http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 F**k the Future/Chasing Dragons Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:46:44 +0100 a-n rss generator a-n The Artists Information Company and contributors edit@a-n.co.uk technical@a-n.co.uk http://sites.a-n.co.uk/img/logo.gif http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 This is a reincarnation of a sculpture project which started out a while ago but after smashing up various macquettes and losing my way I became blocked. I thought that only happened to writers but apparently not. I have been commissioned to create a 10 meter high sculpture to hang in a four storey atrium. I have set out below my motivation and initial thoughts on the piece. 1) Title: F**k the Future -This is how we are at the expense of all else: Rushing headlong into oblivion Unaware never seeing always hoping always aiming Our personal devotion/diversion with trinkets for faster talking That make us erratic, seeing nothing, feeling everythingHiding from the pain of separation (birth)Forgetting the small the ordinary the mundane Gorging on the internal jack up of instant gratificationThere…..is…no….time...Bar-coded hearts with MTV minds, lost in our paradise of fickle reminds Of past experience – a desperate re-creation of which gives the illusion of being here nowAnd yet nothing is happening, no-one is here, nothing and no-one nowhere 2) Everything is About My Life and it’s Very Important – it HAS to beWe go from everything to nothing, trying to reconnect we break and tear everything apart ”Hold me!” ”Love me!” ”Make me safe!” Our wheedling demands become the destroyers of that state of grace that we knew in the beginning and then forgot And having forgotten, we lose our grace, so becoming ignorant and vicious in our vainglorious attempt to win the race (to nowhere)3) How this need manifests – Chasing Dragons I want to catch the big one I want to make it mine I want to be on Pop Stars I want them to see me shine I want all the emptiness to fill up with everything that everyone wants I want to belong on the inside the outside and through time I want all my dreams to come true andI want you to want me like I want you I want what I haven’t got and what you have I want a baby a car a house a new wife – I want everything always I want to eat lifeHOW THE SCULPTURE WILL LOOK: Three to five 3m tall pure, white figures crashing wildly to the ground. They’ll be naked with bar codes on their backs or legs. With laptops and mobile phones and Bluetooth headsets flying around them.In Addition: Small defining thoughts or Internal murmurings of a nervous nature will be projected or written on the atrium walls (maybe throughout the building). Sometimes huge, sometimes so small your nose would have to touch the wall to read it.Nobody told me it would be like this Who are you?What are you doing? It’s nobody’s business F**k it Just do it I love you Nobody loves me I want everything and I want it now Can you feel anything? Forget everything you know I am you If only It doesn’t really matter Nobody is looking What did you say? What are you thinking? Everything’s going to be alrightPaintingI think maybe a hyper real painting on the floor directly beneath the sculpture, of a small child looking up, would be good too...but I’m not sure yet. It would have the advantage of making people feel they’re being examined by the kid (which they are) and maybe make them realise this is all about them.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 art is something we all do, it is not something to be talked about knowledge reduces your ability to see clearly forget everything you know inside your mind is the eye of god everything is your problem you are responsible for everything that happens “why me?” - why not you? nobody deserves anything you owe your children everything, they owe you nothing thought is intention, intention is action, action creates effect, be care-ful what you think relationship is the mirror in which we are reflected i cannot exist without you... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 Some time later...I've been much distracted by some of the grafitti the situationists came up with. Their gorgeous, dread humour. But.... after looking a bit closer it seems student-y, a tad self-conscious and in the end a part of the same problem it was trying to tackle. Its no surprise that most of their funkiest ideas were "recuperated" by the advertising industry a few years later to sell beer and bank accounts! So today I stopped talking, thinking this and that and and bent bits of wire instead. Much more effective. Finally a shape is emerging which I'm getting excited about. Having been frozen for about three months this is big news for me. How on earth could I forget that action is everything. Words do very little. I saw some Tiepolo the other day and it struck me how that kitsch symbolism is so appropriate today. When we read the papers or hear those maniacs talk about the better world we're always going to get I can't help feeling its a sort of comic horror story that could be really well expressed in terms of that naive religious symbolism in Baroque painting. Things were so much simpler then. The bad guys, dressed in black, were called things like Ignorance or Mendacity and generally looked freaked out whilst hurtling to hell without any doubt whatsoever. Meanwhile the 'good' guys, Virtue, Nobility et al were pretty and pale and ascending almost always in sky blue silk with insanely red cherry lips. Have you ever met those fuckers? They're scary. Really. And yet it doesn't half remind me of US, these days in the wild, wild West/First World with our Colonial/Imperial smug bigotry raining down on all the rest. Poor sweethearts. And yet the sad truth is if they were in the ascendant they'd be kicking us black and blue. Because that's what the big guy always does....squashes the little one - from time immemorial... So that's where I find myself today. I have roughly delineated a many figured wire mobile. It shows The Death of Reason in the Lap of Decadence, (that sounds like an actual place doesn't it?!) with us humans, in the vacuum we've colluded in creating, hurtling headlong to....to what....our senses?...death?...or hell for goodness sake?....all in perfect Tiepolo-esque style. Busting down ffom the atrium roof. This has to work. Just can't not. Oh and it's big, very big about 10m long....mmmmh....... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 Be radical. Act normal.Nope Tiepolo has got to go. The kitsch-ness would be all there was to see. And forget Reason and Decadence. Too one dimensional. I need blunted dull versions of humanity carved out of anthracite? No too dark. Back to white. Or cold cast stone...? The hanging mechanism needs to be concealed within the first figure diving in through the roof.Oh and another thing...outside the building on the approach there will be a figure on the top of the building leaping across the road at 3rd storey level. Rushing to its demise as well. Yeah.I love that Banksy. Such a minimalist. Maybe when I'm grown up I'll get to be like him. Roger and out.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 I have been distracted lately...again. I'm hugely talented at distraction. Two new commissions from Essex and one from Bristol. More community involvement and workshops with kids. Should be a blast. Input from lots of little brains. Can't wait.Anyway so where were we?? Oh yeah huge falling bodies....mmmmh yes. Back to white methinks and this time really crisp realism rather than lumpen, unformed humans. I like the idea of a crimson furling, falling spiral ion thecenter that could house most of the lighting. Or maybe cobalt blue...Its all very well having the ideas. How about actually making one then?? Okay. NEXT WEEK. I'll do it. Nope it'll have to be the one after...I'm back in Babylon again next week. No chance of creativity there. Or am I just being a boring old cynic...?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160 I should have finalised the design by now...what happened?? Time did its weird and wonderful thing leaving me gasping in amazement as usual. REALLY must start paying attention.A meeting later today will decide everything. I like how a few words exchanged and actions ensue. Presumably... Can't go on like this, endlessly dreaming, taking in the shiny gorgeous sunshine o life. Supposed to actually make stuff...ho hum...now where did I leave me 'ed?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/393160