When the northern wheel turns

Watching people do things is strange sometimes, if you watch it from a distance, or if you watch it closely but distance yourself from it. Listening to people talk can at times seem like nothing but patterns of sound, even if people are talking to you. Sort of like in that Spike Jonze film Being John Malkovich. It takes a lot of energy to listen to people talk, you feel as if you have to search for an indirect meaning by sewing together words. Then you have to respond so that the person you are conversing with can have confirmation that you understand. They can then feel good about their message, knowing that they were competent in delivering it. Good for them, they can go and think of a new message, or refine the old one for a sharper and more responsive delivery. Most people are helpful when delivering their message, and will clarify along the way that you are sharp enough at that point in time to listen. They may drop the line ‘do you know what I mean?’. It is hard not to get distracted by things going on around you and other thoughts in your head.

It is confusing for me to think that art requires a message that must be delivered like a conversation, if you see art in the same way as a conversation you look for the reasoning behind the artist’s intention. Maybe there is some self satisfaction in figuring out the message. But overall i think the experience is somewhat lacking. Do artists require a message? It’s confusing because painting cannot rely on execution and skill alone, it dies pretty quickly. I have noticed that some painters will make a sort of powerpoint presentation type painting. With dot points scattered throughout that can be directly related and easily verbally communicated. I suppose this is good for art dealers to communicate to clients how wonderful the artists mind is. Or isn’t. But what is the point of doing this? It leaves nothing to chance on the surface of the painting, it is resolved before it begins and all the artist is left with is an empty vessel and the few words they began with. Maybe a few extra dollars in their pocket if they are lucky.

What is the Occult? When i was in high school in the 1990’s i was introduced to things that i thought seemed like the doings of occultists. First someone set up a bunch of typewrites in the shape of a star overnight in our school courtyard, and second someone killed and mutilated a cat and hung it on the play equipment outside the local kindergarten. These two events sent my mind scrambling for cover, and i never wanted to 1. Listen to the Dead Kennedy’s (someone had spray paintined the DK symbol on my school around the same time as these events) and 2. Think about the occult.  I still don’t want to listen to the Dead Kennedy’s but i can think about the meaning of occult now in an un-teenage (sort of) way, which is helpful.

The thing i like about the idea of the occult is that it’s literal meaning is basically hidden information. Although there are signifiers we attach to this word, that allow it to be more mysterious and historical, and more horrific sometimes, and of course we always attach it to new age culture, but even with all of this, the myth of it is allowed to grow and be personally explored. The word or even a glimpse of its design allows the imagination to process the hidden side, the other end of information. I like the other end of information, i like to think of information as a spoon in a cake mixture, with one end (the spoon part) being broader and surrounded by mix, the other end (the handle) being narrower and pointing out into the endless cold.

When the northern wheel turns the ideas break way more easily from wherever they came. During this time artists can access the information that sits above our heads and deliver them to the earth. Where those ideas come from nobody knows, but one thing we do know is that they are most definitely not from here. We know this because they sit at the open end of the spoon and we are the eggs in the mix. When the northern wheel turns a tidal wave from our senses begins. As the water pulls from the shore the noumenon is revealed for a short time, as all the senses are suspended, but then the wave moves in and we do not know where we are anymore. 

THE CONVICT

32 page full colour publication of This is woven piper is also now available for $24.95. Includes text and 14 colour reproductions + introductory essay by Brooke Babington. ISBN 9780646551722

NOW AVAILABLE FROM VARIOUS STOCKISTS:

Perimeter books

http://perimeterbooks.com/

Mr Kitly

http://www.mrkitly.com.au/01.shop.html

Monkhouse Design

http://monkhousedesign.com/

Corky Saint Clair

http://corkysaintclair.com/

Brunswick Street Bookstore

http://www.brunswickstreetbookstore.com/

NGVA Bookshop

http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/visit/ngv-shop

Metropolis Bookshop

http://www.metropolisbookshop.com.au/

TCB GOBLIN Joint show w/ Adam John Cullen at TCB opening this Wednesday 16th of March 2011. Also Quentin Sprague in the front space w/ Signs and Wonders.