Gimmie gimmie gimmie...

grose bush by hyperhaus

I'll be attending the Conference On the Idea of Communism at Birkbeck later this month. Rather giddy about it; doing some pre-there reading to synch myself up.

University is, as it consistently has been, underwhelming. Very often I think of it as a monetary fee I agreed to in order to somehow meet my partner, who was introduced to me by a University friend. This introduction is worth the debt; as is the random, unrelated situations which come from being in this location rather than this institution. IHTFP.

Why are people bothering me about the images & interpretations of the Rorschach test cards? I believe the term I should use in replying is 'get bent'.



This video makes me gay (for my partner). Does watching it change your ability to be psychologically evaluated? Please complain like a wimpazoid in the comments.

Finding patterns out of nothing is not solely basted on some deep inner psychological flaw, but rather in response to every other image we've experienced within our lives in the formation of our personality. We've already seen all this ink.

Gorse is my favourite flower of the moment. I have a single gorse bud, pressed and dried, which was exchanged between my love and I on boxing day 2008. Being as I am poor at expressing my sentimentality, I keep it hidden secretly in my notebook; yellow, like the little paper frame I made to keep Ese-E's photograph in over my desk. Gorse also smells of coconuts/vanilla. How awesome is that?

// way down low

University has taken me under
like a submarine.
Only occasionally do I come up
for a breath.

///

Les Bicyclettes de Belsize

///

Les Bicyclettes de Belsize; a short musical. London in the idealistic swinging sixties - boy rides bike; boy crashes into billboard of a girl; boy falls in love with billboard-girl; meanwhile billboard girl is lonely at the top & wants to show a man she's worthy of love; boy meets billboard girl by chance; she's taken away by photographers for fashions shoot; boy rides bike across London, finds her, they frolic in the park.

Aside from a very intriguing opening shot, which pans over the rooftops and upper windows of Hampstead, and the vaguely ominous overhead shots of the boy riding his bike through the streets, this short is... Baffling. It's definitely one of the stranger pieces of cinema that I've seen recently; like a bad attempt at the whimsical realism of early French New Wave, only Les Bicyclette manages to be both stuffy and vapid at the same time.

It's stuffy, in that it makes no attempt to question the roles of Boy & Girl; he expects to get her and she expects to be got - there is no tension, no emotional chase, and not even any passion - the characters don't engage with each other, but it doesn't seem like an intentional choice. That leads to the vapid air; their relationship, like their place within the 60s London they inhibit and their role in the film, is superficial - they have no depth, and instead act as visual markers for the swingin' London subculture aesthetic, who act out expected roles of boy/girl in love archetypes.

Most interesting is the aria that the Boy sings after he has crashed into the billboard that shows a picture of her face. Ultimately, he says he's fallen head over heels in love with you (billboard-girl), while placing flowers upon the area of the billboard that he damaged. Funnily enough, the area is a basket of flowers on a bike - and the flowers he puts on the painted flowers are, I believe, plastic.

After depositing the flowers, he continues singing and caressing the printed billboard girl-face; professing his love over and over -- then getting back upon his bike, he heads rides over to a Printers shop; there, he rips open packages, finds a portrait of the Girl, and sits in the shop window, staring lovingly at the image of the Girl. After a cut away to the Girl, where she sings a song about wanting to show a man she's worthy of love, the Girl walks out into the street and sits down in front of the window where the Boy was staring at her photograph. It's only after a few moments that the Boy realises the real-girl is outside; he then turns, and they try and kiss through the glass of the window.

I can't quite articulate why I find it so off putting, but the whole Boy falling in love with the Image of the Girl is just... Well, off putting.

Ultimately one loves one’s desires and not the object one desires, seems like a suitable explanation for the film -- only it's so wrapped up in it's own shallowness, that the film doesn't leave itself to questioning the intentions of its characters.

