanding what his subject was about. If I quote I have to make it obvious and also come up with something original.
Now I’m not very good at coming up with ideas. I have very little imagination when it comes to the visual and rely on set imagery to help me. It must be two weeks ago now that I started taking pictures of myself and four action figures in the compositions of the front covers of some DVDs that were on my table.
This seemed good and fun; a system that could produce a lot of work. But today I found images on the internet by Candice Breitz of her taking film stills and re-enacting them.
I had hoped that I could do the same thing this next year with sitcoms, but I don’t know if I will be able to now. I could of course make work about not remaking sitcoms; that sounds more like me.
I’ve put a piece of her work into my mirrors exhibition for the reason that she was mirroring me in the past without knowing it.

Of yes, this Breitz woman is very attractive. Damn her.

R B Grange

Cottage-Industry Conceptualism

I’ve had a little think, and it turns out that I’m not really a conceptualist; I wouldn’t class my work as concept.
Granted, the art I make usually involves applying some kind of system, or formula, but I don’t think my work has the same robustness or longevity of what LeWitt named ‘Conceptual Art’ way back in 1967.
It us undeniable (and I have tried to deny it) that my work comes about through my thought. I would find it hard to draw something without thinking about it and that though, for me, would be the lasting image, not the drawing.
It is my hope is that my work does not have the baggage that so much conceptualism carries. That it may, if it wishes, reference art histories but not be steeped in them, nor rely upon knowledge I might presume the viewer to have.
I aspire for my work to be a small suggestion of an unknowable entire work. I might leave clues or make gestures towards something else but the focus of the work is its small self.
In short I now see that I work in memes, not concepts.

Dawkins created the word meme in about 1976 (needs verifying) and now all the cool kids a using it. You have memetic study, memeplexes and a whole host of other words to do with these little fellows. But I purpose a few more, and in true memetic terms the word which is able to reproduce the most will survive (my money’s on the last one):

Memeism
Mememalism
Memeist art

R B Grange

Anthropomorphism

Oh yes, the bane of my artistic existence. People applying human qualities to objects that have none. I know that I have already gone on at length about this (in my blog and other writings) but it seems that I should address it again in light of what I read last night.

I stopped reading The God Delusion months back because it was getting a bit angsty for me and also because I don’t need to be told that atheist get a hard time whilst religious folk get a life of whatever it is they get. But now that I’ve gone back to the book I realise how fun it is, how easy it is to understand and extent of Dawkin’s genius. He, in the latest and best chapter so far (The Roots of Religion), explained away why moths fly into candle flames; something that was, until a 14 hours ago, a bizarre incomprehensible act and which now seems marvellously interesting. (I wont explain it here).

Dawkins explains that not all animals’ behaviour is beneficial to its survival. Some actions of animals are by-products of their evolutionary process. Religion could well be one for humans.

So, back to the heading, Dawkins puts forward that second-guessing a predator could have been to key to man’s survival, meaning that one can see that a leopard is able to run faster than you but it also helps to ‘know’ that the animal has an intent to kill you. I am reminded of the part in Jaws where a shark’s eyes are described. Lifeless until they bite, as though the shark is able to feel joy and relish the murderous act he is committing. With this application of intent onto things that may have none the human brain must now be predisposed to think the world around it has a consciousness – is able to think and feel as we do. Therefore the concept of a creator would easily slip into the minds of men, thinking that all things are like he. And the same goes for art.

In conclusion (a terrible phrase) I have to admit defeat. The brain makes links and sees things that are not there and it is (or maybe was) important for it to do so. Damn you natural selection, you’ve got gullible, short-sighted, second-guessing apes on your hands. Let’s hope we’ll change; which of course we will.

R B Grange

Quentin Thomas

I wish to wish a happy birthday to Quentin Thomas, he is 63 today.

For those of you who don't know who this man is, join the club. I only know him as a name, or maybe even less than that. He is a part of the grammar of going to the cinemas.
I like concepts of grammar when it comes to entertainment. The little black and white lines that appear at the top right of the screen when there is going to be an ad-break, the credits and presenters' banter. All these strange little things that have become the norm and that noboby really notices outside those in the industry.

I have started some work on set visual dimensions within film and television, these elements of grammar are 'easy to see', maybe it could be an idea to go for obscurer and less noticable things next.

That was a boring post, sorry about that.

R B Grange

Reaction less cause and none effect/affect Potter/Werewolf/Withnail/Potter

A clichéd phrase, ‘brilliant minds think alike’. Something that’s true, granted but something that is also easy. It’s an easy excuse for plagiarism and for making normal folk feel more intelligent than they actually are.

I like linking things. I used to play a game where I would take some object and try and link it to something completely different, usually trying to do this with ten ‘steps’. This would entail applying all my pop culture and trivia knowledge and was wonderfully fun, for me anyway.

I’m not sure if I included this in a blog but for a while now I’ve had a ‘link’ story which enjoy telling people – linking An American Werewolf in London with Withnail and I via Harry Potter.
It goes as follows: In the Potter books a metaphor used for the demonization of gay people and HIV sufferers is the werewolf. The books mention of these people being outcasts, having a misunderstood virus, not being allowed to teach etc. In the classic John Landis film the Businessman is attacked at Tottenham Court Road underground station. In Withnail and I Withnail lies to Uncle Monty saying I is a ‘toilet-trader’ and was arrested on Tottenham Court Road.

And now what has happened? JK Rowling, in this new book, has the three main characters randomly turning up in Tottenham Court Road.

Maybe I’m seeing links that aren’t there – well, they are there, but maybe I’m placing too much importance on coincidence. But that’s how most things happen. Life on earth is a random coincidental thing.

R B Grange

Soundspace

I am wondering if I need to create or find a space where I may exhibit or create 'sound work'. What this work will be I don't know but I feel that it is something nessesary for my to do. I know the beginnings of the work that I shall place there, but where shall there be?

If this blog is for my writing I would be happy if I had a place to showcase my talking. The two spaces could easily overlap. I may speak something in one and transcribe it in another, or write something in one and read it in the other.

My writing style and mode of talking are quite different, I'd like to think, but we shall see.

