I don't want to produce a quirk that I then call an artwork, that they then call a farce.

Art

Words.Words.Words.Words.Words.Words.Words.
Words.Words.Words.Words.Words.Words.Words.
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I think I'd say fuck contemporary art because it is in all means a little bitch that knows its place is but a culmination of the regression of intelligent thought. It masters nothing, but constructs a vastness that excludes any real creation, in the hands of the artist, rather than the allowance of the elite to allow the unknowing folk who they now cater for, a feast of information, but a lack of knowledge. "I have seen" replaces "I now know" and we do not criticise this, for the sake that we may be unknown ourselves.

Why would they think my ego is small?

Tate

A comment is apparently art. The content is simple narcissism.

To a world which knows not its place, but culminates incessantly upon itself for the sake of only, whole heartily itself. No voice will be heard, now script is gold, it is worth, the only worth, a fabric though, of petulant girth. You need not hear the sound of a comment as it drops like destruction, the vision is just, if only a crutch. We, the petty, we the nostalgic, we the unified bric-a-brac of timeless ease, bear not the burden that we should but become the family of Gods most timeless sleaze. How then does the Godless trend, remove itself for the likeness spent, yet unrepentant to mend, nor the ungrateful repent.. Make art for the goal, not the gala. Live life for the weight, not the time. A Manifesto infested with night and with day, proved the outcome we have not meant, which we the unspoken, would not dare not say.

We will all be famous, looking at the few who are unknown like the icons we are not.

Presentation - Final

(Note:- That which is in black and white would have been conducted as a performance during the full video that exists in sepia. B&W was added later)

I couldn't decide how best to convey what I wanted to say without sounding like I was presenting answers. I was not and am not. The importance of the question far out weighs that of the answer. Questions are the only genuine aspect. Answers may produce pain or happiness, but it is the question which gives root to all. Hence, the audio track was recorded on a phone at 4am as if it were a conversation with a friend. I wanted to exclued the formalities of a presentation, and not premeditate what I wanted to say, but rather, to allow what needed to be said to flow naturally.

(Paul and Ken:- again, sorry for not being able to get this together. Because I was working all weekend it took me this long to get this up. Had to re-edit it so the performance aspect was still there. It was important to me not to actually address the group vocally, so their attention was directed to the screen, and that I became a part of that voiceless crowd.)

To do this, I need to channel which exists inside my head, but with work, not with words.

What I don't fully understand to any real degree is why 'small' ideas are not worthy of creation, and are but a means to the all important 'big' idea. Just a constant stream of explanation and worthless opinions that build right into the sky so in the end they can bend over infinitely and stare up its own accumulated arse.

Life is the culmination of a series of questions, and depending upon the answer that you find very early on, it may set a precedent in relation to the future ability or desire to ask questions. The importance of the question verses the answer was a naive question in itself, but a prime example of the inability to find a concrete answer if you know that you will be unsatisfied. There is no right or wrong, only opinion and preference. Speaking entirely in an academic sense, this is not a statement to incite or anger, but simply the idea that everything is built on questions, but given meaning to by the answer, potentially not even in as much the resolute end, but of the course (the initial question) which perceived the notion that the question would lead to the answer, thus governing more significance to itself, rather than being mastered by the affirmed answer. In this project I've learned briefly some things, nice bar chat and a few facts and what not, but I've gained nothing and will be left with the same when I delete this blog. This ridiculous bin of contemptuously loose opinion.

Ending a process

I've not known how to partner the Research Book and the Blog. To be honest, I think it is one or the other - for myself at least, I cannot use both. Not for, what seems to be the same purpose, to accumulate information and opinion, both primary and secondary, resulting in a body of research which culminates in an idea. It seems elitist, in theory anyway, that for a 3 week period I will use "small" ideas to build a "large" idea. The imagination shouldnt be provoked in that sense. I genuinly do not like Anish Kapoors work, but at the start of this project I automatically decided on fantasy and the impossible. I think its frustrating at this stage to ask art students who have not the means nor ability to create something "ambitious in both scale and intentension" and claim that it is benefitial for artistic progression. I just think the whole notion is barren. Most people with a heathy imagination think big, from day dreams of a perfect life, appearence etc. but there is destruction in that. I'm not saying that everyone should, at the first possible chance cease to imagine and focus on the reality, because the imagination is reality in its infant state. It might be self destructive to have chosen the final idea that I have, it might even be hypocritical, but I will never make it. It exists entirely in fantasy, and is not only untangable, but uninspired. I never want to 'make' something that I have not created. Not from any pretentious angle, or personal opposition to those who do, but for myself, at this very moment, the significance of being allowed to 'think' something that I cannot wholly credit to the transferrence of my imagination to my craft through to my art is not a stimulating idea at all.

