16 Atmos

Back again to the warm fuzzy world of round, vignetted, egg-shaped, ovaloids. I bought my Claude Glass on Alibaba. I wonder where Claude got his?

A long history of yearning for a different perspective. A tutor of mine who was something of an academic life drawing guru Bill Cadenhead, told me at my age, in his experimental days, he poked his eyes and made paintings about it. Stars and colours. He reverted to landscape painting quite quickly. It is interesting to read in the Andy Warhol Diaries how he was trying for abstraction late in life, that he found some kind of solace in camouflage but couldn’t make the full leap. 

Selfie filters are a version of instant perfection. It goes way back of course…

Claude mirrors, Gray’s glasses, Cozens, Gilpin, the Picturesque. Ultraviolet.

A funny history of this is captured in the play Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. Set in front of French windows in a grand house, it switches between now and a time in 1809 when the garden behind was being transformed from a classical to a wild romantic place.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/claude-glass

https://longreads.com/2019/07/11/the-ugly-history-of-beautiful-things-mirrors/

17 Loop

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Groucho Marx (maybe)

It’s all loops. As far as the eye can see. As far as the ear can hear. In time. Loops are the foundation of our experience of time and, so it follows, any time-based art. Which of course is all art, as we perceive nothing without time. (Odd that time is taught as 4D in art schools, when in truth it is primary, viewing a painting is a temporal experience.) Brian Evans Loop Theory

Things that loop, own themselves. They are the most important thing in the room as far as they are concerned. They appear self-actuating, or made by someone else, which is useful for artists because they can be as critical as they want to be. 

I made quite a lot of films a while back using computer programs that could run video clips out of sequence. Making non-linear film with multiple pathways takes a lot of effort because all of those individual journeys need realised somehow. The Garden of Forking Paths + Meaning Making Machines. Why not just get the PC to do it. 

In your Christmas Spotify playlist, the loop takes a year. I let my own loops appear when they wanted after I twigged that all paths through a non-linear landscape are linear unless done twice.

And what’s the point of that?

Digital VD http://www.porty.net/digitalvd/

The Fall Repetition https://youtu.be/mTKCKBu8CLI

18 Filmy

I have visited the Venice Biennale every couple of years for a while now, and am going again in Aug (really excited - in this dismal world situation). I prefer not to engage in the usual culture-vulture activities (maximising stay - reading reviews) and just stroll in the sun by myself and happen on stuff. I like my own take on it. It's nice to have a surprise. In 2011 I was pretty obsessed only with film https://youtu.be/j-Vne_Pvqv0

Tony Conrad stole the show though. He painted a series of film frames on paper in 1973. The idea being that (like photo emulsion) the image would be affected by light. It would just take longer. They appear at the end of the clip at this point https://youtu.be/j-Vne_Pvqv0?t=582. Painting sometimes doesn’t let you down.

Some non-painted films I have seen often. My father was born on Groundhog Day (Feb 2), and after he passed away in 2000 my wife and I watch that film on that day every year as ritual - alternating it with the Italian version (with spaghetti and red) to mitigate boredom. Other regulars are The Time Machine (1961 - not the new one - eek!), The Wizard of Oz and the amazing Turkish ersatz Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde, The Singing Ringing Tree, Decasia… and so it goes.

Film as film, film as painting, painting as film, film as time, time as film. What have I missed? We’re not there yet.

Stork Day https://mubi.com/films/stork-day

Little Ayşe and the Magic Dwarfs in the Land of Dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnApKUztuyo

Decasia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDa-mmSldDg

19 Experts

When I was 15 I thought my father was an idiot. But when I was 21, I was amazed at how much he had picked up in 6 years. Ken Dodd

Pretending you're an expert is almost the same as being one. This is a good ploy to get you started, although you need a get-out clause. Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins in the 17c. wasn’t a general (but he did look for witches) appointed himself the expert.

There are so many of them

In art we are always being told what to look at, so much it’s difficult to see. Having spent a number of years in London helping make temporary public art I have a slippery perspective on what we deserve to see outdoors. The saving grace for me in the work I did was the word temporary. Meaning changes over time.

Class, cash, and business dictate to us. Look at Edward Colston. Look at the Dandy Lion (actually people seem to like it, so that works). The 'race to the lakes' in the 19c. was the realisation landscape can be enjoyed and not necessarily a place of terror. The National Trust is still telling us where to point our camera in the Cairngorms though, even in the rain.

Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it. Salvador Dali (although this is quite good)

Rules based art http://philipgalanter.com/downloads/vague_terrain_2006.pdf

 

The Pseuds https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.732666/full

Berger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk&list=PLn6KyJ4PmZsPhigNqPlWGEoCgBHJbhib3