Do you ever feel it's all been done before?

This Tom Friedman thingy is made out of 30,000 toothpicks. I was prompted by AG's comment that she likes things that look like they were fun to make. I agree, I do too. I covet the having made them myself-ness. I like things that look like they lead out of something that was efficient or made sense according to some unspoken natural law (the tapered shape of the end of the toothpick). I like to think of his play with a thing and discovery of what the natural properties of that thing are and where it should go, and then he takes it all the way there.

Cereal boxes can also have natural properties.


This is, like, the seminal Friedman work (IMHO, obvs). This is just made out of several identical cereal boxes. It's the thing in itself only more of it and bigger, and because of that vaguer. Like, the accumulation and aggregation of many equals more volume but less specificity. The trade-off for scale is lack of resolution; this is like a 3d jpeg. Blur = dilution of exactness caused by excessive multiplication. Too much same = no longer separately clear.

You can get all this from a thing that simply looks (ie is visual. As in, looks like only without the simile). There's power in something that can be seen and not said, but you can't explain that power by saying, because it's in the seeing not the saying. Things that can only be known by seeing are everywhere, in graphics, in photography, images of all kinds. In the dialectics of streets and buildings and trees and the light from the sky. But how can you explain any of that without the thing that is seen that is the explanation in and of itself? (Eh?) It's like the difference between doing and planning.

Yesterday I joined a small group of friends trying to help a collaborative pair of artist friends to workshop a long-running project they've got going on. Because of the kind of project it is (connected to a festival) with lots of planning time, they are researching and researching and trying to draw the work out of that. But they're blocked, stymied by what is a non-intuitive process for them. Can't make the leap from research to performance/work. From what it's meant to be about, to thing-that's-independent-of-all-else-but-itself-and-embodies-ideas-rather-than-illustrates-them. Which is what they normally do intuitively. We have so much to prove/explain all the time, it reduces our confidence just to do. It sounds so airy-fairy, intuition, but the thing is our intelligence as artists needs to be trusted (inc. by us) that we will be able to embody intelligentness (intelligence?) in the thing itself, in how the thing itself is executed, rather than in via how known a quantity it is before it is undertaken.

I'm struggling with this meself.

I seem also to be making a collection of works that are pieces of A4 paper.

I owe someone a nail. It's waiting patiently in my studio. It's actually nail plus these days. It's accrued interest. But not in anyway that undoes the inherent simplicity of nail as nail, fear not. It's just more practical now. Shall I show you? OK, hang on. Maybe next post.

Update

It’s been a really interesting day today that seems to be summing up lots of the stuff that’s going on.
1. MW and I went to see a house (apartment) that we really liked and it was before the proper inspection and a private rental so maybe we can even have it! It had a big kitchen with gas and a bathtub and was in Summer Hill near all the shops and 2br and overgrown garden. But it’s likely the saga of looking for a place will continue for some time. That’s just how it is, full of disappointments and rallying and so on.
2. I had an interview for a new job that could be very good and is actually perfect for me right now, with an academic art and critical theory publisher. It’s part time but only just, which makes me somehow feel constricted and tight in the throat like Diane Keaton’s character in Love and Death where she says ‘can’t breathe, open a window, no, the other one, the one in the kitchen’. I don’t want to work jobs at all! But anyway, it would beat the shitkickiness I’m engaged with at the moment, which wants me to become permanent in three weeks and be paid 30% less per hour for the privilege of losing my flexibility (which is the point of that job).
3. I went for lunch with MW and chose the salad over the omelette with chorizo. It was the healthy choice, and I still want that omelette now, but I exercised a discipline uncommon in my general life, hence felt powerful.
4. Had a hair cut. My long curly locks are now a short short bob. My hairdresser is six months pregnant, something I didn’t know was happening. I felt all peaceful and relaxed and had lots of head massages and they brought me tea and it was all luxurious. And now my head is all 1920s, which is good.
5. A blur … I have a lot of follow up work to do on the exhibition I have on at the moment. Emails, images, opportunities to grab … lots of pressing blah better get on with it …
6. Went to a nice opening and talked to good people. People I haven’t been talking to for months because I’ve been locked down working on my show, and now I can go out. Solved some of my worky problems in a nice social environment. Sometimes these things look after themselves.
7. Came to MW’s house, he is making lasagne and listening to his iPod in the kitchen. As I type, I can sometimes hear him singing along. Warm feeling.
8. I was sent this link, thoughtfully. It made me want to write this post, so I did.
In conclusion, life is good and change, although it can be stressy, makes you feel alive. You know you are alive because you are in your life, living it. Currently.

The naked truth of a shock jock duped

For those with whom I've discussed this story. It's now as out in the open as it gets.