Although, perhaps this lack of depth is expressed, if not from within the actions of its characters, but instead within the title song of the short musical;

Turning and turning the world goes on
We can't change it, my friend
Let us go riding now through the days
Together to the end, till the end

Les bicyclettes de Belsize
Carry us side by side
And hand in hand, we will ride
Over Belsize
Turn you magical eyes
'Round and around
Looking at all we found
Carry us through the skies
Les bicyclettes de Belsize

Spinning and spinning the dreams I know
Rolling on through my head
Let us enjoy them before they go
Come the dawn they all are dead, yes, they're dead

Les bicyclettes de Belsize
Carry us side by side
And hand in hand, we will ride
Over Belsize
Turn you magical eyes
'Round and around
Looking at all we found
Carry us through the skies
Les bicyclettes de Belsize

J & the Job Market

I woke up today and realised I am terrified, in regards to my future prospects as an adult. I feel that I will never be able to get out of debt, or own property - but most of all, I worry that I will not be able to get a job once I graduate university.

There's only 10 months left before I graduate; I've got to write 10,000 words on ??? (aesthetics, women, class, film - how's that for specific...) and produce a piece of work, installation or video or whatever I wish, for which I am not too worried. While it's not easy, school work, it's at least something I understand.

When I graduate from my BA, I had aimed to go on to study an MA. Right now, the most intriguing course is Aesthetics & Art Theory @ Middlesex - but I'm just not sure. First, if I'd be accepted with a (projected) 2:1 in experimental video from a third tier art school - and second, if I would be able to afford it at all.

Even if I start an MA program, it will most likely have to be part time - so regardless of if I get in or not, I will need to find a job, so I can continue renting & eating food & buying books.

Having watched my partner unsuccessfully spend the last four months looking for a job, only to end up temping for his mum -- and to have also spent the summer looking for extra work, I dread diving head first into the English job market next year.

My partner and I were having this conversation yesterday; Oh God, I said - horrified, I'm going to have to work in T.V., then with sceptical consideration, But the money's okay...

Haven't we played enough charades?

A Mental Health Foundation poll of 2,000 British adults found a third are cutting back on going out with friends due to limited funds...

Celia Richardson, a spokeswoman for the charity, said: "As the economic slump begins to affect everything from food prices to mortgage repayments, this research shows that financial worries are a source of stress for many...

"But people are making changes to the way they live - like growing their own fruit and vegetables, and walking and cycling more. Not only is this evidence that people are adapting well to change, but some of their altered habits are actually good for mental health.

"For many people, particularly the younger generations, this may be the first time they've been surrounded by worrying talk of serious recession. By spending less, people can help themselves avoid serious debt, which can lead to feelings of depression and anxiety.

"But they need to replace shopping and spending with other activities they enjoy and shouldn't isolate themselves from friends."

She advised people to find cheaper ways of socialising, such as playing games with family and friends like charades in the living room or Frisbee in the park.via the BBC

::indiscriminate screaming here::

You're my guitar hero...

Nellie Bly


Annie Oakley


Ada Lovelace

///

I worry about the lack of contemporary female heroes in my life.

When I was in second grade, I did a presentation on Nellie Bly -- I even had this awesome hat that I thought was super historical, but was most likely just an absurd mess of netting and felt that my mom thought was funny.

Although the book my school gave me on Nellie Bly was, well, for second graders, her story has always stayed with me. I just thought she was, and is, so god damned awesome.

Her esposé of neglect and abuse at the Women's Lunatic Asylum in New York both fascinated and horrified me as a child; but it didn't surprise me, as far as I can remember. It seemed to make sense that authority, when unchecked and unobserved, would be cruel to those who they thought were weak and troublesome.

Hmm!

Annie Oakley and Ada Lovelace are to be spoken of another time...

//

PS: I finished my 2nd year of University with a 2:1 -- I think in American inequivalent, I'd be at 3.8 GPA? I'm not entirely sure; but I don't care, because whoo, 2:1! Fools!

