Comments from the Nashville Scene Poll:
Josh Turner’s “Firecracker” was limp and devoid of the sexual energy that he can obviously deliver—he is a singer who works better with monogamy than with fury. Like all good, soppy, over-emotional Southern Baptists, the only thing that trumps monogamy is an erotic attachment to the savior. It’s all there on “Me and God”—a desire for discipline and attachment, to be broken and to be restored. —Anthony Easton
Taylor Swift: an 18-year-old singing about how sad it feels to be 18, the Connie Francis of New Nashville, and I mean that as the deepest compliment. —Anthony Easton
Jason Isbell’s “Dress Blues” is a memorial ode to a friend who died at 18 as a marine. From the intoning of “He was 18” to the clarion calls towards mother and family without the rhetoric of the state, makes it one of the more profound anti-war anthems in recent memory, especially the line: “American boys hate to lose / But you never planned on the bombs and the sand / or sleeping in your dress blues.” —Anthony Easton
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Two Abstractions of Flesh
These are the sides of cattle that are owned by my friend John’s family. One was taken in the early morning, and one was taken in the early evening. You can tell they belong to his family because on the photograph that is mostly white, there is the JH brand. John embodies the tough and tender complexities that occur when one lives with the food that ends on the dinner table.
I call them abstractions, because they are formal exercises intended to indicate patterns and colours. But they are abstractions in another way. As someone who lives in cities, who eats meat and wears leather, who likes the look of fur and would prefer to save the life of a human being through medical research then save the live of a rabbit, or a dog or even a primate, I call those who are vegetarians, who refuse leather, who think fur is cruel, and who are against medical research distanced and naïve. They do not have blood on their hands, and the knowledge of how animals work in our lives is an abstraction.
But it is rare that I see a live cow, even living in Alberta’s culture: where eating beef is a moral imperative. So my rhetoric about the death and life of animals becomes an abstraction to. I went to my friend’s farm, and took pictures of the daily life of a mixed family farm, in order to make concrete the abstractions that mark our relationship to food and to creatures. But the shots that came out of that were equally problematic. They became aestheticisng acts. Ironically, an attempt to become more concrete becomes more abstract. The death of an animal became another way to make a pretty picture.
The photos here, then, are abstracted as formal objects, as social documentary, as personal history, and as psycho-geographic attempts at understanding where I live. Abstraction then blossoms outwards.
These are the sides of cattle that are owned by my friend John’s family. One was taken in the early morning, and one was taken in the early evening. You can tell they belong to his family because on the photograph that is mostly white, there is the JH brand. John embodies the tough and tender complexities that occur when one lives with the food that ends on the dinner table.
I call them abstractions, because they are formal exercises intended to indicate patterns and colours. But they are abstractions in another way. As someone who lives in cities, who eats meat and wears leather, who likes the look of fur and would prefer to save the life of a human being through medical research then save the live of a rabbit, or a dog or even a primate, I call those who are vegetarians, who refuse leather, who think fur is cruel, and who are against medical research distanced and naïve. They do not have blood on their hands, and the knowledge of how animals work in our lives is an abstraction.
But it is rare that I see a live cow, even living in Alberta’s culture: where eating beef is a moral imperative. So my rhetoric about the death and life of animals becomes an abstraction to. I went to my friend’s farm, and took pictures of the daily life of a mixed family farm, in order to make concrete the abstractions that mark our relationship to food and to creatures. But the shots that came out of that were equally problematic. They became aestheticisng acts. Ironically, an attempt to become more concrete becomes more abstract. The death of an animal became another way to make a pretty picture.
The photos here, then, are abstracted as formal objects, as social documentary, as personal history, and as psycho-geographic attempts at understanding where I live. Abstraction then blossoms outwards.
.
- The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers -- a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.
