“THREE VOICES”

A.F [...] Yeah, it endears her to you in different ways, the first thing that you notice is that she is a very pretty woman, then you pick up on her colourless, drab, shapeless clothes; an unfashionable grey tweed wrap-around skirt, a stiff, thick, grey, long armed top. Although the clothes appear warm and the child is well wrapped the room is strongly lit by low, grey, cold winter light. She is alone with the child. Her partner could be away at work. Or she could be a single parent. Alone to face the bailiffs, find some way out of the situation. The room is bare except for a small hi-fi and speaker system on the shelf behind.

B.S So you like it. But the title of the exhibition. I want to know how you think that the work, this particular piece of work relates to that. Or even if it does.

A.F I think the curator has been very canny and has included it as it seduces the viewer with this dark aesthetic. And as there this empathy thing too. Current affairs, everybody has concerns at the moment, money problems, worries, sleepless nights. The exhibition title is a question, not a statement. Can art save us? The answer to that I suspect is a definite no. But it can buck us up, can be cathartic, can let us know that we are all… most of us, have similar problems. Can help us to feel human in a seemingly increasingly cold and harsh world. That Hunter and others like him continue to record scenes of everyday life, and that it is art. Gives it a higher level of importance than if you had just come across it in a newspaper, as journalism. It works on different levels. On the one hand you feel emotional for her, you want to be able to help this woman and her child in some way. In another sense, if you are honest, totally honest about it all. You are buoyed by the work. You have a very private part of you that is always ‘saying’ something like “it could have been worse, it could have been me!”. And that is how, then it asks questions about the self. The same self that you can never really know, and then you swing back to a negative frame of mind. You look at yourself from the outside and perhaps you don’t really like what you see. Next you have a stage when the defences come down again and you blame it on society or the system. “It’s always somebody elses fault, isn’t it?”. As with a lot of good work recently its very busy and you are all over the place, emotionally. As with a lot of this type of work there’s a narrative, but as Bacon would have said this comes across through a long diatribe through the brain, it’s not work that comes across directly onto the ‘nervous system’. – But it does do that in the end. And thats why when you go along to the show, and you stand in the corner, and you’re not viewing the piece. But you are watching the people viewing the piece. Well that is why they are there for a very long time, they are immersed in this whole gamut of emotions. There is a ‘gaze within the work’. It is much more than a brilliantly realised photograph loaded with ambiguous meanings and a clever title or a classical reenactment even. The viewer sometimes finishes the work – and this could be seen as great work – quite complex, powerful great work – simply because it narrows those options down. And well, you’ve only just got to look back at how it’s been received. The reviews. First photograph to be accepted by the National Portrait Gallery. Contemporary art for everybody too, not merely the élite few or the specially trained. That’s a big deal in itself today. It’s why whenever, if you’ll take the care to notice – see the exhibition advertised, its Hunters piece that they will have used. Every time. Guarantee it. Visual hook in the marketing – to draw the general public in.

B.S Yes Hunters want is that you do engage with his work, humanize his subjects. He invests his work with a genuine knowledge and understanding thats acquired through actually having lived in these conditions. Some of these people were actually his friends and neighbours. Still are. I did some research on him a couple of years back when I had to do a thing about him. It’s a lot to do with post Thatcher Britain and real life. New underclass, the media’s representations of them and the perception of it all by middle England as all.. well all quite dark really. Why don’t they just get a job all on drugs – more crime isn’t it. We do have a tendency to exaggerate don’t we. Panic. Perhaps with more insight they.. I think he felt quite angry really, in the 90′s when he was doing that series, and wanted to show it, his community in a different light. It’s his most famous piece, the ‘Possession Order’ and the most stunning. But theres plenty more good stuff. She won a reprieve by the way. Did you know that? Yeah. Kind of spoilt it for me when I found that out. Ruined my whole weekend too. Had to re-write half of the bloody review.