Transatlantic Accent

Katharine Hepburn's speech 1947 against HUAC

Once Bitten

Every day I read Boing Boing comments, and every day I say to myself Oh God Why, don't read Boing Boing comments, they're horrible things! -- yet, every day, I read Boing Boing comments.

There's a dead newt on my desk,
and I can't read anything worth while.

Hear Hair

Boy, aged 3, banned from nursery school over haircut.

It looks sweet on him, even if it is kinda chavy.
Who cares about hair? Middle class England.

I was refused a job at Waitrose, here in my posh middle class new money commuter town. Straight up told I wouldn't be hired, because of my extreme haircut.



Aesthetic discrimination is bizarre.

I took photographs back in December, when I applied for the job.
Would you let me stock shelves and ring you up for luxury food products?

s&m + bible studies

Started/finished this wallet today - because I'm already a slave to the system; why not stuff all my bills into some gimp.

//
I was going to complain about art school, but why bother?

Different class of assholes.

All I really care about right now is:

The Wire
Being In Love
Fucked Up

//

birds see ??? fps

30 seonds // Pigeon Sight

Editing experiment.

Edit: it is actually impossible to view Pigeon Sight on youtube, due to the compression. The piece was edited with what my chum Owen refers to as the knitting technique -- moving images are made through splicing together single frames of video sequences between one another, creating an optical illusion which melts two or more shots of video into one jittery image. I think youtube compresses my PAL 25 frames-per-second down into 15 or so FPS, thus, you see random broken up frames. In short, you're seeing about half the piece -- and the whole point of the editing experiment is erased. Amazing.

I must find a place to host .mov files.

//

I'm to present a pitch for a video project tomorrow morning. Of course I haven't written anything down or made any examples or even fully committed to an idea, but at the moment I reckon I'll be doing an adaptation of the Antigone/Ismene scene from Seven Against Thebes - using that as a pretext to explore motifs of meaning, repetition and determinism.

Ideally, I'd get access to the green screen studio, which would allow me to play Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles, Polynices, and the chorus of 12.

Only I am terribly apathetic at the moment, and don't feel like doing much of anything. My room is an absolute mess, I cannot get a hold of my student loans company, and I am generally sleepy and bleh. So I suppose the best route of action at the moment is to go have a coffee and hide in the back of the cafe reading 'Antigones' and listening to the Misfits.

In other news: I really would adore a Pixel Vision camera. It records to audio cassette, and the quality is amazingly wonder-horrible.

Example:

Dream of Horses /// I've lost my voice.

I lost my voice this weekend in Brighton. Whiskey and cigarettes and Spaniards and sea breeze will do that. Take them away just like that. But I had to record this -- the text seemed too alone to post by itself.

...

Dream of horses

//

I had a dream the other night, about a circus in France. I was in a medium sized town, something like Magny-en-Vexin, near where my parents live. With a big wide open square in the middle of town, my dream town was surrounded by high stone walls with arches, with many assorted shops and cafes worked into the stone. The streets shot off in all directions, and it was a busy but provincial town.

When I first saw the circus in my dream, there were many pairs of miniature horses with big mauve plumes set into their bridals. Dozens of pairs were pulling the weight of the circus caravan, but as it progressed, my initial excitement rapidly faded. There were depressed looking llamas which followed the horses, then most horribly, a baby elephant, emaciated and crying, was walking slowly on a treadmill set into a splintered wooden cart. It was wearing a tattered cape of mauve, with a matching circlet of silver and mauve thread fraying on it's head.

Behind the crying baby elephant was a platform, on which was a deflated hippopotamus, sedated and hardly moving, paired with a sagging grey animal of indistinguishable species, moaned quietly, animal sounds as the parade moved by. More miniature horses with mauve plumes came by, their reins connecting them to the rest of the caravan. Patchy tigers, wheezing camels, a cracked and empty aquarium - and the worst, the ring leader and his wife.