Q&A

Questions are to knowledge as consumption is to glutons.

Not right or left, but inbetween. That is where experience exists. It is experience that binds the question to the answer. Nothing is static, at least nothing which you will to move. Knowledge is a cliche of a river, or a mountain, it is both large and small.

Glass Building

76th in the 100 Great Britons poll

BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODYOF A BRITISH WARRIORUNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANKBROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONGTHE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LANDAND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OFHIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE VHIS MINISTERS OF STATETHE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCESAND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION
THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANYMULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREATWAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THATMAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELFFOR GODFOR KING AND COUNTRYFOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIREFOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE ANDTHE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD
THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HEHAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARDHIS HOUSE


Arrangements were placed in the hands of Lord Curzon of Kedleston who prepared in committee the service and location. Suitable remains were exhumed from various battlefields and brought to the chapel at Ste Pol near Arras, France on the night of 7 November 1920. Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt and Lieutenant Colonel E.A.S. Gell of the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries went into the chapel alone. The remains were on stretchers each covered by Union Flags: the two officers did not know from which battlefield any individual body had come. General Wyatt with closed eyes rested his hand on one of the bodies. The two officers placed the body in a plain coffin and sealed it. The other bodies were then taken away for reburial.

One monument stands to honour every death which goes unhonoured.

I am not saying that monuments are a bad thing, but they assume often a singular amount of importance upon an individual, which, in matters of 'greatness' is not often so. One man cannot win a war, a poet can't ahcive sucess if poeple are not listening, a politician cannot attempt change if they've not the votes.

Everyone in Glasgow

Where's Wally?

In the picture. For a while this has been in my mind, but I forgot the name of it. There isnt really a simpler way of explaining it; this is my project. I want to paint all of Glasgow and invite people to climb to the top of the monument to find themselves.

It has gotten too confusing, when it's really quite simple. Children are monuments, when bronze will not be cast. Poems, sculptures, paintings, wars are all monuments. A person is not a monument. Monuments are static they do not move. They exist to preserve and remember. People say that memory is the curse of the living, for it cannot forget the past.

I'm tired of saying to much, and tired of not building anything. I feel like I've had forty-odd conversations with myself and I wasn't listening at all. This is not how inspiration should be recorded. This isn't real.

A friend of mine went on the Somme & Ypres WW1 Battlefield tour last year and the tour guide told him a story that basically goes as follows:- a company were making an advance over no-mans land towards the German bunker, the Captain then decided for some reason, owing probably to a miscalculation, to retreat back to their own side. As they did this they were still being followed by heavy floods of German bullets and the British were losing as many men killed in the back as they did in the front. A young solider on his way back found his friend in the mud, who was wounded, but not dead. He picked him up and carried him on his back all the way to their bunker. Just as he approached the edge a bullet caught his leg and he fell. The Captain pulled him by his tunic and he fell into the bunker, with his friend still on his back. Both the soldier and Captain were decorated for this act, yet because of the Captains rank, his decoration was of a higher level than the soldiers, despite the more heroic actions being the soldiers own.

This wasn't rueally a Simon Starling effort, it was more a comment on the Clyde and a heritage that I've never really known.

I'll study people before I study artists.

Anthropometry, a means to an end.

rep·li·ca·tion

noun.

1. A fold or a folding back.
2. A reply to an answer; a rejoinder.
3. Law The plaintiff's response to the defendant's answer or plea.
4. An echo or reverberation.
5. A copy or reproduction.
6. The act or process of duplicating or reproducing something.
7. Biology The process by which genetic material, a single-celled organism, or a virus reproduces or makes a copy of itself: replication of DNA.
8. In scientific research, the repetition of an experiment to confirm findings or to ensure accuracy.