A.F You evil old bastard, thats bad. And after everything you’ve just said! She’s a real person – and there’s the infant too.. I have a friend who was in Manchester when the IRA thing went off. She said the same thing – spoilt her whole weekend because she couldn’t get her slides developed – but she was only joking…

B.S Can art save us? Hunter talks about communities and challenging perceptions and I can see that sort of theme around a lot. Jeremy Dellers’ ‘Orgreave’, Charlesworth  he’s no mug is he, wrote a strong piece about that too, about the politic outside of the historical re-enactment. Politics as art therapy I think. Communities destroyed by Thatcherism in the 80′s again.. Amanda Beech was up again last week too – some lecture for the University – solidarity, social glue and art that can make communities happen. Goes back to Ruskin too, doesn’t it. It was a Ruskin show really. The idea of what he thought art might be able to do. Enlightenment and communities working together – need for change – all common themes today – become fashionable again. Relation between politics and aesthetics through Ranciere and Zizek et al. Reminds me of Beeches talk again, sceptical of weak and uncritical art, considering ways in wich power is experienced through images. ‘Oh art is doing some good over there!’ I remember her saying. Maybe there really is something to think about here. The desires people have for ‘art’ in terms of what it might be able to do?

M.B The affect of the title interests me. I am wondering how – it’s much too late, the piece is much too old now, too well-known - and we shall never know – but I do wonder, how successfully received it might have been had it been shown as ‘untitled’ for all of this time. Still quite successful probably. There are tens of thousands, hundreds possibly who could have made the Vermeer link happen. And the historical re-stagement thing of course. the classical reconstruction, the lighting and everything…  Bit of research on the artists background and so on. Talented student, squatter, new-age traveller, political, whatever. But as I say it’s too late for that now, as it happens I’m all for that. A good strong title. Functional text allowing a way in to something more than the purely visual… I’m sorry just thinking aloud.

A.F Its an interesting question though Mike and I think that you are right, the art-work could stand-alone in the abscence of its ‘now’ title. And I’m thinking of Theodore Lipps’ old theory, the empathy thing, wish people do seem to be reading again. How we seem to have acquired through time, or have the innate – who can really say for sure – ability to relate an emotional or reactive response to affective qualities in ‘another’ through an empathetic muscular response. Or in this case maybe its better to ‘say’ the situation of the other. Same difference for these purposes. Deleuze frames it as more of an immediate response pre.. or outside of ones.. cognitive understanding or comprehension, on a more base level? Almost a sixth sense like an animal response. Gone back to bacon again haven’t I.. or Deleuzes’ three conceptual projections of a sensation thing..

B.S Mike you’re the old romantic amongst us, the art historian. For all of this talk, meaning about the ‘Possession Order’ in particular, and what can we really ‘say’ about it that it doesn’t do itself. If you take anything home with you tonight. What would that be?

M.B Oh. Just that I could believe in it.

End

Anon.

A kipple

• A kipple is a lost word. It preceded tipple but was used in much the same way for a drink which was bought for one. For example, please have this kipple on me.

• A kipple comprises an item of an equine harness.

• Kipple could be a type of junk.

The lighting is fading in this enclosed city thoroughfare. I sit and look at the floor and close my eyes. I want to experience this modern space in a way not available to me until now. Certainly not when one is merely walking through and senses are dulled.

Voices are few but I hear them start in a low struggling way as if wanting to be fully heard, but can’t quite be. As if someone is very slowly and carefully increasing the radio volume. They continue nearer.  The vibrations and echoes are in the air. They  increase in rhythm and sharpness, reverberating onto and off the clinical flat walls, high ceiling and gloss travertine floor.

The rhythms stop, the sharpness-es cease, extinguished. Do they pass ignoring me?…..a few seconds later they return, ………….goodbye. And fade and  stop and finally move on to occupy another reality.

Almost silence now.

I continue my solitary meditation…..but not for long. It is interrupted by a different set of noises, this time on the floor. These are not the voices I heard before, they have an air of the mysterious almost abstract. Several are happening simultaneously but differently.  husshh husshh, husshh husshh, in a regular constant motion – a bit like an old steam train trying to step up speed.

Click, clock, clik, clok,  is different. This is confident and clear and precise. In perfect regular contact with the hard travertine marble, no room for mistakes here. They join others in a multi – various hymn of difference. The thing is they operate independent of ownership.