- Shirley Chilsolm For the Equal Rights Amendment, August 10, 1970.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Susan Egan, From the Domestic Bliss Series. Look how gallantly he uses his hand to cover her nipple, and how so much is revealed, with out orfices shown, how tight the two are--like an egg or a turtle.
this large study that disproved the assine idea that mmr vaccine causes autism.
hipster doctor in brooklyn tries for a new kind of providing medicine.
guy archard is bleak and german
these penguin editions made for their anniversary give me a design chubby. (seriously, they are like the orange penguins but with better colours, oh that type, i would marry the penguin type face if they would let me.) (c/c with the coupland penguin prints from a few years ago)
Rick Cosa, Pitbull, 2006, shown at the S/M show at Antebellum Gallery, San Francisco. (i find something deeply erotic in these dog masks, they are concrete grey, made of plastic, i think they remind me of Beuys felt sort of)
6 examples of highly elegant data cabling.
essay and photographs from NatGeo on the drying of the west--what happens when we run out of water in major american cities in the desert and near the desert is the apocolyptic question that sems least answered and most vital. (Largest American Cities by Population in Deserts:
- LA (3)
- Houston (4)
- Phoneix (6)
- Austin (16)
- El Paso (21)
- Las Vegas (29) (Larger if you include suburbs)
- Tucson (32)
- Albuquerque (36)
- Mesa (41)
Cartographic Signs for Erosion and Floods devopled by Jason Simmons.
Gerarld M Panter's photos of LA hamburger shacks have some interesting local history
South Pole Mardi Gras
In the early morning hours in mid-December, an amazing masterpiece of epic pink proportions appeared above the Melrose strip. Not MOCA's Murakami billboard itself, but rather a young curator's fantasy art show: "Murakami/AUGER/REVOK." The spectacle lasted two days, and then it was gone. For most of us who missed it entirely, the billboard became art-opening gossip - already a mythic achievement - and yet another coup pulled off by a couple of L.A.'s most prolific and talented AWR/MSK writers. Luckily, REVOK carried his camera that day, and L.A. Weekly received the photo; we were wowed. So, it turns out, was Murakami, whose Kaikai Kiki studio found the evidence via the Internet and had the billboard surreptitiously removed. Murakami buffing billboards all the way from Japan? On the contrary, according to his representatives, he found it "so wonderful, he had to have it for his collection." Our billboard is now on its way to Tokyo.
via LA Weekly
more context herE6 minutes on installing and curating Flavin, fascianting because it tackles ehad on, the trouble with reworking installs that have a site specficity. (Flavin as a case study in conserving works is fascinating, they are high mantience, they depend on the varagcies of the market, they were intended for one v. spec. site and often do not travel well, and they are v. fragile, i find it delightfully ironic that the closest artist to ordering work by telephone has the hardest time post install) (for example, some of the tube colours he used, esp the day bright whites, are no longer being produced, and some of the outlets were made of early plastic, and so are v. brittle)
(often collectors only plug in their flavins when dealer, musuem officals or the press are over--i heard a story of a promenient LA collector who only plugs his in for dinner parties during oscar season and at xmas)
Two Marching Band Renditions of blister in the sun by the violent femmes.
2008 is the international year of the potato.
the memoir of sontag's death by his son, makes her sound as unhinged, codependent, and basically as crazy, as Linda Sexton;s memoir of his mother.
these intricate hand cut letters, done by SAra Newman, where each letter stands for an element of nature, have an obessive almost mystical attention to the connections b/w language and the world. Xanadu is my favourite. Bembo Zoo does similar things with flash illustrations and 26 expriemnts in type,where the language illustrates the text.
Preuvian Anti Riot Police, fond on gawkers gadget blog.
16 pages of discussion about whether dragonoid females should have breasts or not.
you cannot be an ameriacn senator and not be beholden to us energy concerns--i just wish that Obama was more subtle about the connections b/w him and the illnois centered nuclear concerns.
Cocaine Chavez, and FARC.
Four Marshall Island Current and Navagation Maps, from the early 20th Century, in the national collections of NZ. The cowrie shells are islands, the straight lines are currents, and the diagonal lines are wave patterns, now mostly sold as "art" to tourists, they have lost their meanting. (reminds me of Mayan Knot Calendars)
the best thing about Hadid's new building for Oxford is how little it connects to the buildings that surround it, like a spaceship landing b/w two 14th century brick buildings, hunkering low, and not overwhelming them...