R B Grange

'kissingcousins'

Went to the Henry Moore Institute today to hand in a CV. Seeing has how the one sent through the post was not answered, I thought giving this up-dated one might help.
I'd attended the main exhibition with Clare earlier this week; A Richard Deacon, two Tony Craggs and someone else's work were one show in supposed reaction to an 'ancient' bit of sculpture. I had noticed online that there was a selection of modernist works on show but I was unable to find these with Clare, in truth I didn't look that hard and it.
Today (06/07) I did manage to to find the exhibition 'kissingcousins'. Two constructed shelf type units had the majority of the work on. 'Playfully' constructed one might call them, like something found in the Early Learning Centre - large painted wooden platforms with works nestling snugly in corners and on plains.
The work itself was broad including a Duchamp, an Arp and a small Deacon sketch. I had a lovely hesitant conversation with the attendant in which we discussed big and little work, where one sits in a gallery to look at work and the heat.

I noted earlier that one able to approach the Head Curator of Leeds Art Gallery (I thought it was Leeds City Art Galleries, but maybe I was wrong) on exhibiting work - a comforting concept as I am feeling quite out of touch with the contemporary art scene in Leeds and everywhere.

Something called 'Night Light' put a bulletin up on my myspace about needing an artist to install themselves in Holy Trinity (by the station). The bulletin told me I was able to check-out their blog to see more details. I clicked the link but it directed me to my old blog, which was nice - but I don't think that's what they intended to do. I had forgotten I had added them. I am now puzzling to how they got my profile. I think it must have been through Harry. Even as I write this I am reminded of his over active creation of art; it's nothing sentimental or interesting - the light coming through the window has split on my pad.

R B Grange

Line through the middle

I have been unable 'to blog' recently due to my arrival home, departure back to London, my arrival back at home and my departure for Cambridge. But now I am settled and am writing up my work on destroying Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International. I do not think my blog is the best place to write about the subject so I shall not. I will, however, impart that the obliteration of the object is merely part of fiction. A fiction over which P B Reynolds holds complete control so it’s just an excuse for him to belittle me.

This blog is about a function I recently found on Microsoft Word. One now has the ability to cross words out. To place a line through the middle of them. I find this fascinating; when writing one is able to discredit the validity of statements made as soon as they are written. It does not get rid of the words, one can still read them, but gives them a dubious and uncertain nature, something completely new, I think, to the written word.

Unfortunately I am unable to find the function on this computer.

R B Grange

Kein Name, kein Autor, keine Bemerkung.

Have you noticed that the best books on art have their essays in both German and English. With this in mind I have translated into the mother tongue an old blog. See if you know which one it is.

Während in Lancashire heute laufend, habe ich mich an eine Diskussion erinnert die ich hatte gehabt mit Sue auf 29/03, um wie ich gehofft habe, dass Leute Kunstwerke ansehen würden. Als je ich argumentierte, dass Arbeiten in einem Vakuum verstanden werden sollten, sollte das keine Außenkräfte derjenig beeinflussen, von einer Stückarbeit zu verstehen. Selbstverständlich dies kann nie geschehen. Das Beispiel, das ich viel jetzt benutze, ist die Person, die ihre Zunge auf einem heißen Getränk morgens verbrennt, sieht eine Stück Arbeit Stunden später an und kann nur denken, dass die Arbeit um sie ist, die ihre Zunge verbrennen. Dies ist die Höhe der Trivialität, die ich in den Reaktionen von Leuten investiere, zu arbeiten, wenn sie das „Gefühl“ besprechen, das ein Stück hat. Das Stück hat Gefühle - den Zuschauer nicht macht, und kann nur an die Arbeit in Beziehung zu sich denken.

Was ich wünschen würde, ist, dass Leute sich an der Tür verlassen, beim Eintragen einer Kunstarena. Sie sollten ansehen und sollen an die Arbeit mit keiner „Kenntnis“ denken (oder Kenntnis, die sie vermuten sie) haben, achtet die Arbeit für sich.

Ich denke wie dieses, weil ich Kunst wahrnehme, von Hauptwichtigkeit zu sein. Ich suche nicht, wie eine Arbeit entstanden ist, aber wie es Dinge um es beeinflusst, aber an keinem Punkt macht ich verwende irgendetwas zur Arbeit. Kein Name, kein Autor, keine Bemerkung.

Belangen Sue hat gefragt, wie ich ungefähr gehen würde, zwingend Leute, Arbeit in so einem Weg, und ich anzusehen, haben erkannt, dass es weit von einer leichten Aufgabe ist. Ich hat weißer Würfel von einer Galerie einen Boden, der in schlammigen Fußabdrücken bedeckt wird, gehören tatsächlich viele dem Verwalter, dem Künstler und den Eigentümern. Ich nehme an, dass ich muss, zugeben muss, dass Besiegung auf Machen anderen Leuten in der Weg sieht, dass ich mache. Aber wenn Sie wünschen, zu verstehen, dass Ausstellungen der Weg, den ich nur eine bewusste Entscheidung mache, an nichts zu denken.

Little facts make for worse news.

Watched Newsnight yesterday. Salman Rushdie has been given a knighthood. Images on screen of people burning his book Sartanic Verses. I think of the great quote:

"you should try reading books instead of burning them"

I read in the paper today that its his birthday as well. I remembered that when that police woman had been shot and killed the gutter press always mentioned that it was on her daughters birthday, as though death wasn't bad enough.

I can imagine an earnest and well meaning news presenter saying of Rushdie:

"He will have a barrage of insults, death-threats and many a hassle; which will prove all the more upsetting this time because it's his birthday as well."

Bernard Manning died. Gavin Esler slipped up and called him Bernard Matthews.

R B Grange

Gone

Criticism. Clare tells me off for not photographing an image.

Adam and I were messing around. Adam had found some strange smelling incense that he then lit in my room. I told him to get out, but carried on to use the smell to taunt me through the window. I decided to try and hit Adam through the window with some old pieces of wood Hayley had given me (she had actually given me a washing basket but I took it apart). The hitting wasn’t working that well so I tried putting a large cube made of sticks through his window. He took the cube and threw it onto the grass three floors down.

It landed in a weird off centre representation of a cube but now, a few hours later it is a very nice drawing in the cabinet-opaque style.

Clare said I should take a picture of it. But I’ve written about it now so everything is ok. The cube will be gone in the morning.

R B Grange.

Writing something

I am, at the moment, writing something. I'm not sure what for it is taking, but I am enjoying myself.

Here is a small piece of it.

What is a lie? How and why are these things used? To understand lies and how lies are used we must understand the first lie. Physical reactions do not lie. Their outcome is dependant on circumstance ad chance; the way molecules act and react. Therefore we are able to say that before lie there was no lying. No deception or hiding. As we shall see this is not because there was no consciousness, but merely no life.

