Torpid Tales: Chapter 11 The Gravy Train 2

The white room with greying floor was odd. Brutal. The ledge aggressively highlighted unbelonging. Puppy eyes adored then flipped and dissolved. Teeth clacked off with parsley to chitter and glitter elsewhere. The way home. At East Croydon a drunk but not drunk was hostile accusing a shopper of banging her bunny and smashing its chocolate head. The carriage emptied. A mile or so from the last station it stopped. A loud hiss behind and a fumble and stench. A bottle half filled. Then. I will cut off the cunt's head. Shouted aloud. To an empty but not empty carriage. We sat. Still. I silent. I waited. Waited for something to happen. Waited for nothing to happen. I got off. I am off the train I said into my phone.

The Fish Needs A Bike

First residency of sorts... themes of
loss, gap, regret, absence, failure, indigestion, bankruptcy... let's get beleaguered... the fish needs a bike...
definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result... Only Five Pounds! Doors At 8pm! Bring A Friend/Colleague/Enemy/Complete Stranger...

Little Cannon, Large Ball

kicking this around as an idea for editing project... following on from the Brighton university meeting and talk of oppositional figures/ideas/sides of a flyer... disruption of conventional forms, rendering them meaningless/malfunctioned... straight man straight man no jokes.... funny man funny man no pathos... where's the punchline? Q: why did the chicken cross the road? A: pull yourself together man

CP

Sentimental Punk

Fiftieth post! unless someone beat me to it... Some stuff of mine AND MR PAUL GRIVELL'S from an exhibition in Brighton last year ... currently a still only but video to follow....
sentimentalpunk:exhibitions
see you tomorrow...
CP

Circuitous Speech

"In her article “Wearing proverbs , ” Susan Domowitz recounts an incident of equivocal communication from the Anyi (Côte d’Ivoire ) :
After divorcing his first wife, this man began seeing another woman. He noticed that she often wore a cloth in which the wild spider figured in the design [. . .], and suspected that she was trying to say something to him. Then he remembered a proverb that says, ‘What one does to cendaa (a small harmless spider), one does not do to bokohulu (a large spider considered dangerous).’ The man interpreted this to mean that he should not mistreat this woman as she supposed he had mistreated his first wife. At this point in his story I asked him if he knew there was a cloth with this specific proverb name. He replied, “No . . . but I knew that pagnes [cloths] have their names.’ His familiarity with this popular proverb prompted him to ask the woman what she was trying to say, and she confirmed that the message of that very proverb was indeed intended for him. "
KT

The Notebook Project

So, I bought a set of notebooks, I know we are all particular about our stationary, but I think I did pretty well with this one, it is neat and plain pages so we can write, stick, draw, scribble etc. TT

Active Art

Pathetic really
http://collect.myspace.com/reloc.cfm?c=18&fuseaction=viewImage&imageID=24069245&friendID=89052909&id=
S

Active Art

The day of our meeting in Brighton I went that afternoon to the beach in Ferring. We were starting a new project and in an inept attempt to intrigue the students I failed. The high tide concealed a cement platform. I walked in fully clothed and the idea was a thin layer of water coating the platform would create the illusion of my walking on water. Sadly the tide was fierce, the platform slippy and the students should have stayed on the beach but instead started to join me in the water. Fearing for my career (having forgotten til this point to do a risk assessment) I had to abandon the demonstration watched by my new Head of Department. Our 'artist in residence' recorded the event thus and I sadly do appear to be paddling and not at all messianic.
S

Active Art

Chris & I became political; it felt good; it is blatant theft but heck am sure CS won't mind
S

Active Art

I am trying to be an active artist
http://www.westsussextoday.co.uk/ws/Someone-will-die-if-nothing.3792287.jp
S

Work

Also, remember our decision to start making and posting?

Lets do it.

TT

Pockets

Re: Steph's suggestion we buy a pocket book and pass it around.

I'm in.

In fact I'll go get one this weekend and see what happens.


TT

Bunny

What I am really trying to say is
sb

Bunny

I really like you all but
sb

Bunny

I feel I need some space
sb

i should be doing elsewhere but have a need to communicate here. Mulling over last meeting and suspect i am not alone in thinking that in order for there to be anything to interrupt curatorially we should convene in practice and properly introduce ourselves. (residency agenda?)

speaking for myself one of the potentially interesting 'things' about this project is the collaborative dimension and how this might extend ideas of individualised/atomised models of artist producers into a kind of networked practice with people coming together to make and play with ideas. some of us are better placed than others in our existing relationships but it would be interesting to extend the possibilities for this (if others are interested) outside of established structures. Isn't that the point of 'reassembling the social'?

C. x

Torpid Tales: Chapter 10 The Gravy Train

It stank of stale beer. The gaze was casual, disinclined on the way up the hill but in the carriage it was frontal. It bobbed. I rolled up and read. A globular noise stirred. I focused on the not too clean refreshment shelf in front. As the smell rose and mutterings began I looked at the small white sachet of salt. SALT it said and below the type a rather beautiful drawing of a salt cellar. SALT. Well now I know.

Saint-Armand the violent saint

Whoever suggested we read Pierre Saint-Armand's Laws of Hostility, thankyou. I managed to get hold of a copy through amazon, from the States, and am finding it excellent reading. Would have been useful three years ago when i was reading Simon Critchley's Very Little...Almost Nothing, which is also great on this.

TT

Titles

Further to our discussion in Brighton two weeks ago Rob and I have come up with two titles with which to title the show. They will work concurrently and separately, so, for example, they will appear on obverse sides of the same flyer, or in the press release be separated by a "and/or".

They are by no means finalised as yet, merely working titles, we would like your feedback as to how you think they operate. They are:

For Those Killed In Ambush

and/or

Wrath Of Being Rejected: Being Shut Out Makes One Lash Out

thoughts please

TT

A is for arrested. E is for envelope.

A stationary stationery order sits on our shared office table. Responsibility for its future progress in the institutional system of procurement is presently undetermined. An inert and passive Bartleby, the half completed order form prefers to stay right where it is - amongst us and between us as a talisman of passive resistance. At some point in the not very distant future we will run out of ink for the printer, and paper for the letters we print on that machine, and envelopes for those letters we are required to send to students telling them they’ve missed another deadline and are off the course.

Prior to that future point of systemic breakdown someone in the office will have to act, or not, to maintain the system.

Human agency is required. The success of the institutional system is dependent on someone deciding to act. Ultimately the potential and real consequences of inactivity will compel someone to grasp the nettle. Feeling the sting of that compulsion someone will justify their actions in everyday terms: ‘just doing my/your/somebody’s job’. Collapse will be averted. There will be no sense of success though. Failure will be felt: the failure to not see something through to its unknown end.



Aims Outcomes

To give up no holder
To put off no folder
To let go no string
To walk out no binder
To sit back no envelope
To stay off no glue stick
To ignore no bands
To deny no rulers
To defer no staples
To back down no tippex
To withdraw no marker
To await no files
To not do no pens
To not not no punch
To let the phone ring no 5 star telephone sachetwipes
Off the hook no job