Cor-ten steel slag and industrial waste, taken, welded, and then delicately filigered cal lane's reworking of modernist instinct is unstable in the best way---i like the tension b/w the butch steel adn the femme filigree, i like the patterns of light and shadow, i like how she made it in upstate new york, with its industrial history, and also how there are other solutions for working out the sculptural instinct of slag and trash and metal, i like how it functions through the making of absences, rather than the piling of one object onto each other, and i like how lovely and tender it is...I like how she takes I beams and car parts and all those nessc. objects of daily living and makes it dainty and pretty. it reminds me of everything that Caro or Smith or Serra is missing. I like to imagine that Ryan McCourt might hate it.
some v. simple and pretty still lives, mostly of lemons and clementines.
a hot pink arclyic crocheted cozy for yr pistol
nothing you write on the web is private, nothing on yr blog, on yr lj, on yr facebook or yr myspace is private. information is power, and companies and people who want to use that information to deny services or to maintain control of you, will do so, if you let them.
Presdential Residence, Brasillia, designed (of course) by Neyimer.
pomogrid
harper muzzles envrioscitentists.
i dont know who did it, but the plastic umbrella makes me happy. (she looks like she is waitin for the bus)
a new york mens line, with just 12 peices a collection--a trench, a suit, a vest, some pants and shorts, a few sweaters, has the v. well constructed, slightly strange, but still v. wearable thing down pat. I want the madras jacket. The blog has some great photos.
this entry in dennis cooper's blog, is about ashtrays, but it still is filthy, and sexy, and v, well written (i want to read his grocery lists)
flap art for all your custom trucker flap needs.
Font Shot from an Iqualit Grocery Store, photographer unknown.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Best Picture: Atonement
Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
Best Actress: Julie Christie in Away from Her
Best Supporting Actor: Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There
Best Original Screenplay: Juno
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Cinematography: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Film Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Art Direction: Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Costume Design: Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Original Score: The Kite Runner
Original Song: "Happy Working Song" -- Enchanted
Best Makeup: Norbit
Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Sound Mixing: 3:10 to Yuma
Best Visual Effects: Transformers
Best Animated Feature Film: Ratatouille
Best Foreign Language Film: 12 -- Russia
Best Documentary Feature: Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Best Documentary Short: Sari's Mother
Best Live Action Short: Le Mozart des Pickpockets
Best Animated Short: Madame Tutli-Putli
I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. My field is the history of thought. Man is a thinking being."
i sent the head master of sjsa an email two months ago, about what i wanted from him, and basically it was a seeking of information...of texts
its like something is seminal, and something so important, that you assume it is similarlly seminal, or the same for at least some of the people, that some people have shared that experince, that what made you isolated was equally isolating or equally negative for others...and everyone you touched base with even those who ran away, viewed it as a positive thing, and so it becomes more isolating more lonely
and what i want from coates is information, files, investigations, discourse, and i have this idea, that information (archives) brings truth--its a common myth, esp among people who create, analyse or taxonomize information for a living (or for what passes for a living)
so if these files do not find answers it will confirm those fears that hatch deep--that the seeking of information is futile...(my pysch records impregnanted this doubt in me)...so i wonder, then how do i go creating new systems of information, when information has proven so unreliable, so ready to misreading, when the fish can not be caught, why keep fishing? (and i think frankly, in a round about or complicated way, describes my isolation or exhaustion, and also my hope with the more logophillic examples of xianity and pyschological--the ambiguity and unreliabity of information systems as a way to assuage lonlienness explains my masochistic realtionship to both freud and jesus)
is this what derrida was talking about when he wrote a silkworm of owns own, the brianworms eating the ceberal cortex as mulberry, but how does one make thread from this?