As far as I can see it was plants who told the first lies.
There is an orchid that’s flowers take the shape of a bee or large wasp. The insect in question will see the flower, believe it to be a female of its species and try to procreate with it.

This will be futile, nothing will happen. The insect will get annoyed (not that best word as it implies emotion) and fly off – taking some of the plant’s pollen with it. The bee then arrives at another such orchid and des the same.

The insect does not manage to procreate but the plant does. The bee has been lied to.
Freak mutations in the genetic structure of the plant have lead to it being attractive to one certain animal. This animal as helped the plants that look like then to survive. The plant has not consciously lied, it is unable to, but deceiving another organism has kept its branch of the evolutionary tree blossoming.
The bee must also survive for the plant to; therefore the plant’s deception cannot be too good.

So survival then brought about lying into existence in the most natural of senses. The plant gives false hope to the bee. It prostitutes itself so it may survive.

Indeed many animals have evolved to lie in their appearance. Camouflage, the ability to hide without shelter, is a lie.

But this is all cross species, why would an animal lie to one of its own kind? Is it purely a means of survival and if so can lying be used in a positive manner?

R B Grange

Where I Fit

I did some washing this morning which enabled me to wear clean clothes for the rest of the day. This is nice, I enjoyed it very much so.

The people in SW1 always look clean and fresh, and they know how to dress. Even the old men who could wear a string belt and a musty old hat are well dressed and it is because of one thing: They choose to be. They wake up on a morning and think: "I'll wear nice stuff today".

Now I have never been told how to dress. I did not go to a school that taught you such things. I've taken it upon myself to shirts and tank-tops for many a year now, but I feel I'm outgrowing that. I want a fresher image, something less fiddley. My new hemp and bamboo jumpers are fitting the bill well enough - unisex, versatile, nondescript. But I feel I need some guidance, a uniform which is able to tell people 'who I am and what I want'.

Rules are important to me. The men in SW1 wear cream trousers and blue blazers with gold buttons.

Walking to Starbucks near our exhibition space (SW1W 9JR) I wonder where I fit. Not in the art worlds, not in society, but in myself. Am I who I wish to be? I think I am, or at least I'm getting there. Maybe a hair cut would help.

R B Grange

Links

I've placed links on my blog to give you an idea of the art world I belong to. It's far from comprehensive, but nothing ever is. In considering the links (to be found at the bottom of every page) altogether you may be able to find paths and threads that link them all. Then again you may not. I can't really think of any bar they are what I enjoy.

So here's a post about somethings surrounding my blog.

'Old Blogs of mine' this link will take you to a blog I Kept from November tp Feburary. It has proper reviews of shows and less of the random rubbish usually found on this one.

'My Myspace' is a link to the more sociable side of me. It's not updated that often but you may find the profiles of people of interest. An old freind of mine added me recently, Amy Allen, she's not quite as I remember her but it makes sense that she is the woman she is. She's an 'alt model', seemingly

'My Flickr Account' only recently set up, shows some photographs of my work.

'The Transient Gallery' the website (designed by Chris Grainger) of my gallery. It's not yet finished, but nothing ever is.

'The Blog of Hayley Dixon' a contemporary

'Pom' on clicking on this link go to the Verve section of the site and then click on Pom's profile. She is beauty. Some kind of undoubtedly female androgyne demi-god. I saw her at Old Street station just before Easter, I recognised her because I had read an article in the Inde about young models and thought how lovely she was then. I tried to explain what she looked like to Becky and then spent 45 minutes trying to find an image of her on the internet.

'Robboblin' is someone on youtube with the same comedy liking as me. He is an important man.

'Mystery Science Theatre 3000' Do not underestimate the power of talking over films and referencing obscure stuff. 'You're the evilest man alive' 'No! there's that man in Eastbourne.'

The bottom two are where I started. Two sites that were talked about in the lectures and I decided to investigate. The written elements of the concrete poetry site still appeal but they are not my world. A simple version of my world is the above.

R B Grange.

Stereotype

Yesterday I went to look at a house in Manor House. We still haven't found a place where we can start paying for it in July or August, but I'm sure we'll fall on our feet. The house was an appropriate size for the six of us but was inhabited by students. By this I mean caricatures of students. They had washing up left out, beer cans lying around, some traffic cones on display, a shopping trolley in the garden and a poster that I shall not begin to describe because you've probably already guessed who it was of. I wondered to myself why these people had decided to conform to the stereotype of themselves, was it through need? or pressure? I then thought about what the house would end up looking like if we moved in. For the most part it would be tidier, not my part, and would contain much more of an eclectic mix of paraphernalia.

Looking over an post of mine from April 14 on signatures I realise that short-hand must exist for people to take notice of anything. We have a Transient Gallery exhibition on in a week or so and there shall be no 'painting' in it. Should we really stray far from what people expect? are we doing ourselves an injustice? I think I shall convert jokes into formula.

R B Grange

Lost and Found

Went to look at a gallery space yesterday. It belongs to Becky's uncle who owns some kind of property business, I think. It's in Pimlico so we get the tube down to Victoria. Whilst walking about trying to find the space I see the guy who played the homeless man in Episode 2.2 of Ricky Gervais's and Stephen Merchant's Extras. This not being the first time I have encountered someone who has worked with Gervais I did not get too existed.

We, Becky, Clare and I, found the place, an office space on a road called something like Upper Belgrave Street. It's very nice and we are told we can move ourselves in quite soon, some stuff has to be taken out of the space first. I say we could fit about seven pieces of work into the gallery and Clare concurs with six. We then retire to a near by coffee shop to talk through some inital ideas. Questions of who, when and how are thrown around and things get very existing when we realise that we have final say about whose work goes in.

I stay quiet, a bit, whilst the girls sort out dates and suggest names, I am think of what I shall be contributing to the show. I am very much looking forward to sitting in the gallery space, as you see people doing, using a laptop or putting things in envelopes, all smart and silent. There is a large shelving unit which has been claimed by one of the people who work in the office, for the duration of the exhibition it shall remain where it is, I could do something with this, applying the formula maybe.

So I am lost and found, we have a space and I have no idea what to place within said space. It will be sculptural, I have no doubt about that (maybe I should), but what?

R B Grange

Our Gallery

Although I was not present when the Transient Gallery first properly came into being I was, and am, a founding member.