We build monuments to allow us to forget, we have children to be remembered.

Perhaps I'd like to build a monument to remember those of Glasgow.

People seen and people not.

There isn't really a great much interest for me in knowing every single person in Glasgow. That's the politicians game - the constant fantasy that they would come running up to you on the street to shake your hands. I don't want to shake hands with most of the people on the street, that's not my aim. I don't want to go chasing after people asking them ambiguous questions because quite frankly they would quite probably not stop, bend the truth of their convictions or fabricate themselves almost wholly during the interview. There is something quite deforming about the charity folk who you meet. They all want to sell their own specified bit of truth, and depending on the individual (and the next statement is from an experience i had with an animal charity collector, whose charity I can';t quite remember) they will either harness your interest or not, long enough to detail their proposition. The guy was pretty much a good hearted idiot. Not because of his cause, to which he is a member, but as a detachment, because there is a sever level of unavoidable hypocrisy. We are now closing the door on a vast amount of animal cruelty, but it does still exist. It basically got into a bit of a shouting match though, over the right to preserve culture and the total surrender of animal cruelty. I wasn't particularly arguing for one or the other, but I was waiting for a bus so I had a go. I wasn't going to give money based on a 5 minute chat, so I asked if I could have some literature with more acute information, which he stated that they apparently do not do. At a point he asked me the deeply long routed question of how much I could spare. I could spare quite a lot actually. I could quite smoking, move back home to live with my parents, drop out of art school and work 60 hours a week. There are numerous things I could do, just as there are numerous things we all could do, but I couldn't justify this, because, the hypocrisy of charity is that its benefactors are rooted in monetary shackles belonging to the capitalist nations. Britain is a hyper-bed of this type of cause, as we live with the eternal guilt that maybe we fucked over the world a little too much, and perhaps continue to do so in our own apologetic way. We recycle most of what we buy, we are atoning for past misdeeds. But the stark realisation of it all, and many who donate will disagree, is that the question "Have you got a minute to have a chat?" is really a request for money. To stand strong in your beliefs is one thing, but when he asked if I knew how much a baby gorilla fetches on the black market, I couldn't help but feel the need to reply that it was probably a lot more money than is received for young girls being sold to human trafficking. It is in the interest of mankind to preserve itself, and when before this was as easy as sacrificing everything other than our kind, we now more openly mix the future of our species with a take all give all attitude, where we are both the villains and the heroes, both the means and the end, the question and the answer. We can bare hypothesis, and we tolerate vicious means, but only if it is their victorious end that is resolutely published. Mankind abuses itself as well as animals, yet mankind is an animal, one who is incumbent to rule with both sincerity and strictness, lies and idleness.

For this reason, I don't want to approach a stranger, or force them to think about that which they will not naturally. The greatest and the worst hold candles to their friends and enemies just as they in turn hold them away from or to themselves. Its not in the dissection of this race that ables us to embrace them, but in the depiction of their wholly natural state that I wish to record. Not as a camera on the wall or with tricks and words, for these things only go as far as I am willing to take them, and as long as the bias of my own discrimination will allow concentration. I want the city of Glasgow to become as surreal to themselves as they are to the individual, and as phantom and as blatantly misinterpreted and lost as they are to each other. I want them to exist together purposefully, but in their natural state of unawareness. I don't need to shake their hand for this, but accept the same maxim that they all must, that there are not gods or devils amongst Glasgow, but animals of mankind.

On a very basic level I was interested in taking something which is very publicly effective and well, kind of evident in the cityscape

"In summation, the Duke statue is a fine example of craftsmanship, arguably much more so technically than Citizen Firefighter. Yet, it stands to all those who will forever be beneath it, as a reminder of a Britain no more. It raised one, as thousands fell. Citizen Firefighter exists in a glory that is made all the more powerful by its anonymity. It embodies eternity in an emotionless stance. For we know that the heroes that it depicts will remain faceless, and will not be, in their thousands remembered for every individual act of heroism, for every day, every fire or emergency. Citizen Firefighter is a testament to those men and woman we may never know, who everyday, in the very nature of their job, raise themselves high for others. Far higher than any granite base ever could."