- Truth, Power, Self: An Interview with Michel Foucault - October 25th, 1982.
i sent the head master of sjsa an email two months ago, about what i wanted from him, and basically it was a seeking of information...of texts
its like something is seminal, and something so important, that you assume it is similarlly seminal, or the same for at least some of the people, that some people have shared that experince, that what made you isolated was equally isolating or equally negative for others...and everyone you touched base with even those who ran away, viewed it as a positive thing, and so it becomes more isolating more lonely
and what i want from coates is information, files, investigations, discourse, and i have this idea, that information (archives) brings truth--its a common myth, esp among people who create, analyse or taxonomize information for a living (or for what passes for a living)
so if these files do not find answers it will confirm those fears that hatch deep--that the seeking of information is futile...(my pysch records impregnanted this doubt in me)...so i wonder, then how do i go creating new systems of information, when information has proven so unreliable, so ready to misreading, when the fish can not be caught, why keep fishing? (and i think frankly, in a round about or complicated way, describes my isolation or exhaustion, and also my hope with the more logophillic examples of xianity and pyschological--the ambiguity and unreliabity of information systems as a way to assuage lonlienness explains my masochistic realtionship to both freud and jesus)
is this what derrida was talking about when he wrote a silkworm of owns own, the brianworms eating the ceberal cortex as mulberry, but how does one make thread from this?
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Friday, February 01, 2008
the conservapedia on angel.
Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon, and Fucking.
beautiful incadenscent sculptures, sort of steam punky.
Francis, Oil on Linen, 2005, John Currin.
I like this one a lot more, because it seems less toxic in its irony and its misogyny, and it furthers the arguement that Currin is one of the great techincal painters of his generation. This is a great painting, northern european in its heritage, with a love and devotion clearly indicated. I wonder if i am projecting, because babies are cute, and because the babies (his baby, his son) softened him was such a culturally proper, heteronormative and seductive narrative. His pictures of his wife still have the icy surfaces and perverse heritage that he is famous for.
i really like these doc shots by Katarin Kurr, mostly of television sets. Teh one of the early morning show, indicaintg the stage mangaging of the domestic, is literal and painfully obvious, but making visual what was only assumed has its own power.
gorgeous retrofit of a water twoer, in Ulrecht, Netherlands. I love how it manatains the inherent utilitarian nature of the form, but still makes it liveable, super minimal, but v. v. pretty. Done by Zecc. (The black and white and grey might be a bit opressive though)
Here is a photo to the stairs to the bedroom.
i like this seasons collection of men and womens casual clothes, by Below the Clouds, a danish collective.
susan fauldi destroys the new book 30 women on hilary.
this doug saunders article on how norway and alberta treat oil revnue, is an exquisite peice of reportage, and does several fairly complicated things simultaneously. it confirms that the albertan ministry of energy is filled with morons, that the minister in charge is incapable of speaking well. It makes an oblique arguement that Trudeau was right, and that energy policy should be federal, it mourns for when the boom is over, it discusses how little energy we really get out of the oil sands, and it makes us albertans look like rural ninnies. it also argues strongly for old fashioned values that seem more and more nessc. including discipline, thrift, temeprerance, and long term planning. Norway will surrive. Alberta will not.
kind of hysterical article from the stage managment company who are handling the popes visit to DC
indie porn sweet, well composed, with a kind of joie d vire that is absent from other art or pro/am stuff. excellent mix of women and men, with some landscape urban work to set the scene. sort of a mcginley rip off.
can someone please buy me this small local church in Randolph Vermont. We could make it an Artists retreat!
martin parr selections from the bored couple set, from the mid 90s, amusing, wry, and bitter, i am suprised he got them to sign off.
New Brighton, 1985
Windsor Safari Park, 1981
Majorca, Spain, 1993.
Mark Yuhina does lovely almost english illustrations of fly fishing, and offers to give a free painting to every person who brings a kid fishing. I love his colour sense, and the movement inherent int hese works, he is a biologist, and they have an interesting intersection between work for pleasure, for science, and for art.
itchy robot also does font shots.
field and stream illustrates the top 50 lures of all time--i like the folk design and thephotographic style, of this feature. They are also written in that high geek code that is impentrable poetry to those not initiates
love the colour on this poster, and how the pink foam sort of gobbles up the phrase for ever
mike mills new book fire works would function better as a series of prints.
outing at a large baptist church in DC:
One of Washington’s largest black Baptist churches was rocked by a female member of its choir who sent separate e-mail messages to the pastor in December and January outing more than 100 church members as gay, mostly male choir members.
stacey cambfield in Tennessee has filed a bill that would ban "any instruction or materials discussing sexual orientation other than heterosexuality" The link goes to a foto of the dude holding a conferdate values sticker.
ben funkhauser at 15, has found a venue to launch a scene in seattle--gives me hope.