Both Hayley and Clare have raised the subject of using the gallery in the near future. The very near future. Chris [online editor], in reaction to layout and form suggestions made by Hayley, has redesigned our website, making it more 'image based' and simplifying how the site is to be used by us. I've fallen on my feet concerning friends and contempories, I feel as though we will be able to do a lot and will have the opportunities to do a lot. But a lot of what?

The last object I created was a film you are able to find through exploring the links at the bottom of the page [if you do find the film turn the music off, please]. It does not matter to me if I do not produce an image or an object, my work [process] is merely there to exhaust itself. It seems my block has come from not being able to think of a new system, something which the gallery could provide.

I'm not particularly sure what I mean by the last statement, but I think I need a role, a position, an office.

R B Grange

Introducing Peter Reynolds

In reading this you will not find out who Peter Reynolds is. Reynolds is not a 'who' he is merely a name.

Peter is a creation of mine, he enables me to have no involvement with my work after its completion. For example; I make a work, when it is finished I say it was made by P Reynolds. Because of this people are unable to think the work is about me, Grange, they are unable to place the work in any visible canon and no 'signature' or styles can be applied nor seek to be understood.

I created Peter through a need to distance myself from my work. Even though my practice is system based and non-figurative people tired applying they they knew about me to the work. In a group crit this came to a head when I presented 162 ISBNs. Instead of looking at the work people turned to talk to me, asking me 'What is it about'. I never presume to know more about the work than other people and therefore I replied 'I don't know'. But people continued to ask me incorrectly, thinking that if they knew more about the production of the work they would know more about it in the present.

At this point a thought came to mind: What if I said the work belonged to someone else, what if made out that work had nothing to do with me (even in its creation). I could claim ignorance of meaning (which I had anyway) and ignorance of production.

And so Peter manifested himself. Fully formed, he takes no form, and ready to make work. Over the past few months his function has changed a little and other characters hav been created, the most prominent of these being Monster *1b, a critic of Peter's work in cartoon form.

Monster *1b is at the moment missing.

R B Grange

Worlds

I feel drawn yet again to disscuss the concept of why this blog was set up. How may I explore and express the art world of the present. I have found, through very little thought on my part, that there is not 'an art world' but many. As I have said before sometimes the different worlds meet, sometimes ones very similar to each other will exist side by side oblivious to each other and their proxy.
On April 26 I attended a book launch at Foyles on Charing Cross Road. The book was a 'chat book' of my brother's friend Helen Mort, a young woman who won the Foyles's Young Poet thing and who seems to be set for great things in the future. But what does that mean to me? If my brother had not been friends with Helen I would not be writting this entry because I would not have gone to the opening. Not that I do not like poetry, Ted Hughes and Simon Armitage have a great influence on me, but I would not place myself in a physical situation where poetry would be read or glamourised.
But this world I found myself in for a brief moment was something not entirely alien to me. I could have, before hand, easily imagined something like it existing; people who were interested in young poets going along to a shop to hear some reading and by a book. I did actually think for a moment I was quite at home before the readings, in a book shop, sitting about, people who I would describe as duffers hanging about. Things were going swimmingly until the personalities came.
I use poetry in a different way to visiual art. I don't think I have to see every piece of work I write about, I can often be very inflenced by not going to see work, but poetry has to be experienced, has to be known, it does not nessesserily need to be 'understood' but comprehended at least. I use poetry as a safe means of emotional enduldgment (not concrete poetry obvious). I can read and escape, read and feel something else, but in the Foyles context I was being read to, and I think it scared me.
Three poets read. The first girl, who I saw quite randomly in Cambridge yesturday, was not that good a public speaker - hesitant and making strange eye contact (don't ask me to explain), she treaded her poems with a dubious nature and they all seemed sexual to me. The second girl I was very impressed with. Jay Bernard she was called. Boyish and youthful, she seemed well within her element, I noticed that she did not read atleast one of her poems but spoke it. Yet again they all seemed sexual to me. Thirdly was Helen who was very good at reading her poems and spoke 'clearly' (T S Eliot ref.). When she had finished we left and I was very much back into my world again. A world where I speak and where I chose what to read and do not have things read to me.
It is hard to deny that the world of poetry exist now, but where do I fit? As a by stander who shall probably never actively partake? Does my art world, or indeed my comedy world, interact with the poetry world and how does Alan Bennett fit into all of this - he being an art lover, a comedien and writer. Should I try and fit into one world or another? Or stradel them all for a bit longer.
It would be nice to get involved in contempory poetry, it could mean seeing that Jay girl again which would be nice.

R B Grange (no spellcheck on this one, good look finding meaning)

Heroes and Vilians

A question: How do we know that Jimmy Carr is being postmodern and Jim Davidson is not?

Chris and I were sitting in Eat on Regent's Street discussing comedy. Now I have, of late, become interested in deconstructing set jokes, seeing how they work and trying to apply the frameworks to amusing things I have to say. This stems from a programme I used to watch as a child/young teenager, a programme called Lee and Herring's 'This Morning, With Richard Not Judy' (TMWRNJ). This was broadcast at twelve noon on a Sunday on BBC2 and is the origin (I think) of my love of comedy. Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, along with Kevin Eldon and Paul Putner (see eariler blog) used satire, spoof, humourous review and many other staples of the British Comedy diet. In lesser hands this programme would not have aired but Lee and Herring are masters of their trade and are still incredibly valid comediens today.

One part of the show was entitled 'Lazy Comedy Slags', where Stewart Lee would tell and joke, tell the audience how the is put together, about how the comedien gives the audience power, how the joke can be used in other circumstances and so on. Then Richard Herring would try and tell the joke again but fail. Most of the jokes were of the 'pull back and reveil' sort; where a situation would be proposed involving an action on the part of the comedien, then it's context would be reveilled as something contrapuntal to that of the action.

When one looks at comedy as the appilcation of system it seems easy enough, but the audience gets bored of hearing the same joke even when it is disguised as something else, people still pick up on it and are unhappy, they feel cheated. I still laugh at TMWRNJ because it knows what it is doing. 'Lazy Comedy Slags' is merely telling the 'and then I got off the bus' joke, they are just reusing tired and boring set ups but looking back at them, saying that this is how comedy works and it is amusing. They use the same set up every week, deconstructing the same joke over and again, getting it wrong over and again and never getting anywhere in the routine. But this is vital to how comedy has changed from the 90s.