Things are looking up

- Feel less rutty (ie no longer in rut)
- Room tidied
- Breaking back of art projects
- Spring arrived!
- More work obtained (poverty fended off again)
- Haircut
- Quazillions of books mooched waiting for me to read!
- internet addiction subsiding (enabling life to be addressed)

In other news, it has been so long since I blogged that blogger has changed its interface in the interim. (Blog, blog; inter, inter).

Distracting

I've been trying to work and listen to Radio National at the same time. It doesn't work. I can't concentrate. It works when I'm just making things with my hands, but not when I am reading/writing/working on the computer.

So I need to listen to music instead. But everything distracts me. What could I listen to that wouldn't distract me but that would energise me to work reading/writing/on the computer? No lyrics might be good. Or not English language. Not too wishy washy or la di la. Or too angry or oppressive.

I can tell you now, Jens Lekman doesn't work. He's totally annoying me.

So I don't want to take any more chances. Just need a sure thing.

... OK?

Note to self

ADABTM

Another day, another beer too many. I'm dehydrating in this heat.

Also, I am having flashbacks of my old full-time job. Boo! Working is

SO

BORING

that you have to go for drinks all the time afterwards. It isn't balanced! Sorry about the lame-as post. This is one of those lulls that people have that make them forget that they're actually happy, you know, just the absence of joyful feelings for a little while. I'm tired, is all.

SMTD, SLT

I've acronymed the post title as it's faster.

Well, in the last two weeks I've installed two exhibitions, started a new job, and moved an entire house to a new house. It was heavy, too.

Good things are coming out of my show ... I've got group shows coming out of my ears now, studio visits. Fame and fortune to follow, fer shere. Any minute now.

*crickets*

Etc etc.

AAaaanyway.

I'm starting a book on who will win the 40,000-big-ones travelling scholarship I'm a finalist for. There are 24 of us and my money is on a top four that I've carefully assessed to be the most likely to win. It's abstract money, of course. I don't know how to run gambling so that it's risk-avoidant. Or whatever it's called. That would be something it'd be good to learn about.

My new house is also my old house. I lived here a year and a half ago, for a year. I must be growing up - now I only move house every 18 months instead of every year.

Upgrade

Hey! We're not out of beta yet, so thanks for your patience; here are some of the changes you can expect to see coming up.

-- Job quitted. This will take effect in a couple of months. We sure do appreciate your standing by.
-- Positive influence on life of new computer. Just got a few teething problems to sort out. Rosetta whosa? Intel whatza?
-- Implementation of New Year's resolution* (made in December). Stats on progess so far are as follows: three applications written, two deadlines missed, two applications successful (jury still out on number 3). Looks like I should start applying for something bigger!! (My head?)
-- International rock climbing championship in bag. Workin on it. However, my new climbing shoes are not foot-bindingly tight enough. I can wiggle my toes slightly in them. This could slow my climbing career down. Also not anorexic.
-- New entry in Macquarie Dictionary for past tense verbs; "quitted". Stop the presses! Influence of blogs on modern English etc etc.
-- Interstate travel! Berlin, Hill End, Berlin, Hill End [insert 'weighing' hand gestures here). I know where I'D rather go!!
-- Studio. Am gettin one. A good one. Cheap. In which to make MASTERPIECES. Quibblers refer point number three.
-- Ennobling poverty scheduled for initial implementation around end of April.
-- Love. Room for that in maybe ... early 2008? Apologies for the inconvenience.
-- There's some other stuff. Art etc. Fine print. Supplement to the terms and conditions on its way in the post. If I have your address. And you registered for updates.

Everything I said to everyone about 2007 is true, so far. I'm not even scared of jinxing it. I'm practically like Mystical Medusarer! (Vague Wortwut? Not to self; get better thesaurus. Also new dictionary.) Some of these changes might appear to be subtle, but we insiders know that there is a paradigm shift a-sailing in the open seas.

I so don't know ANYTHING about blogging. La di da.

*Resolution was: apply for everything. Yep, there's pretty much NO reference to absinthe parties in this post.

Banal personal revelations

Today I couldn't believe how openly stupid people were being to me at work. My incredulousness was palpable ... I was all 'what are you THINKING?' 'am I the only SANE ONE here?' etc etc. It was like a twilight zone of stupid.

Then when I get home my flatmate assures me (with a conspiratorially superior air) that it's because Mercury is in retrograde, communication's all fucked! Ha!

So that cleared everything up. Just gotta sit out the waning of Mercury. Once it like, ameliorates or whatever, then everything will be DANDY.

Then we sat in front of the heater affirming our freedom and financial independence (15 minutes a day for three months, right?) before saying goodnight.