'Walk' cont... (Bridges)

A structure spanning and providing passage over a gap or barrier.

A gap or barrier.

'Walk' continued (faceless)

A Walk On The 26th April '10 (Faces)

mon-u-ment
A structure, such as a building or sculpture, erected as a memorial

Monuments?

Voicless reason makes for harder hearing.

"Our democracy is not a product but a continual process. It is preserved not by monuments but deeds. Sometimes it needs refining; sometimes it needs amending; sometimes it needs defending. Always, it needs improving." Lee H. Hamilton

"Peace has its victories no less than war, but it doesn't have as many monuments to unveil." Kin Hubbard

"The poets' scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death." Edmund Spenser

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others." Pericles

Question:- Who is the author of the quote Excuses are the tools that incompetent people use to build monuments of nothing?

Answer:-

"Excuses are monuments of nothingness,
They build bridges to nowhere,
Those of us who use these tools of incompetence,
Seldom become anything but nothing at all."

GLAZ-goh

"Glasgow is by far the largest of Scotland’s cities, with a population of 580,690 in 2006."

I think I know 0.021% of them.

An idea of self importance and the perpetual state of involvement

Looking for yourself in other peoples art.

The idea that we are in fact a part of the creative, process, both visually and conceptually. It is not so much a duty, rather a gift, to exist that way. Despite the dusty grey areas of vogue interpretation, art exists very still, and with the weight of those who claim to be artists, it moves forward or backwards, but will not stay still if they are taking their role with the sobriety it deserves.

To some degree it is necessary to look for yourself in others art, especially when the work in question was created as a reaction or homage to a particular or entire community of people. Its not a case of shunning art of the past, but rather, no one should create unless they feel it is because something is missing from the world. Whether is a vitally large or small comment, it should not be a replication, at its worst it could appear as a reinforcement, but never an imitation, less it stagnate.

Conceptual Art - Briefly

Can something be independently owned, but universally shared?
Can a destruction become a birth, if the latter, untempered?
Would a proof be a fact, if presented with a lie, a tale that everyone believed?
Would man be remembered for evil or for good?
Man of woman of man of god?
If a line is drawn with the intention to be unmeeting and straight but the axle upon which the line exists is turned in a timely fashion 360-degrees, would anyone believe it were a line and not a circle?
When before, Man was made in the image of God, yet He now made of a man made cast, do we not expel more from a lie, than we would, of the truth of a past? That Man has wrecked each time he has created, that this misery was birthed, and to a false hope its worth and victory and loss, Stated. Still, of sullen praise, and of Golden return, does the face of a world have such vacant appeal, so too must the gluttons be consumed, as well as their meal. A devastation not only of form, but of content in the commitment of a script, diluted with inefficient Moons and Suns, till a barren authority becomes a benevolent whip. The vessel to guide Man from this storm, is compassed not tord South, West, North, nor tords East, but through unrighteous garments and pitch black infernos, past brothers mistaken as beasts, and passed the dead, who no longer rest, but detest the sight, of this vanity, for contemptuous relentless peace.

Review

This was all quite simply in aid of the idea that work can be made independantly, without socially aggrivated issues, political preference, or anything else which adjusts and contorts the singular ability of a visual creation and the ownership of such a thing.


Untitled 12/12/09
Talk to me with your eyes
From what you actually see.
Not from behind words best left,
to original verse.
Practised prose is a curse to know,
When the memory works more than the mind.
A Bard bastardised for the sake of you’re your rhyme.
Sentiment. Short. To. Keep. Perfect. Time.

I may not speak from genius,
Or write with elegance or with form.
But I do not need quotations,
To see and know,
That what’s right and that what’s wrong.

The Hes and Shes,
Of verse, prose and song,
May indeed have uttered sweet truths,
Under silver light
Of a world long-n-gone.
Yet for the sake of what’s left,
Stop looking for yourself,
In quips and puns and context.
In their verse, their prose or song.

On the occasion of wine taken in volume,
When speech is freer than thought.
A muddle half verse is soothing,
And prose reborn a comfortable shoulder.
Even the song is sung with conviction and love,
Yet without a thought of the father or mother.