I open  my eyes, the light is harsh. After several moments adjusting, I think I rather prefer them closed. Instead I look at the floor this time and revisit something I had noticed earlier. In fact one would think it quite noticeable.

I watch.

This time I see others pass by intermittently. One, then a group, then two followed by no-one. But all possess one quality, not one looks down on the floor. If they did they would discover a whole new different world at their feet. A 30x5m colour photo-print of a pond including its native weed and detritus yearns to be noticed and beckons at their heels. Its quite a nice pond despite being quite shallow. But despite walking on water no one notices.

Designing retail stores and exhibitions in mind a different floor finish or ceiling level can enhance or disrupt pedestrian traffic and can be positive psychological tools in design. It seems in this case it’s not true, it doesn’t stop anyone walking over it or around it.

A rather nice text panel is located on a nearby wall and returns my gaze. I can tell it wants to be noticed. Sadly, it’s hello attracts no audience of  merit except for the attention I am giving it.

I feel as though I am building a relationship with this locale, and want to stay and       be …………..quiet…………..but this is short lived, I have to leave my habitat of one hour, during which I have gleaned much. Neither it , nor me will ever be the same.

I have also discovered what a kipple is.

For Julie

My sister and i had just been talking about about similar experiences she’d had over the years, about lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis (psychosis?) and I knew that I had to write her into the story.

24      /    The Ticket That Exploded

 

the next shift of prisoners – Her mind and body blurred with pleasure and some part of her being was still talking to the switchblade concealed under her mattress, feeling for it with numb erogenous fingers – One night she slipped into a forgotten nightmare of her childhood – A large black poodle was standing by her bed – The dog dissolved in smoke and out of the smoke arose a dummy being five feet tall – The dummy had a thin delicate face of green wax and long yellow fingernails –

“Poo-Poo,” she screamed in terror, trying desperately to reach her knife – but her motor centres were paralyzed – This had happened before – “I told you I would come back” – Poo-Poo put a long yellow corpse fingernail on her forehead, vaulted over her body and lay down beside her – She could move now and began clawing at the dummy – Poo-Poo snickered and traced three long scratches on Julie’s neck-

“You’re dead, Poo-Poo! Dead! Dead! Dead!” Julie screamed trying to pull the dummy head off –

“Perhaps I am – And you are too unless you get out of here – I’ve come to warn you – Out of present time, past the crab guards on dirty pictures – There’s a Chinese boy in the next cubicle and Iam is just down the hall – He’s very technical you know – And use this – I’m going now” –

He faded out leaving a faint impression on the green mattress cover – The room was full of milky light – (Departed have left mixture of dawn and dream) – There was a little bamboo flute on the bed beside Julie – She put it to her lips and heard Poo-Poo speak from an old rag in one corner – “Not now – Later” –

After William Burroughs

Chiyoni

The First Mechanics’ Institute – Chesterfield 1827-1831

The first Chesterfield Mechanics’ Institute was founded in 1827 and fits conveniently into what Kelly calls the ‘First Phase’, between the years 1823 and and 1831 (1). The first recorded mechanics’ institute in the immediate locality was located at Eyam, a small village in the Peak District, more famous for its exploits in the Plague of the 1660’s than its educational achievements. This was followed by the Derby Mechanics’ Institute in 1825, the same year that many of the nearby towns of Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire formed their own mechanics’ institutes. To the West and to the North there was Manchester, in 1824, and Stockport and Stalybridge in 1825, and to the East and North there was Leeds in 1824, Rotherham, Wakefield, Keighley, Halifax, Dewsbury and Bradford in 1825 and Doncaster in 1826 (2).

In 1825, Forester Edwardes of Derby was encouraging the formation of mechanics’ institutes and in a publication, ‘Observations addressed to all classes of the community on the establishment of Mechanic’s Institutes (3), he also offered the following advice to new institutions.

“Though called Mechanics’ Institutions, It will of course be accessible to all workmen who derive their support from the exertion of their own skill and labour, though it includes mechanics it will exclude non who are disposed to partake of its advantages”.

CHIYONI

Died on the eighth day of the ninth month, 1827 at the age of seventy three.