They were posed at the end of the procession, standing upon a structure which was reminiscent of a sledge. Round and short, they wore tight smiles and leather jackets, with plumes and silks and finery in the same mauve as their horses. They sipped sparkling wine from cut glass flutes, and the ring leader lazily slapped the leather reins against the numbers of miniature horses, egging them on continuously, so sweat dampened their mauve plumes.

Underneath the feet of the ring leader and his wife, was the freshly cracked shell of an adult tortoise. Somewhere along the way, the procession had crushed the ancient shell of the ancient reptile, and now the ring leader and his wife were standing upon the now flattened dome of its shell. Dark red blood sitting sticky on green carapace and mauve satin shoes.

Within my dream I flew into a rage, upon seeing that crushed tortoise. I started to chase them through the streets of this dreamed French town, screaming obscenities and shaking my fists, stopping in attempts to wrench cobblestones free from the pavement, only to have to run again to take aim at the ring leader and his wife. Nobody could hear me, all my stones fell short, and I could never get close enough to the relentless, forced progression of the circus caravan.

Rorschach & Me

Two whirling Dervish's holding onto a giant scarab beetle.

A pair of happy old men gnomes engaging in a hand clapping game.

Hermaphrodite dancer with a bleeding heart looking into a mirror over a sink with a guitar playing in the background.

The inside of a rams skull OR two penguins examining their feet.

A rather depressed moth.

A rug made from the skin of that wolf from those old Looney Toon cartoons. Help, help, the Wul-uf, the Wul-uf.

Siamese twin Cancan dancers from 1910s Paris who've lost their enthusiasm.

A particular set of chameleons breathing icy air over butterfly wings which carry them along from their womb.

A cackling old man high-fiving himself as he sits atop the north-eastern seaboard of America over which is a large elephant trumpets.

Dancing crabs and a jovial underwater celebration with mermaids and all sorts of sea creatures.

The Problem of Modernity

I don't know who's a bigger asshole. Does it really matter?

On My Sister's 20th Birthday

It's my sister Lmo's 20th birthday today.




20 years we've been together, good and bad. I'm glad I never succeeding in getting rid of her when we were young, and I'm sad I wasn't always there, but in all I am happy we are where we are today.

She's applying for universities this year. Queen Mary's have already accepted her, and we're waiting to hear back from Sydney Sussex. She has an interview at York after the new year. I am very proud of her. Not just because she gets good grades and can decipher poetry like nobody's beeswax. I'm proud because she's my sister and I love her, and she always attacks any job or challenge with an insane vigour that I don't possess but do admire.

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,
Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancell th' old.

In heaven at his manour I him sought:
They told me there, that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.

I straight return'd, and knowing his great birth,
Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts:
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth

Of theeves and murderers: there I him espied,
Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, & died.

We are terribly different - she's competitive and sharp, I'm quasi-apathetic and ponderous - but we share the same sense of humour. I think that twenty years of laughing together keeps us close.



So indeed! Happy Birthday Lmo! I love you dearly, and plan on causing trouble with you for a long time to come.

Very Polite Spam

I'm glad to see spammers are starting to follow a more subtle sense of decorum.

Happy Christmas

Eavesdropping = Moral Equality

I was on the train yesterday evening, coming home to my tiny Georgian Surrey firetrap, eavesdropping on the other passengers, as my iPod was drained. I quite enjoy eavesdropping, because I i; feel like a spy, ii; learn stuff about strangers. It's amazing what people will tell other people aloud on the train. Loose lips sink ships, and all that. Anyway. This was an asian man named Abdul, who had studied Forensic Science and now worked for a Pharmaceutical Company in London. He was 27, his birthday was the first of December, he knew humpty million languages because his father was a translator and thought it was important. He apparently didn't believe in working for money, but for happiness - but he was very career driven, never the less. All this I learned through him chatting up a 19 year old Polish au pair named Tasha whose birthday is, so she said, today - the 18th. Happy birthday! The age part was funny -- when he learned, there was a palpable awkward silence, and he gave a very good impression of being embarrassed. Beautiful.