Once an audience knows a magic trick they will not be amazed, what amazed people watching TMWRNJ was the humour in exposing how humour works - postmodernism. Jimmy Carr applys a formula, the joke, it may be the similar kind of joke Jim Davidson tells, but Carr does not revel in sexism and racism, he merely states it in a deadpan manner and lets it exist. He is conscious of what he is doing, but more importantly his audience is conscious aswell; this would not have happened if Lee and Herring had not told us how jokes work.

R B Grange

Private View

Last week I attended the private view of Allora and Calzadilla's piece Clamor at the Serpentine. Nina, a friend of mine from Goldsmiths had said she was going and I begrudgingly tagged along with Hayley and Clare. I say begrudgingly because my image of 'private views' is of people drinking and disappearing up their own arses. What I found was different to my expectations and yet not so at the same time.

We arrived to see someone having their picture taken with Grayson Perry, as Clare. The dress Clare was wearing had a straighter cut to the ones Perry is famous for and her hair was also smoother this a large fringe. This got me quite excited - one may easily forget what a contemporary artist looks like but not one with such a distinctive look as that.

For a minute or two we loitered outside. This was not wholly my fault, but I'm sure I added to it, you see somehow we had gained the idea on arrival that it was invitation only and we wouldn't be able to get in. In my mind that was reason enough for not trying and from glancing at the garden area we were all (maybe bar Chris and Hayley) inappropriately dressed. Unfortunately for me we were able to get in with no trouble.

I can't remember ever going to the gallery before but it's a lovely space. I would have preferred there to be fewer people there and a less obtrusive piece. I like art to be silent, or at least silent from a distance, which this piece was not. The massive concrete bunker wailed out semi-military tunes and was, if one believes what one reads in the bumph surrounding art, a piece 'about' war. Now I didn't read the any of the paraphernalia and when I became stuck that the piece had military connotations, a certain tune triggered this I think (up until this I thought the object looked like one of the houses in the Goblin City in Labyrinth), I quickly felt ashamed of myself. Not because war is bad, or the fact I probably help sustain it, but because I was wearing a jacket cut in a military. This may sound petty and stupid, but I did not want people to think that I had come to this work knowing about war, or thinking I had to get dressed up in reaction to the art. Obviously no one would think this, no one except me, but I could easily imagine that other me being in the room and laughing blatantly at me, so I took it off sharpish.

We then retired to the garden, sat on the grass and where I talked about 1990 - 1999 comedy programmes with Libby and her boyfriend Danny. Danny mentioned an Eddie Izzard sitcom about cows and while Chris marvelled at the fact he did not know about this I wondered if or not Kevin Eldon and Paul Putner had been involved, and if not, how was I able to link them to Eddie Izzard.

Brett Anderson walked past us on the grass without saying hello, but that's normal for me, Konnie Huq walked past me and Chris yesturday up at Alexandra Palace without even stopping to talk. You think you know people.

The rest of the evening entailed watching the HandMade film How to Get Ahead in Advertise, a great film that turns out just to be a massive pun with an abrupt ending.

I realise now Gilliam fits in well in the HandMade films canon because he is not good at narrative.

R B Grange

A Piece of Correspondence

Dear Mr Meadley,

On 04/02/07 Mr R B Grange invented a formula. An algebraic equation with the ability to produce varying art objects.
The formula is this:

“Object = n x n2 x 1.6n”

The formula is used thusly: ‘n’ is variable and therefore any statistic may be used in the place of it. Take for example the number of stars on the European Union’s flag – 12.

n = 12

Therefore: Object = 12 x 122 x (1.6 x 12)
= 12 x 144 x 19.2

Now, with the three outcomes one is able to make objects. These could be cuboids, line drawings, or triangular based pyramids, it does not matter. ‘n x n2 x 1.6n’ works to abstract meaning from shape but demands that an investigation into the representation of itself occur.

For this installation in 1032 Mr R B Grange has decided to take three existing dimensions of the gallery space and place them within the formula. Each length taken is equal to n2 (this enables all objects created to fit within the required space [n2 usually being the longest length]), the lengths chosen are as follows:

Shape X n2 = 615mm
Shape Y n2 = 610mm
Shape Z n2 = 430mm

Therefore the three lengths in the formula are as follows:

Shape X: Object = 24.80mm x 615mm x 39.68mm
Shape Y: Object = 24.70mm x 610mm x 39.52mm
Shape Z: Object = 20.75mm x 430mm x 33.18mm
Now one might take these at face value, using each statistic as a length and make three cuboids. But a more, let us say, dynamic form would be to use these lengths to make a triangular based pyramid where each of the lengths meets at a 90 degree angle to each other.

Below is a basic net from which objects may be created.
n2
1.6n
n




When the flange of n is attached to the n length the object is finished. The fourth face of the object need not be applied as it is already suggested towards in the existence of the three faces.

For installation the pieces should be placed as follows:

Shape X: should be placed in the back left corner with its n2 length at a vertical.
Shape Y: should be placed on the main right hand horizontal with its n2 length on the horizontal and with its three right angles in the back right corner.
Shape Z: should be placed with its n2 length on the front 430mm of the raised platform with its three right angles on the right.

I hope that these instructions are fully understood and shall be executed in an appropriate manner.

Yours,

Mr R B Grange

p.s. Sol LeWitt is dead. Long live Sol LeWitt.

Quotes

Here are several pieces of writing I did for an essay. They are analysis of three objects. They are my opinion and therefore matter as much as yours.

The ‘Go-motion’ animation of the raptors in the kitchen made in the preproduction of Jurassic Park.

The nineteen-ninety-three film Jurassic Park is both the seminal film of my childhood and has had the longest lasting impression on the way I understand the world of any film. (‘Your scientists were so preoccupied with weather are not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should’ is still one of my favourite phrases in the English language.)
The quote, in bold, refers to the process of making regarding the finished film. The raptors in the kitchen as seen in the end object – the Object that is Jurassic Park – are either CGI or animatronics, but these in the preproduction are Stop or Go-motion animation. This preliminary piece works as an animated story board but in more detail. The lighting and colour scheme is as it is in the film and the actions of the characters and their movements are also similar.
The most interesting aspect of this object for me is the context of when I first viewed it. The object came into existence in my understanding on 9th December 2006. Up until this point in time I knew only a basic amount of knowledge concerning the making of the film, but in purchasing it on DVD I acquired masses of preproduction knowledge through watching documentaries and early screen tests. But all these objects experienced were in retrospect, they were all put into my consciousness after the original object had been there for thirteen years. The sequence of events in the making of the films are as follows:

Go-motion film made (preproduction 1992) - Film made(1993) - Film viewed by myself (1993)

But my understanding of the film (in its making) works backwards.

