It's been one of those days, all week (by Michael Lawton)

So this week I am in an exhibition put together by Paul McCann. The show as a whole features media-specific works focusing upon notions of temporatlity and nostalgia. Paul invited me specifically to respond to the Victor Burgin quote describing painting as 'the anachronistic daubing of woven fabrics with coloured mud’. My response was manifold, incorporating a digital image, a painting, a sculpture and a text piece that I have reproduced below. If you wish to see the show it is at Wimbledon College of Art until Friday.

 

Practice Nostalgia

Painting is the best medium for dealing with nostalgia because it is no longer living, and therefore need not concern itself with time or linear temporality. (After all it cannot become more obsolete and the undead don’t worry about ageing; it is what it is.) Because painting no longer exists in the same realm as time it can talk about things less fleeting, can comment from the position of an outsider and look on from a distance and observe wryly.

 

Painting is the worst medium for dealing with nostalgia because it is no longer living and therefore cannot concern itself with time or linear temporality. (After all it cannot become more obsolete and the undead don’t worry about ageing; it is what it is.) Because painting no longer exists in the same realm as time it cannot speak the same language, cannot empathise with the mechanical, the analogue, the digital or conjure up their flaws. 

A request from the future (by Peter Lawton)

If you are actually bothering to read this then the chances are that it’ll be online. Few if any will print off and save preferring instead to return if desired to the blog and just scroll down. That’s fine, in fact in terms of conservation that is probably the most environmentally friendly way to do things. One of the ironies is that I’m actually handwriting the first draft of this, though mainly because I’m on holiday without my computer. When as a family we go on holiday we try to eschew all forms of electronic media; it makes us feel virtuous, though why I don’t know. Anyway the theme of this short rant is not the overuse of technology; I’m not some quaint Luddite who thinks the move away from goose quills was a step towards eternal damnation, but I am concerned for what the move towards more and more electronic reliance means.

Recently I came across some old photos, they were a mixture of informal and formal groupings of relatives, some of whom I instantly recognised others who, but for the notes on the back of the pictures would have remained anonymous. I studied them carefully, many of the subjects I had never met and since they were now dead apart from in an afterlife, in which I don’t believe, never will. Others had died more recently but were remembered in family stories that have become the staples of our history. The great thing is that seeing those people brought the stories back to life.

I have always been a keen photographer and yes my first camera was a box Brownie, given to me when I was on holiday with my aunt in Norway. Somewhere my first tentative steps towards recording images are tucked away in some cupboard, though where I have no idea. I gradually improved the standard of my equipment and in the early eighties moved into developing and printing my own pictures. This gave me the type of creative freedom that until then I had only dreamed of and some of the collages I produced still remain amongst my favourite images. The in time for a trip to New Zealand I bought my current digital camera, a Cannon. I love it. I can take loads of photographs and they’re all there. I download them, stick them on CD or flash drive and look at them whenever I choose. And that is where the problem lies. I can enjoy them but what about in 50 years time? Will people come across flash drives and CDs and instantly be able to play them? I doubt it.

Only a few years ago three and half inch floppy disquettes were what we saved our information to; there aren’t that many computers produced, if any, that read these as standard. And I’m only talking about 10 years ago, what about 50, from where most of the photos I was looking at came from. Personal computers were a dream of the future. The other thing is that each ten years more development and innovation takes place than in the previous ten.

So what is the point of this piece of writing? Easy – print off your photos! Write the names of who is on them on the back. Keep the visual records of lives going, not just electronically but in a ‘hard’ format. That way 100 or 200 years from now someone might pick up a photograph and connect to her or his past.