This isn't the point, though. Though eavesdropping, I learned also that pharmaceutical company's have been outsourcing their human clinical trails to eastern europe, because they are more cost effective. It got me thinking, whether or not it was ethical for pharmaceutical company's to offer a financial incentive to the poor to be tested on in eastern europe? While it could help give economic sustainability to a region, could it also cause a conflict of interest between local commerce/government and the human test subjects? If the subjects were mistreated or manipulated by the pharmaceutical company, would local government have enough pushing power to fight back and get subjects what they deserve -- or, with the pharmaceutical company's economic contribution to the region, could local government be tempted to ignore the complaints of a few subjects, if it meant many others were still being paid and channeling that money into the local economy?

I was going to join a clinical trial last summer in London, but I was discouraged by family, because they are fearful souls. It would have been £4k for three weeks of my time, but alas, my dreams of escaping my ever growing student debt will have to utilise something other than medical science. While I know the incentive for me was financial -- as well as medical curiosity -- I had the luxury of knowing that I didn't totally depend on medical clinical trials as the only way of getting money. It would have been a fast and easy way, be it high risk, but much less high risk than, say, robbing a bank or selling cocaine to stock brokers.

Now there's an idea... Blah. So, I am trying to get into writing my essay. It's not working. I still only vaguely know what I am looking at for specifics, although I have about 9 books out. The question:

How liberating is the notion of the cyborg? Is the 'posthuman' a desirable future?

For me? Fuck yes. I am a cyborg already -- a transatlantic gender-nutral culturally ambiguous technophile who doesn't have to fetishise technology any longer, as it is so smoothly integrated into my being. Liberation of the cyborg will be an acceptance of miscellaneous and hybrid beings with cultural and moral autonomy. We have so much 'rubbish' DNA within our bodies, it is just there for the ride - and we very well could be nothing more than temporal vehicles for DNA -- but the notion is, we are not pure. There is no fundamental human nature in the rigid yet delicate sense that Francis Fukuyama rants and raves about. It could be that our fundamental human nature is the will to change our environments to suit us, while retaining the ability to adapt to our environments themselves. Or not. It doesn't really matter.

But as for the posthuman being a desirable future... What is desirable? To be free from suffering is a novel concept, but I think it would be most impossible -- our ability to daydream and imagine keeps us with fresh suffering all the time. But to have more freedom to choose or adapt the physical bodies we exist in while on Earth, while offering every human being the same opportunities to remove the biological constraints which we live within now, that certainly seems desirable to me.

There are pigeons in my chimney cooing wistfully. I've got to get some work done, as my chum E should be hanging out with me later. It is then that I will eat bad homemade Mexican food, and watch The Wire for the first time - and attempt to force him into conversations over what superpowers he'd have, why he insists on refusing to have a superpower, and how the answers to thrash lyrics like 'ego stroker / shit eater / self serving unreality / gutted cavity of / pixelated futility / human flesh disconnect / get the fuck off the internet' are all within the Birth of Tragedy.

Moar Interactivez

Hey, look! I made that!

What that is, in it's poor quality you-tube uploaded glory, is a recording of me messing about with my designed digital cellular mirror. Mm, delicious DV & youtube compression has gotten rid of the crispness of pixels and colour that flood the screen, but what's really important is to focus on the tempo of tonal shifts and distortion. Mimics heartbeats! Or it does, in theory...

I can't sleep. Blah!

Interactive Works

Oh how I enjoy working with MaxMSP.
Currently I'm making a digitalised cellular mirror.
Look at how happy it makes me.

If anybody was thinking about an xmas gift, the $35 for student 9 month package of MaxMSP/Jitter wouldn't go amiss...

Begging aside, I've been doing nothing but making Max patches, drinking coffee, and listening to hardcore/pop-punk for hours upon hours.

I really hate how there are hemp seeds in my salad seed mix.
Avocado skins taste like the smell of dried blood, which is beyond gross.

Blah, blah, blah.