Gen Caldwell allows US SOildersi n Iraq to blog, full text of the speech when i find it.
i am v. sad that this t shirt is sold out.
rachel denny makes me want to get the deer show back on track.
i love how formal and prickly these pencil sculptures, and how they almost swoop in places.
i dont know how to embded this but if you have a chance, watch it--aboug 15 minutes long, about an irish catholic priest named Jim Kelly, who found that his flock was mostly spanish speaking, largely ecudorian, and often with out papers. His work on behalf of them is one of the reasons why i am still loyal to the catholics,a nd an excellent example of xian service.
Conte, Carbon Fiber Spider, 2004.
He is known for his robotics, but this one has no automata.
and for he commentar below, his name is Robert Pollardi, and he did two series of them, one in 1985 and one 20 years later.
From 1985:
Salle D' Afrique.
From 2005:
Escallier De Leure Gabriel.
I think in its refining, the later is more camp, but the first, from 1985, with its sort of luxurious chaos, and its colour sense, has a kind of disorder, which is almost anti Versailles. They are large, 10x10 or so. He also did large series on Chernobyl, New Orleans, Shanghai and Havana, which leads to reading of death of empires. The 1985 one also reminds me of The Destroyed Room by Wall.
more here
Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon, and Fucking.
beautiful incadenscent sculptures, sort of steam punky.
Francis, Oil on Linen, 2005, John Currin.
I like this one a lot more, because it seems less toxic in its irony and its misogyny, and it furthers the arguement that Currin is one of the great techincal painters of his generation. This is a great painting, northern european in its heritage, with a love and devotion clearly indicated. I wonder if i am projecting, because babies are cute, and because the babies (his baby, his son) softened him was such a culturally proper, heteronormative and seductive narrative. His pictures of his wife still have the icy surfaces and perverse heritage that he is famous for.
i really like these doc shots by Katarin Kurr, mostly of television sets. Teh one of the early morning show, indicaintg the stage mangaging of the domestic, is literal and painfully obvious, but making visual what was only assumed has its own power.
gorgeous retrofit of a water twoer, in Ulrecht, Netherlands. I love how it manatains the inherent utilitarian nature of the form, but still makes it liveable, super minimal, but v. v. pretty. Done by Zecc. (The black and white and grey might be a bit opressive though)
Here is a photo to the stairs to the bedroom.
i like this seasons collection of men and womens casual clothes, by Below the Clouds, a danish collective.
susan fauldi destroys the new book 30 women on hilary.
this doug saunders article on how norway and alberta treat oil revnue, is an exquisite peice of reportage, and does several fairly complicated things simultaneously. it confirms that the albertan ministry of energy is filled with morons, that the minister in charge is incapable of speaking well. It makes an oblique arguement that Trudeau was right, and that energy policy should be federal, it mourns for when the boom is over, it discusses how little energy we really get out of the oil sands, and it makes us albertans look like rural ninnies. it also argues strongly for old fashioned values that seem more and more nessc. including discipline, thrift, temeprerance, and long term planning. Norway will surrive. Alberta will not.
kind of hysterical article from the stage managment company who are handling the popes visit to DC
indie porn sweet, well composed, with a kind of joie d vire that is absent from other art or pro/am stuff. excellent mix of women and men, with some landscape urban work to set the scene. sort of a mcginley rip off.
can someone please buy me this small local church in Randolph Vermont. We could make it an Artists retreat!
martin parr selections from the bored couple set, from the mid 90s, amusing, wry, and bitter, i am suprised he got them to sign off.
New Brighton, 1985
Windsor Safari Park, 1981
Majorca, Spain, 1993.