 

Dog Years Ahead of Our Time (by Mark Bell, Obsolescence Correspondent for the Foolscap Journal)

At a recent symposium on internet technology, (not that I was there, but I have friends who attend such things), one speaker marveled at how fast new developments were being introduced. By her estimate computer technology is now advancing by one year every three months. Sounds fast. I was always told that dog years could be calculated by dividing human years by four, or in other words, one dog year every three months. I’m not sure what the similarity between these two calculations means, but I don’t think this bodes well for the future. Why does everything have to get faster all the time? It’s like we’ve all signed the Futurist Manifesto all of a sudden and the only thing that matters anymore is speed. The Futurists would have loved the internet (which makes me even more suspicious of it), but instead all they got was the First World War. War was the perfect vehicle for the speed and technology that they loved so much, and they were all quick to enlist. Those that weren’t killed were able to praise it as a great triumph once it was all over. Of particular interest to the Futurists was the large-scale use of aircraft during WWI, a first for any war. Although primitive by our current standards, the use of flying machines represented the most impressive use of speed and technology ever seen up to that point.

Since then our quest for speed has continued unabated. When it was first introduced in 1976 the Concorde was seen as a great leap into the future. This wasn’t just another commercial passenger plane, this was a supersonic jet that could fly at twice the speed of sound. New York to London in 3 hours. It was just a matter of time before every plane would be flying at Mach 2. All of a sudden flying cars didn’t seem so far fetched.

The promise of flying cars, jetpacks and other personal flying devices dates back to the story of Icarus, (and we all know how that one turned out). It’s interesting that not only did Greek Mythology give us flight before it was actually possible to fly, but through the story of Icarus the Greeks gave us the first plane crash a few thousand years in advance of the first plane. One might think that this parable of technological hubris would be of great interest to a contemporary audience, but as near as I can tell the only impact it has had on current technology is that we now avoid the use of beeswax when constructing aircraft.

When the calendar rolled towards a new millennium in 2000 the air was thick with cries of “where’s my jetpack?” We’d been promised our own set of wings for so long that it was hard to believe we were still required to walk around on foot. At the time, just saying aloud “the year 2000” sounded so futuristic, it seemed inevitable that great leaps forward awaited us.

Coincidentally, 2000 was also the year that a piece of metal debris fell off a Continental plane on a Paris runway during takeoff. The next plane on the runway that day was Air France 4590, a Concorde bound for New York. The debris on the runway apparently ruptured one of the Concorde’s tyres which in tern sent pieces of rubber debris flying up fast enough to damage the number five fuel tank. Having already reached maximum speed for take-off, the pilot had no alternative but to continue the ascent, but as the fire from the leaking fuel quickly spread to the engines the plane lost altitude and crashed into Les Relais Bleus Hotel killing 4 people on the ground in addition to all 109 passengers and crew on board. Within 18 months the Concorde was retired from the skies altogether, and in the decade that has passed no supersonic jets have stepped in to take its place.

There is something strangely comforting about the obsolescence of supersonic flight. We now have this one instance where we have ceased to go forward.  It might be a fluke, but for once the genie has been put back in the bottle. Maybe we don’t need to go any further with other technologies, too. Maybe we should all just stop where we are and pause for a decade or two. It wouldn’t be so bad. Must we continually update everything all the time? As long as we have pain-free dentistry what more could we possibly want from technology? The future will reach us all in good time, what’s the rush?

A Story in Several Parts; Part Thirteen (by Matthew de Kersaint Giradeau)

This is the final part of A Story in Several Parts, by Matthew de Kersaint Giradeau, the previous parts can be further down the page. (The painting is by George Shaw and is taken from here;http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/online_shop/ikon_catalogues/artists_monographs/… )

When Lloyd looks back, he does so quickly. He doesn't really see anything, but convinces himself that he can see the whole house on fire. Burning up with huge flames rising from the roof. If Lloyd had seen anything it would have been something else. He would have seen the window to the main bedroom glowing with an unhealthy orange darkness. And he would have seen a shape, thrashing around in that darkness. He would not have heard his Mother screaming from the bottom of the stairs, and his younger brother screaming back from the top of the stairs. He could not have heard that.