I saw the moon as well                 Tsuki mo mite

And now, world,                             ware wa kono yo o

“truly yours…”                                 kashiku kana

Chiyoni was one of the best known women haiku poets, she became a Buddhist nun at the age of fifty-two. In her death poem she creates a metaphor of life as a letter. Kashiku is a phrase used by women to end their letters

This advice was taken by Chesterfield as will be seen in their ‘Rules’ but Edwardes’ advice went unheeded when he urged’

‘….that such institutions are likely to be more stable and useful when entirely supported and managed by Mechanics themselves”.

This democratic method of management and administration advocated by Edwardes and championed by Brougham (4) was the example set by the Yorkshire institutes at Keighley, Halifax and Bradford (5). But it was to be Chesterfield which was more influenced by the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute which entrusted the management of the Institute solely to honorary members (6).

This is a new page replacing an existing page of a thesis written in 1970. It is the last copy and was bought from Chesterfield College Library in 2004 for 10pence when it was ‘withdrawn for sale’. The book records the establishment of Chesterfield Mechanics Institute in 1827, which eventually spawned Chesterfield Art College. Today Chesterfield College is an associate college of Sheffield Hallam University. The book was written by someone who would in time be Chesterfield College Principal.

The year 1827 represents the birth of a new Institution that would give way to new ones. It also was the year of the death of  Chiyoni, a Buddhist nun ,who left us her simple death poem in Haiku tradition. The death of Chiyoni gives way to the new life of an institution.

So a book that was withdrawn from sale in a library, and therefore once ‘dead,’ now has a new page, a new life.

A Page I Added To A Book (Popcorn Venus) in The Library

212           THE FORTIES – NECESSITY AS MOTHER OF EMANCIPATION

I am interested in asking whether it is possible to claim Rita Hayworth as a feminist icon.  She is my heroine.  I love her.  And, so does Majorie Rosen.  She says some great things on the previous page about her sexuality.  In one line she states that through her performance of ‘Put the Blame on Mame’ in Gilda she is saying ‘This is my body.  It’s lovely and gives me pleasure.  I rejoice in it just as you do.’  That’s a great idea.  I think that exemplifies why I like that performance so much.  I want to do a performance where that’s what my performance says.  That’s about as subversive as you can get with the male gaze.   A disregard for it because you are so pleased with yourself.  Is that ever possible, do you think?            

                However, this page makes me sad.  This book is written in 1973 and the writer does not know that Rita Hayworth was the victim of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease.  In fact, the disease was far less understood then than it is today.  When Rita had difficulty remembering her lines on set people thought she was an alcoholic.  She started to drink because that was what everyone said about her.  She was unemployable and became a joke in Hollywood.  Her daughter by Aly Khan, Yasmin Khan, nursed her at the end of her life.

                She infamously said that men fall in love with Gilda and wake up with Rita.  And here we have the problem of Rita Hayworth.  Her image as a sex symbol is so wonderfully joyous, so celebratory.  She IS an incredible dancer.  But, her life story and the biographies of her life paint her as so deeply tragic a person.  She was repeatedly raped by her father and entered marriage after marriage with men who exploited her.  But she said, looking back on her life, that she did not want people to be sad when they thought of her, she wanted to be remembered as giving joy. 

                Interestingly, one of her closest friends and confidants throughout her life was Hermes Pan, a choreographer she met on one of the films she did with Fred Astaire.  It’s as though her really understood her because he understood her as a dancer and that’s where she lived.  She was a dancer first and foremost.  I maintain she was the best partner that Astaire ever had.  Way better than Ginger.

                Lower down on this page there is a sentence underlined.  I think it deserves to be read as a stand alone sentence, without reading on:  “1946 emerged as a landmark for the female breast”.

                I like this book because the author reads the text and image of film, something I do as an art viewer.  It’s a slightly instinctive.  It is interesting because she uses a personal subjective approach that was outmoded with the semiotic and psychoanalytic methods of the film-feminists later in the Seventies and Eighties.  I get more out of this style though, and I return to this book often.  It’s not printed anymore so it’s hard buy.  Sometimes it comes up on Amazon, but they are ex-library copies with stamps and marginalia.  I want a clean copy!  A similar book ‘From Reverence to Rape’ is still in print.  I wonder why that is.