Mark Yuhina does lovely almost english illustrations of fly fishing, and offers to give a free painting to every person who brings a kid fishing. I love his colour sense, and the movement inherent int hese works, he is a biologist, and they have an interesting intersection between work for pleasure, for science, and for art.
itchy robot also does font shots.
field and stream illustrates the top 50 lures of all time--i like the folk design and thephotographic style, of this feature. They are also written in that high geek code that is impentrable poetry to those not initiates
love the colour on this poster, and how the pink foam sort of gobbles up the phrase for ever
mike mills new book fire works would function better as a series of prints.
outing at a large baptist church in DC:
One of Washington’s largest black Baptist churches was rocked by a female member of its choir who sent separate e-mail messages to the pastor in December and January outing more than 100 church members as gay, mostly male choir members.
stacey cambfield in Tennessee has filed a bill that would ban "any instruction or materials discussing sexual orientation other than heterosexuality" The link goes to a foto of the dude holding a conferdate values sticker.
ben funkhauser at 15, has found a venue to launch a scene in seattle--gives me hope.
Gen Caldwell allows US SOildersi n Iraq to blog, full text of the speech when i find it.
i am v. sad that this t shirt is sold out.
rachel denny makes me want to get the deer show back on track.
i love how formal and prickly these pencil sculptures, and how they almost swoop in places.
i dont know how to embded this but if you have a chance, watch it--aboug 15 minutes long, about an irish catholic priest named Jim Kelly, who found that his flock was mostly spanish speaking, largely ecudorian, and often with out papers. His work on behalf of them is one of the reasons why i am still loyal to the catholics,a nd an excellent example of xian service.
Conte, Carbon Fiber Spider, 2004.
He is known for his robotics, but this one has no automata.
and for he commentar below, his name is Robert Pollardi, and he did two series of them, one in 1985 and one 20 years later.
From 1985:
Salle D' Afrique.
From 2005:
Escallier De Leure Gabriel.
I think in its refining, the later is more camp, but the first, from 1985, with its sort of luxurious chaos, and its colour sense, has a kind of disorder, which is almost anti Versailles. They are large, 10x10 or so. He also did large series on Chernobyl, New Orleans, Shanghai and Havana, which leads to reading of death of empires. The 1985 one also reminds me of The Destroyed Room by Wall.
more here
Camp 2.0
I keep thinking about what camp means to a generation who is assimilating, and doesn't seem to need it much anymore. I think about how it has become a parlour game, more then it usually was, or a trick of rhetoric, something that becomes historical positioning, taxonimizing and commenting on a parody of culture, which became the dominant way of thinking, a kind of culture itself. But the weird thing is, it seems that camp becomes a way (as it always has?) for us to save ourselves from heterosexism, from homophobia, and now from assimilating queers, who wish to put the strangeness and the impoliteness back into the closet. In works as diverse as Andrea Bowers AIDS quit installations, Rufus doing Judy at Carnegie Hall, Richard (Blank)'s ecent photos of Versailles, the poetry of Friedreic Sediel, the songs of Nellie McKay, the installations of Andrew Harwood and Ayllson Mitchell, Carl Wilson's 33 1/3rd Volume on Celine Dion, amongst others, asks and re-evaluates what camp is, and who it is for. It becomes Camp 2.0.
Outline:
What is Camp:
I keep thinking about what camp means to a generation who is assimilating, and doesn't seem to need it much anymore. I think about how it has become a parlour game, more then it usually was, or a trick of rhetoric, something that becomes historical positioning, taxonimizing and commenting on a parody of culture, which became the dominant way of thinking, a kind of culture itself. But the weird thing is, it seems that camp becomes a way (as it always has?) for us to save ourselves from heterosexism, from homophobia, and now from assimilating queers, who wish to put the strangeness and the impoliteness back into the closet. In works as diverse as Andrea Bowers AIDS quit installations, Rufus doing Judy at Carnegie Hall, Richard (Blank)'s ecent photos of Versailles, the poetry of Friedreic Sediel, the songs of Nellie McKay, the installations of Andrew Harwood and Ayllson Mitchell, Carl Wilson's 33 1/3rd Volume on Celine Dion, amongst others, asks and re-evaluates what camp is, and who it is for. It becomes Camp 2.0.
Outline:
What is Camp:
- Potted History of Sontag
- Critique of Sontag's history.
- Discussion of Barthes, Punctum and Theatricality/Artifice
- Can Punctum exist in a work that is mediated so deeply.
