Like there's something fundamentally wrong
Like I'm a southern bird
That stayed north too long
Thursday, 25 April 2019
Smog - 'Palimpsest'
Why's everybody looking at me
Like there's something fundamentally wrong
Like I'm a southern bird
That stayed north too long
Like there's something fundamentally wrong
Like I'm a southern bird
That stayed north too long
Tuesday, 23 April 2019
Max Porter, Grief is the Thing with Feathers
I am absolutely loving Max Porter's Book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers (2015).
One recurring stylistic choice in the book is producing lists within sentences. What I have found striking about these lists is that at times, the items listed seem to have an arbitrary connection to one other, like a disorganised train of thought or like a series of words conjured through free association. However, the juxtaposition of these words (seemingly disparate) give new meaning to each by way of being placed alongside each other as collection in a series, brought together almost as if by chance, but their togetherness consequently becoming absolutely vital.
Monday, 22 April 2019
Nick Drake screenings at MOTH Club
Yesterday, I went to watch a couple of documentaries on Nick Drake at MOTH Club. Hearing about his life and learning more details about his death, I came to feel that his loss is probably most tragic, for me, because it is almost all too generic, too familiar and common place.
His depression was not the result of acute trauma, but rather a side-effect of the deep sensitivity with which he approached the world, in a sense, by no choice of his own. There are certain people (perhaps myself included) who experience life with less layers of protection or defence against the intensity of the world, as if to open one's eyes fully would result in a certain blindness, a pain that derives from seeing too much. It is as if, without sufficient layers of skin, the world might pierce this person who feels the affects of being in the world so deeply, and for whom life is more painful.
Drake's story of depression felt to me to be a product of this raw exposure. His retreat into silence and his subsequent death reminded me of the feeling or confusion when the world appears to be other than what one hopes for or expects when a young person leaves home for the first time. His experience of his 20s reminded me of the disorientation of going to university and expecting to see and absorb the world as more beautiful than you've ever known it, and discovering that it is perhaps only more painful, more unjust, and more bewildering. Sometimes we just have to wait just a little bit longer, until we go outside feeling just slightly less porous, and ready enough to accept that the world, even on the best of days, is a mixed bag - and that will have to do.
His depression was not the result of acute trauma, but rather a side-effect of the deep sensitivity with which he approached the world, in a sense, by no choice of his own. There are certain people (perhaps myself included) who experience life with less layers of protection or defence against the intensity of the world, as if to open one's eyes fully would result in a certain blindness, a pain that derives from seeing too much. It is as if, without sufficient layers of skin, the world might pierce this person who feels the affects of being in the world so deeply, and for whom life is more painful.
Drake's story of depression felt to me to be a product of this raw exposure. His retreat into silence and his subsequent death reminded me of the feeling or confusion when the world appears to be other than what one hopes for or expects when a young person leaves home for the first time. His experience of his 20s reminded me of the disorientation of going to university and expecting to see and absorb the world as more beautiful than you've ever known it, and discovering that it is perhaps only more painful, more unjust, and more bewildering. Sometimes we just have to wait just a little bit longer, until we go outside feeling just slightly less porous, and ready enough to accept that the world, even on the best of days, is a mixed bag - and that will have to do.
Wednesday, 17 April 2019
Geta Brătescu (1926-2018)
I very much enjoyed exploring the drawings of Romanian artist Geta Brătescu at Hauser & Wirth's current London exhibition, 'The Power of the Line'. Brătescu's shapes, lines and colours most definitely feed my weak spots for abstraction and drawing!
These drawings remind me in some ways of why I love Marlow Moss's work, though admittedly, while both are interested in mathematic formulations to conceive of the abstract relationships developed in the compositions, their work signifies in very different ways.
These drawings remind me in some ways of why I love Marlow Moss's work, though admittedly, while both are interested in mathematic formulations to conceive of the abstract relationships developed in the compositions, their work signifies in very different ways.
Pauline Boty (1938-1966)
Really excited to have discovered the fascinating artwork of Pauline Boty, one of the founders of British Pop Art, who features heavily in Ali Smith's book, Autumn.
Friday, 12 April 2019
Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Chekhov's Three Sisters at The Almeida
This production was incredible! Hilarious and bleak and very ahead of its time. I kept thinking about Existentialism and Foucault...
Sunday, 7 April 2019
Biology, technology and vision in Moholy-Nagy's Lobsters
I'm very excited to announce that my article 'Biology, technology and vision in Moholy-Nagy's Lobsters' has now been published by Studies in Documentary Film!
Link to film available online, only 15 minutes long: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-lobsters-1936-online
Wednesday, 3 April 2019
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