As older I grow I sit further in silence.
I sit now, in a stretch of still silence.
Broken vessels belonging to poorly tied knots.
The do’s and don’ts of politics,
Literatures best, forget-me-nots.
In fragments of intelligence,
Stripped bare of light and ownership
Assembled then destroyed with and without doubt,
Unheard and unknown
I leave again that crowd.
But I’ve nothing if not
Unoriginal thought.

Savant - Leslie Lemke

What makes you happy?

"As long as you let him do what he can do best, he's the happiest man on earth."

Is the ability to beat the master a fear?

"When he was playing a Schubert sinata, his paino teacher pointed out an error, but Matt insisted he version sounded better."

Will you ever know everyone?

"His city has over 12 million inhabitants, but Gilles only knows very few of them because his system Urville functions like all other systems - incessantly and without real concern for the individual."

Savants: are they the only artists who make work for themselves?

Savant syndrome, sometimes abbreviated as savantism, is not a recognized medical diagnosis, but researcher Darold Treffert describes it as a rare condition in which persons with developmental disorders have one or more areas of expertise, ability, or brilliance that are in contrast with the individual's overall limitations. Treffert says the condition can be genetic, but can also be acquired.

According to Treffert, about half of all persons with savant syndrome have autistic disorder, while the other half have another developmental disability, mental retardation, brain injury or disease. He says, "... not all autistic persons have savant syndrome and not all persons with savant syndrome have autistic disorder". Other researchers state that autistic traits and savant skills may be linked, or have challenged some earlier conclusions about savant syndrome as "hearsay, uncorroborated by independent scrutiny".

Though it is even more rare than the savant condition itself, some savants have no apparent abnormalities other than their unique abilities. This does not mean that these abilities weren't triggered by a brain dysfunction of some sort but does temper the theory that all savants are disabled and that some sort of trade-off is required.

Alonzo Clemons
Alonzo Clemons is an American animal sculptor and a savant. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Clemons suffered a severe brain injury as a child that left him developmentally disabled (with an IQ in the 40-50 range), but able to create very accurate animal sculptures out of clay. Clemons can create a sculpture of almost any animal, even if he has seen only a glimpse of it. He is also able to create a realistic and anatomically accurate three-dimensional rendering of an animal after only looking at a two-dimensional image for mere moments. He is most well known for his life-size renderings of a horse, but most of his works are smaller, and accomplished in less than an hour.
In 1986 he had a premiere exhibit in Aspen, Colorado. His works have sold for as much as $45,000

Jonathan Lerman (born 1987) is an American autistic savant outsider artist. He was born in Queens, NY, and currently resides in the Upstate New York suburb of Vestal.
Jonathan Lerman began to lapse into long silences at the age of two, and the next year he was diagnosed with autism. His IQ is purported to be 53.
Lerman's artistic bent appeared at the age of 10 in the form of charcoal-drawn faces—both people he knows and those he imagines. In 1999 he had his own solo exhibition at the KS Art gallery in New York City.
Lerman has had personal exhibitions, and has also exhibited his work alongside others.

Gilles Tréhin (born 1972) is a French artist, author, and creator of the imaginary city of "Urville". His book, also titled Urville, is based on his writings of the fictional city's history, geography, culture, and economy, and includes over 300 drawings of different districts of Urville, all done by Trehin.

Richard Wawro (April 14, 1952, Newport-on-Tay, Fife – February 22, 2006) was a Scottish artist notable for his landscapes in wax oil crayon. He was an autistic savant.
He had his first exhibition in Edinburgh when he was 17.
In the early 1970s one of his exhibitions was opened by Margaret Thatcher, then Education Minister, who bought several of his pictures, as did John Paul II.
He got his father's approval for each picture until his father died in 2002. Overall he sold more than 1,000 pictures in around 100 exhibitions.

Treffert says a savants memory is "very deep, but exceedingly narrow". There is a huge deal still unknown about savants, but I find it particularly interesting that the memory can compose such vivid data, and so sad that it cannot be put to a functional use. For instance, its been described that they use raw memory, and the reason it can be so easily replicated is that they cannot infact process it.