Film viewed by myself (1993 to present day) - Go-motion film viewed by myself (2006)

Of course I am conscious that the film was made, but I cannot fully comprehend how.
The raptors in the kitchen Go-motion is a quote about deconstructing an object (the object being Jurassic Park). But at the same time understanding the deconstruction (the viewing of the Go-motion) is an object and the making of the original object (the Go-motion film) are objects in themselves. The film exists outside of the Go-motion film, they are completely separate and similarly the other way round, the Go-motion film is beautiful to watch and should be seen as something complete and completely other in itself.

The concept of Virtual Photons

This second quote is a concept, or really; it is the easiest way of understanding something.
In truth we know very little of how the universe works and that is why our understanding of it is through theoretical sciences. We can only guess or predict how things came into being and the rules we learn at school and the information we are told is merely how scientists presume things to happen. In a hundred years time we will have progressed and we will understand things better, maybe, or we will at least have a different way of expressing them.
Virtual Photons are a concept which scientists use to help with equations. If a particle is being study in a vacuum and it suddenly does something unexpected like gains an amount of energy, or changes directions, the scientist will not know why it has done this. It has gained the energy from a source that we at the moment do not understand and therefore it is said to have come into contact with a Virtual Photon, a sub-atomic particle that does not exist but must exist for the matter observed to have reacted in he way it did.
As I say, in the future we may well understand what has happened to the particle, but for now we must comprehend that it has reacted with something that is completely unfathomable to us but which we have given a name.
This ties in with the Go-motion film because they both deal with the subject of being conscious of things happen and yet accepting the fact that things will happen without us knowing how.

‘I can’t report her now. I’ve destroyed the evidence’ from A Cream Cracker under the Settee.

This direct verbal quote from one of Alan Bennett’s Talking Head works in my consciousness in the same way as Jurassic Park, it has been something that I have been aware of for the majority of my life, but only of late have I understood it more fully, through maturity. But the important aspect of the quote for me is the meaning of the words.
An old woman has fallen in her home. There is no one to help her and the help she is offered at one point she declines. The woman, Doris, played by Thora Hird in the original television play, finds a cream cracker under the settee, proof that her cleaner – Zulema – has not been earning her keep. The woman then eats the cracker. The quote refers an idea, I do not like it in films when a character has experienced something and no one believes them, time travel films usually involve insanity – The Twelve Monkeys and Donnie Darko spring first to mind – and it is this, the being conscious of an experience and being unable to prove it, which make people maybe not doubt the individual’s sanity but their truthfulness. The image of an old woman who knows she is near death pathetically helpless on the floor reminds me that the individual is alone and no matter how much explaining some does other can never know the full meaning of their words, or that person exactly.

Signatures

I've just got back from visiting the newly installed pieces of Andy Goldsworthy work at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Only two of the works struck me as anything of interest: the first being a space created by the weaving or stacking of tree trunks and branches. I have to admit that this is a piece one has to experience, you cannot hope to 'know' this 'room' without stepping into it. The second piece I enjoyed was a room (next door to the first piece [I think]) with a mud and hair mixture applied to the walls which had cracked as it had dried and was still in the process of cracking. In truth I did not enjoy the whole of this piece but one certain element of the ridiculous stuck in my mind, the sharpness of the corners. Now interior corners are able to be sharp and unobtrusive convex ones (ones which stick out) stick out - the two convex corners around the entrance of this room were, like the rest of the place, covered in mud, but they still held a very crisp line. This seemed absurd to me.

But to the main point of this post.
Mother and Father both enjoyed the Goldsworthy work, his use of space, material, time etc - but to my mind he cut corners. He seems to have fallen into something Richard Wilson talked about when he visited Cat Hill, the concept of a signature piece. Wilson admitted that his sheds were something of an albatross (or maybe a smaller bird: a toucan or a gannet) and the constant image, for it did seem figurative, for Goldsworthy seems to be the absent circle. It appeared (ha) in several works of very differing materials and through different dimensions being very dominant a structural piece made from leaf stems and also in large drawings (called paintings by the artist) made by muddy sheep footprints. But all the time these detracted from the work, giving vasts amounts of detail unneeded focal points.
I am not saying that it is wrong for an artist to have a system or a set image which is used and explored, indeed if I stated that I would be very much the hypocrite, I mean to say that Goldsworthy knew what he was going and did what was expected of him.

Nothing manifested itself as new, it was all within a comfort zone of both artist and view. Maybe this is a good thing, I am sure in my that it is not but that is my comfort zone - maybe I should leave it sometime.

" 'God save thee Ancient Mariner

From the fiends that plague thee thus,

Why looks thous so?'

'With my cross bow

I shot the Pelican!' "

R B Grange

Absenteeism

[continued]: Correspondence is linked to Wikipedia because it is a constant discussion (as discussed already by myself in an earlier post). Wikipedia to Sturgeon White Moss because they are both overviews into something very contemporary.

Sorry if that was a bit short and quick but I received some news today which I think very important.

Clare tells me that Sol LeWitt died on Sunday, and indeed, when I consulted Wiki just now this has been proposed as a fact.

So what does this mean? It means there are a finite number of LeWitt structures, pieces, instructions, drawings etc. Which is good for R B Grange, with Lewitt unable to make more work I can carry on where he left off, coming up with instructions and systems and doing them (excuse the phrase) to death.
And what of the pieces of his in existence? Will people read more into them now that the 'author' is unable to say "shut up"? I hope not; my love of LeWitt's work has nothing to do with the man, in fact it is the distancing of the artist from his work I admire. I know little of his background, his art education and other such nonsense - I do not need to know these to love an execution of words on a wall, LeWitt may well have been dead for several years now and the work would remain the same to me.
I don't wish to get into another anti-artist rant but I shall finish with this: Sol LeWitt is dead - A Wall Divided Vertically into Fifteen Equal Parts, Each with a Different Line Direction and Colour, and All Combinations (1970) is not.

R B Grange

Leaps and Bonds

This blog is entitled thus because I feel I have amassed enough trivia in my mind to link my five objects.
First a refresher.

The objects:

Sturgeon White Moss.
Private Eye.
Wikipedia.
Communication.
HandMade Films.