- What has happened to Camp, in the post Judy era, what was different and what has remained the same.
- Camp and the heremunitics of suspicion
- Camp and its realtionship to assimilation, camp's uneasy realtionship to mainstream gays (cf Mattachine society and its suits, Macho versus Fairy in the 70s, Stonewall's participants and difference, Discourse around the uses and abuses of the parade)
- Gay Male:
- the expecations, the assumption is that this is the culture that needs and uses camp most often.
- how do we use it, and when do we use it.
- Lesbian Female
- Drag Aesthetic and LEsbian Performance
- Radcylffe Hall
- Dolly Wilde
- Claude Cahun
- Gertude and Alice
- Highsmith (and Ripley as cross barrier)
- Pulps
- Terry Castle on the above
- Drag Kings
- How this history is used
- forgotten?
- Transgendered
- How does playing with gender differ from being?
- Camp as mark of gender fluidity
- The Case of the Cockettes.
- Performing Across Barriers of Gender and SExuality as a nessecary component of camp.
- Straight
- Decadence, Deviance, Performance, and Desire
- The Case of Nellie McKay and femminism on Mother of Pearl, (esp in the metajokes about senses of humor)
- The Case of Fredrick Segial and his Ducatti's.
- Rufus, Judy, and Gender
- Andera Bowers, Diseased Pariah, Taxonmies, and Reliquies in grey steel
- Carl Wilson, Celine Dion, Sentimentality, the Sublime, and the absence of gay voices.
- Versailles storage room:
- cosmetic
- Antoinette as Camp Icon
- Castle
- Coppala
- French pop
- Mitchell, homecraft, and Taste
- Harwood and the Femming of the Motorcycle
- Seidel and the Motorocycle
- Teh Motorcycle in GLBTQ history
- Then: Because it is expected of us
- Now: Because it is a skil that might atrophy unless it is used.
- Because it destablizes and refuses the expecations of standardizing discourse
- Because it estranges the pull towards political purity.
- Because it makes a complicated arguement against the large biological urges
- Because it reminds us that our history is against marriage and family (cf Lee Edelman Queer Theory and the Death Drive)
- because it is liberating
- because it is historicising
- Because it engages in the carnivalesque
- because as a culture, we have forgotten, with few exceptions the vitiality of the carnveisque (Bhaktin, obv)
- Because it allows to safely speak home truths.
- it still does this (cf McKellon as Dame)
- because it is fun.
- YEAH FUN.
- Differences b/w historical camp and camp now
- Attempts at defining camp and how they have failed
- Camp as a poltical force/protest force
- do people remember or is it important that camp is maintained
- the case study of the new cuddly, broadway safe john waters
- Failure at Taxonomizing and Definining Camp Historically
- How I failed here
- questions that are left to be answered
- is the term too large to be useful.
- is there anyway real difference
- why wont matt damon love me.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Other Things:
- Lunch with Joe
- Nina to meet Mark
- Lunch with Aaron
- Calgary Scheduling with Wil,
- Call Jason vis a vis SJSA
- Geez pitch (or Xtra) to the WInnipeg Nuptial
- Talk to the dude in Applachia about missed deadline and SF
- if SF is still a go
- Passport
- buy ticket
- book hotel
- join society
- rewrite the kenny peice
- figure out tech for it.
things to do in feburary.
talk to:
talk to:
- Talk to Ted (Close idea, Erotica update, Frames, Film Screen, Salon, Photos)
- Talk to Blair (Erotica idea)
- Talk to Elaine (Erotica Idea, Funding, and Placement)
- Talk to Steph (Erotica)
- Stephen (about collages)
- Rachels Contact about the Boxes
- Heather at Toronto Free Gallery about the Grid Show
- Mercer Union about the Grid show
- Rosedale, Knox Spadina Pres. Bloor Street United, Canadian Bible Society, Pres National ARchives
- Mandolin Books and Travel Alberta
- Rest of the Salon Folks
- Ashley
- Ann (Timelines, Cheque)
- Corb Lund
Install/Deinstall/Prints Made/Shipping/Etc:
Ford Show:
- Find Press
- Write Thank You Note
- Scan Collages
- Collate Addresses
- Mail work to Artists
- Follow up on Catalog
- Follow up on that one sale.