They run and they run and they know where they run. It is not far to the woods. It is not far to the body. The street lights are still buzzing, but most of the oranges have become yellows and they don't buzz so much once they are yellow. They don't stop to listen. They get to the woods and they slow down. They both move quickly through the undergrowth, brushing past thorns and breathing heavy breaths. They reach the two trees on top of each other and climb over them. The trees are dry tonight and there are no shits, though Alex checks before he puts his hands on the branches.

Lloyd is laughing differently, hoarsely. His eyes are more blank than ever and he is gurning harder. His bottom jaw grinding on a complex axis. Alex has adrenaline pumping so hard he can hardly choke down enough air to keep him conscious. He feels faint but perversely safe. Like there can be no more. Like that was it. But he knows that isn't it, because they are with the body now and he knows that whatever has gone in Lloyd has gone forever and what didn't happen before must happen now.

The body is still covered in the thin, liquid shit that Alex tried to use to make the deal with the body. It is too dark to see, but it is there. It is wet and greasy and sour. Most of the liquid has run off, but it has painted the skin a yellow brown. The world can be roughly divided into three colours: blue, green and brown. Blue is the sky, green is the plants, and brown is pretty much everything else. Like when you are at primary school and you mix colours, it should make white, because white is all the colours mixed together. It doesn't though, it makes brown. In reality, all the colours mixed together makes brown.

It happens fast. Alex is bent with his hands on his knees and his breathing is taking up most of his concentration. He can see Lloyd, but only in the corner of his eye, and the edges of his vision are even more blurred than usual, because of the dark, and the adrenaline. Alex hears a noise, Lloyd isn't laughing any more. He is crying. But not like a normal cry, this crying comes out from Lloyd's feet. It explodes down from his head to his body to his legs to his feet and is a sort of shout. He burps and wails and snot is streaming down his mouth which in turn is gasping out huge bubbles of snot and pain. His eyes are closed tight and he is roaring. He crouches down and Alex tenses upright. His legs are completely stiff with fear and lactic acid. Lloyd flies at Alex like a football when it hits you square in the face. You can watch it for that majestic second, as it fills your vision, but you cannot move out of its way.

Alex is on the ground and hits his head, Lloyd gropes at Alex's face and scratches and slaps him, trying to grab his eyes. Alex tries to push his hands away and Lloyd punches him. Lloyd scrabbles up his body, grabs Alex's arms and kneels one leg on the ground and one foot on his chest. He takes his time to draw his arm right back and pounds Alex slowly and surely in the face. Alex puts his arms up in front of his face but it is no use. No use at all. He tastes the gravy of his own blood thickly distributing itself around his mouth. Lloyd is roaring and crying and spitting and coughing. He even burps at one point like he will be sick. Alex loses the pain and lets his arms lay back down, they lay across Lloyd's foot, like Alex is stroking his shoe.

Lloyd gets up off Alex's chest and drags him by the legs across to the body. Alex can see Lloyd at a ninety degree angle. He thinks it looks weird, normally you sort of flip your image so it makes sense, but Alex can't make his brain do it, so he lets Lloyd walk up and down the walls of his vision.

He watches Lloyd walk up to the top of his vision wall and kick the body over on to its back, then yank the body's trousers and pants down. He watches Lloyd walk down the wall and pull them all the way, till they are nearly off, but the body's shoes stop them coming off. Lloyd lets out a scream. Lloyd walks towards the bottom of Alex's vision, his feet getting bigger and then Alex feels Lloyd's foot connect with his mouth. His teeth feel like hard boiled sweets being crunched and they come apart and as Lloyd walks away Alex rolls his bitty broken sweets around in his mouth with his swollen tongue.