HandMade Films:

Was made to fund The Life of Brian and then continued to make comic/surreal British films. One of the many key players in the films was Michael Palin who wrote and appeared in several productions. One of these films is A Private Function written by Alan Bennett. Bennett was friends with and worked with Peter Cook who both rose to fame with their show Beyond the Fringe. Cook up some money into the magazine Private Eye.

Private Eye:

Is a fortnightly satirical magazine. Wikipedia says that:

"[Private Eye] was the first outlet to name the Kray twins as the gang leaders terrorising the London underworld in the 1960s. This only occurred as the then editor Richard Ingrams was on holiday and proprietor Peter Cook standing in for him thought it too good an opportunity to miss."

an amazing random fact. The magazine, to me, seems more like a discussion than other publications; you will often find that when an article has gone for too long there will be a small note in brackets, something like [Ed. that's enough]. There is also a large sections of the paper where letters are published - criticising, commenting, correcting etc, and indeed the articles themselves are written (in a similar way to how Yes Minister was) by people who are directly engaged the subjects.

Correspondence:

will follow shortly, I have to smash up a gate now.

R B Grange.

A Hopeful Vacuum

Whilst walking in Lancashire today I remembered a discussion I'd had with Sue on 29/03 about how I hoped people would view works of art. As ever I was arguing that works should be comprehended in a vacuum, that no exterior forces should affect ones understanding of a piece of work. Of course this can never happen. The example I use a lot now is the person who burns their tongue on a hot drink in the morning, views a piece of work hours later and can only think that the work is about them burning their tongue. This is the level of triviality I invest in people's reactions to work when they talk about the 'emotion' a piece has. The piece does not have emotions - the viewer does, and can only think of the work in relationship to themselves.
What I would wish is that people leave themselves at the door when entering an art arena. They should view and think about the work with no 'knowledge' (or knowledge they presume they have), respect the work for itself.
I think like this because I perceive art to be of major importance. I do not look for how a work has come into being, but how it affects things around it, but at no point do I apply anything to the work. No name, no author, no comment.
Sue asked how I would go about forcing people to view work in such a way, and I realised that it is far from a easy task. I white cube of a gallery has a floor covered in muddy footprints, indeed many belong to the curator, the artist and the owners. I suppose I must have to admit defeat on making other people see in the way I do. But if you wish to understand exhibitions the way I do just make a conscious decision to think of nothing.

R B Grange

For many a reason I decided to start reading Alice's Adventures In Wonderland two days ago. I finished it yesterday and then went on to Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, which I am still on with now. In reading the first story I flipped between the two copies I own of the book; the first I purchased from a small shop near Christ Church which has an introduction by Will Self, the second I bought from a Waterstones in Leeds (the one nearer the Headrow) during my ISBN project on foundation. This second book has both stories and several once damp pages - due to my covering of them with a plaster lid.
The stories remain the same as they ever did, although sometimes my mind drifts to the myriads of adaptations that exist and their depictions of characters. Indeed, the two books have different illustrations. But I find now something more in what the characters have to say. There is no more intelligence - the work is nonsense - but it seems more quotable.

The Alice makes a brilliant statement after she id asked "Why is a raven like a writing desk?". After the conversation going off at a tangent about watches, butter, meaning what you say and saying what you mean, Alice gives up on the riddle:

"No I give it up," Alice replied "What's the answer?"
"I haven't the slightest idea." said the Hatter.
"Nor I," said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily, " I think you might do something better with the time," she said, "than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers."

Of course in works of art I do not look for answers. Films, novels, sculpture etc are meat hods of exploration, not places where one can find what they are looking for. If something does seem to provide an answer it should be treated with immense suspicion. But there is nothing better than asking questions which ask questions in themselves and of themselves and that I why I love paradoxes - they are things that cannot be solved and therefore anyone trying to solve them is an idiot. One who looks for answers does not gain intelligence. One who looks for questions finds everything and nothing.
Which brings me on to my next quote during the trial:

"If there's no meaning it it," said the King, "That saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any..."

I think that's a good place to stop tonight.

R B Grange.

A Centre

The centre of something can be many things. It is able to be a hub, a starting point, a concentration of something. Many things.
Another way of thinking about the centre of something is to think of it as the epitome of said object. Although this is thoroughly flawed. To look at the centre of a silhouette does not tell you anything of the image, other than its blankness; the peripheral elements of a silhouette give it its distinction, its self.
The centre can also be seen as an average, indeed the Median average is just this. Therefore number, not only shape, is able to have a centre.

I often wonder, and never acted upon my wondering, whether or not Britain had a centre. I do not like Little Englanders or this new breed of anti-intellectual middle class, but I wished to see what the geographical epitome could be. And here it is. A page on Wiki that is exactly what I had been not really looking for. My friend Chris pointed it out to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_points_of_the_United_Kingdom

It has many variations of the Centre, but that's fine, in fact it fits in more with my understanding of things. No answers, only more questions.

R B Grange.

Everything I Know

HandMade Films.
For a start I’m not even that sure about how to spell ‘HandMade Films’ it could be ‘handmade’ or ‘hand made’ or ‘HandMade’ so there we are.

So, I don’t know what the company was and therefore you should be braced for this overview of all the films they funded. The overview is mine – it is what I know. The titles have been got from the internet but I shall soon know all of them off by heart, along with their dates, directors and key actors.

The films:

Monty Python's Life of Brian: this films is the reason for the company being set up. Whilst filming the money dried up (a characteristic of films involving Terry Gilliam), so George Harrison said “here’s some”.

The Long Good Friday: some filming for this was done on Green Lanes, that’s near where I am at the moment.

Time Bandits: a brilliant children’s film. I remember seeing one afternoon and Channel 4. a story goes that in the script Palin had written something like: ‘the knight takes off his helmet and looks like a cheap version of Sean Connery’, the casting people, reading this, gave Connery part.

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl: a live recording of Python sketches. Palin corpse through the ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch.

The Missionary: I don’t know that much about this film, nor does Wiki.

Privates on Parade: Yet again – zip.

Bullshot: Billy Connely is in this film

A Private Function: Excellent film written by Alan Bennett, to whom the farmer’s boy bares quite a resemblence. Dame Maggie Smith plays the part of an aspiring housewife beautifully. I could write much more on this film, but this is only an overview and therefore I must move on.