Alex can't really see anything at all now, but if he could, he would see Lloyd stroll back to the body and take out a small pen knife and hack at the penis and testes of the body. Its genitalia are cold and small and waxy. It is dark and Lloyd doesn't make a clean cut. He grabs at the bloody mess and pulls away a clump of thigh skin, scrotum and part of the penis. He walks back over to Alex; pulls him over so he is looking up at the night sky. Lloyd waits till he thinks Alex's eyes are open and then crouches down and pushes the hacked off bits of the body into Alex's face. Lloyd gets up and pats his pockets. He screams again. High pitched and then low. He jumps at the body and stabs it repeatedly, in its exposed stomach, in the gap where its cock was.

He does a bent over, pained walk back to Alex and crouches down next to him, his face so close. “Where are the fucking matches?” Alex hears Lloyd speaking but can't hear him through the fog of blood and pain. Lloyd slaps Alex a few times, tries to pinch his cheeks but can't get a firm grip on the bloody flesh. “Where are the fucking matches?” Alex hears him speak words now, woken up by the new volume. And though he can't see Lloyd, Alex knows that his eyes are closed. And that he has stopped gurning. He is no longer crying now and his words are clearer and his eyes are dead and closed, no longer of any use. They are both blind now. Alex can't open his eyes properly, and if he could, they would be covered in his blood and the body's skin and he wouldn't be able to use his arms to clear his face. Lloyd has snipped his eyes off from his brain and every muscle in Lloyd's face is relaxed and soft.

Alex opens his mouth wider and moans, he wants to help but he can't quite do it. Lloyd speaks softly again, not whispering, but close, “Where are the fucking matches?”

There is a moment where Alex thinks he will just moan again, but he breathes slowly, and focuses on making his mouth and tongue and throat all work for the words he wants to say. “In my pocket.”

Lloyd goes down to Alex's trousers with his face close to Alex's body at all times. Alex can't feel a thing now. Unconsciousness grabs at him and he sleeps. Lloyd sticks his hands hard into the pocket and pulls out the long matches, they are wet from the mud and sweat and yet still greasy. If you looked close you would see that the water is all in separate dots, separated by the coating of grease. It is too dark to see that anyway, even if you were up close, but it is true.

Lloyd rises and walks away from Alex and to the place where Alex dropped his half bottle of petrol. Lloyd stands for a moment, holding the bottle in one hand, and the matches in the other and his face is turned up at an oblique angle to the sky. He closes his eyes again, and empties half of the petrol over his head. He opens one eye a tiny amount and goes over to the body, manoeuvring himself down on to it, careful not to spill the petrol or open his eyes more than he has to. He is face to face with the body and he pours the rest of the petrol over him and the body. His arms stretch out behind his back, and most of it goes on his head, and his shoulders, and the body's head, and the body's shoulders. He drops the empty bottle next to the body's slightly bent arms and then pulls a match out of the packet. He does this with his arms outstretched, in front of his head, face to face with the body, careful not to open his eyes, careful not to see. The match won't light on the first go, Lloyd's hands are sweaty and he can't see to get the angle right. On the second go he almost loses the match from his fingers but he repositions without too much effort and on the third go it lights. Like before, like when his hand became the flame to Alex for that moment, there is no time lag between him lighting the match, and all of the petrol going up in flame. A wave of heat travels down Lloyd's body and he grimaces but grabs on to the body's shoulders and doesn't open his eyes. He bites down so hard, his tongue is between his teeth and he almost bites right through it.  He lets out a gasp but doesn't cry out.

If Alex wasn't still unconscious, and still basically blind, and still facing the sky, and he could see Lloyd and the body in flames, and could understand what he was seeing, then he wouldn't be able to see them anyway, he would see them as one indistinguishable mass of multicoloured flame. The fire would be so bright, compared to the dark that is all around, that it would be too bright to tell which bits of the fire were which. It would be so bright that Alex would have to look away, even after just a second of trying to tell which bits were the body, and which bits were Lloyd. And even if Alex could see them, and not look away because it was too bright, then he would still look away because if he could look hard enough, he would see one of the indistinguishable bits of flame is still moving, shuddering with the flames.