Water: Nothing again

Mona Lisa: naught

Shanghai Surprise: no

Withnail and I: Yet again a brilliant film which shall be discussed with relish later.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: an other lovely film from Gilliam and one which had to be distinguished as a different film from the original, even though some of the set pieces and shots are identical.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising: a film loved by Libby in the second year. It stars Richard E. Grant and is very good.

Nuns on the Run: the last HandMade film under the ownership of Harrison. It’s light but dark and features Eric Idle. The love interest had the part of Rose Tyler’s mother in Doctor Who.

So there we are. Not everything I know but a brief look into everything. The films I have intimate knowledge of and can work on right know are: Life of Brian, A Private Function and Withnail and I. And that is what I intend to do.
I feel I must find some overarching ‘sense’ from which I am able to link the films not just under the banner of HandMade Films, but something else.

R B Grange.

The past ten years of British comedy have been ruled by two men.
Their names are easily forgotten and they are often over looked but you will have seen their faces.
Kevin Eldon and Paul Putner play the other characters. They are used when a comedic writer needs someone who can act and who can also deliver lines in the correct style. These two are the best and British comedy knows it.
They have appeared in JAM, Spaced, Rock Profile, Black Books, Look Around You, This Morning With Richard Not Judy, Big Train, I'm Alan Partridge, and more recently Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
According to imdb Eldon has starred in 53 programmes since 1992 and written for 5. Putner has starred in 38 and written for 2.
It is my belief that there are no comedy actors greater than these, all the wealth and humour of present day British comedy hang on these two men.

Authorhsip and Ownership.

A hobby horse of mine; the ownership of objects.
My understanding expressed in the simplest manner is that an art object has nothing to do with the artist attributed to it. The artist may have been involved in the making of the object, but now that that process if finished he is no longer relevant.
In my perfect art world there would still be artists, but no egos. An artist is a craftsman, his work may differ to craft, (or applied arts as some would have it, as through craft were a dirty work, which it isn't) but he is still producing an object. Example; Richard Long is a craftsman, he makes object, his tools are his legs, his medium is walk.

A craftsman does not seek to express himself in his practice, he may have a style or a signature piece, but he knows that the object he creates must work, it must function. An artist should think in the same way. One finds art students who say they are 'painters' (whatever that means) but who, to my mind cannot paint. Art students think that they can get away with little discrepancies, a screen print not lining up, a grubby plinth, a concept that has not been thought through. And of course the self.
Expression does not concern me as an artist. I admit that I do have a style and self directed parameters in which I may work, but I do not seek to express anything other than a process. I do not think that I know more about my work than others. I have a more intimate memory of method by which the object came into being (probably). So why do so many think they themselves belong in art works, or that they can say anything more about the work than others. Figurative work is where the concept of authorship seems most prevalent in visual culture and therefore this is where I shall start.

Self

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

Even though I have entitled this post 'Self' the above link cannot tell you anything about Wikipedia you did not already know. The definition of Wikipedia (according to me) is the articulation of collective knowledge, Wiki is defined every time anyone edits the site. It does not need a page to state what it is, it needs action.

I alone could put forward a definition of the site on the site - the definition may be highly inaccurate but through my action of being a part of the process of sharing what I believe to know I am working to keep this source alive.

I'll come back to this in a bit.

R B Grange

The Door : A story

A Passage taken from Sketch book: 21/12/06 - present (13/01/07)

On the eleventh I had my first driving test. I passed.
Waiting for Tony Moore to arrive two hours before my passing I was in the hall, the square meter of hall. The wind, as it does, was blowing - if the wind does not blow it is just air. It struck me that the moving door, for it did move, or judder, vibrating in its frame, was art. It was how art is.
People see all sorts in art works; they see people, animals, emotions, activity, themselves, all things that are not there.
From the point of view of someone not paying attention the movement of the door in the wind could be someone trying to come through, or a letter or message being posted. But no, it is just the wind. A nothing shaking an object, not saying anything, just rattling it a bit.
When art is perceived by most they hope something will be imparted to them. That they will find some deeper meaning about the work, about life, about themselves. They believe something is trying to be imparted, a message breaking through. But there is nothing there, just a bit of nothing.

R B Grange.

Absent Art

('Absent Art', 'Oblivion Art' and 'The Art of Nothing' are not real art movements. Some work in existence might be perceived as the kind of art being discussed here, but it is not, all work discussed here is not in existence)

The beauty of absent art is its constancy.
It does not exist in the comprehension of the beholder, there is nothing to behold, and therefore the art works outside of the human, outside of the random skittish behaviour to which humans are prone.
Of course the Object non-existing by itself, imparting the constant message of its absence perceives none of this.
To be lost is not to have no context but to have no understanding. Works of art, however strange this concept may seem, have no context. They exist permanently within themselves. They naturally exist apart from us and therefore the beauty of nothing and of absence and oblivion is not for us, it is for the art. Art creates a utopia for itself, not for man.
But even absent art cannot help being viewed and misunderstood.
People may enter an art gallery, see the remnants or the suggestion towards a piece of 'Oblivion Art' and think:

'THE WORK IS NOT HERE.
I AM HERE,
THEREFORE THE WORK MUST BE ABOUT ME.'

Wrong, art work is never about you.

R B Grange

Five Objects

In being asked to become engaged in five objects I realise yet again that a lot of the other people on my course are people who i do not like. They think that you have to be creative in the studio and formal in the lectures. They ask questions of no relevance and act as though there is a right and wrong answer.

Anyway. You may well be wondering which five objects i have chosen to look into.

• The Public Institution I plan to engage in is www.wikipedia.org . This shall start with my creating of some pages on concepts i note are missing from the online source - the word 'oblivion' only links you to other things, most of which are to do with computer games and popular music, and the word 'absence' redirects you to 'nothing'. I found the latter here particularly annoying because their meanings are completely different.
• The Private Institution shall be the enigma that is Private Eye. I have already drafted a letter to Mr Hislop asking weather or not any money is made from the sale of said paper.
• ---Still not sure on the artist though - I think I might like to look into someone involved in Handmade films, or maybe John Hughes the director and writer of The Breakfast Club.
• The Medium shall be the relationship or the gap between objects - this can encompass discussion, correspondence, , silence, interior design, ergonomics, negative space, clothing, lots of stuff.
• ---Still need to get into a journal, I think it will end up with a contemporary poetry one, which is fine by me.

Origin: In mathematics, the origin of a coordinate system is the point where the axes of the system intersect: 0,0

R B Grange