Ann:
- 10 Prints Made, Signed, and Numbered
- Box, etc made
Sugar Bowl:
- Shoot Images from 181
- Print images, in the same size and style that you made ted's images or talk to ted about what he wants to do.
- Install on the 20th
- Call Press about the show
Mandolin:
- Mylar:
- If no mylar, then mirrored frames
- drop off contract
- talk to her travel alberta dude.
Green Portfolios
- Call Type
- Follow Up with Ballenford Books
Curatorial Tasks:
- Confirm last three Grid Items
- Send Package to Galleries outlined in Email to Lorna
- Find Space for the Erotica show
- grant seeking for placement and the like
Writing:
- Long Camp Essay
- Blog Entry about Art in Toronto
- Cave 17 Entries on First Nation, Chuck Close, Abstract (cut and edit), Babara Rose, and Death of Photog Shows
- Cat Power, Dwight and Buck Reviews
- Alberta Vues
- Edit Poems
Exposure:
- Meeting on Feb 8th (confirm date)
- Visioning Meeting, so prepare brief statements on western night and film sieres to do.
Email:
- Photos to Lorna
- Thanks to David
- See/Vue about the Hidden Edmonton Column Idea
Monday, January 28, 2008
Toronto Font Shots
These photographs of signs are an attempt to listen to the city in all
of her moods. Literally, they talk about the patterns of commerce,
transportation, population, and politics, the neighborhoods that rise
and fall, the immigrant communities that grow and move. Moving from
City Center to its outer boroughs, I take photos of text that I find
intriguing.
Sometimes the font is interesting because of its decay, or its
homemade crude charm, and sometimes it is interesting for its
commercial power, and the design element is an important aspect of
this project. I think that signage is the place where those two meet.
But it is not only aesthetic.
When Rem Koolhas' new library was opened in Seattle, information
workers had to put up Bristol board to show valuable information,
including location of washrooms, directions outside, and to the
checkouts. Koolhas' masterpiece was a failure because he didn't get
fonts. I think that the mark of a living city then, is that
understanding. Toronto gets it, organically flowing through its
citizens. (Think of it as that lurid and lovely two page spread of
neon in Scott Brown/Venturi's Learning from Las Vegas, except that is
now mostly a graveyard, and the fonts of Toronto are birds in a
thicket.)
The five here are intended to mark a bit of a history, and they are
100 years old, so it is not only a question of aesthetics or
information flow. Combining the history of a city with its aesthetic
qualities strikes me as a project of psycho-geographic desire that an
architectural bookstore might be intrigued by.
Installation Notes:
I want to paper the foyer with 4x7 drug store prints of signs,
providing a visual reference to the overwhelming number of signs and
signals that one get from living in a city on a daily basis. By making
them appear nicely in rows, there is also an attempt towards making a
visual taxonomy.
These photographs of signs are an attempt to listen to the city in all
of her moods. Literally, they talk about the patterns of commerce,
transportation, population, and politics, the neighborhoods that rise
and fall, the immigrant communities that grow and move. Moving from
City Center to its outer boroughs, I take photos of text that I find
intriguing.
Sometimes the font is interesting because of its decay, or its
homemade crude charm, and sometimes it is interesting for its
commercial power, and the design element is an important aspect of
this project. I think that signage is the place where those two meet.
But it is not only aesthetic.
When Rem Koolhas' new library was opened in Seattle, information
workers had to put up Bristol board to show valuable information,
including location of washrooms, directions outside, and to the
checkouts. Koolhas' masterpiece was a failure because he didn't get
fonts. I think that the mark of a living city then, is that
understanding. Toronto gets it, organically flowing through its
citizens. (Think of it as that lurid and lovely two page spread of
neon in Scott Brown/Venturi's Learning from Las Vegas, except that is
now mostly a graveyard, and the fonts of Toronto are birds in a
thicket.)
The five here are intended to mark a bit of a history, and they are
100 years old, so it is not only a question of aesthetics or
information flow. Combining the history of a city with its aesthetic
qualities strikes me as a project of psycho-geographic desire that an
architectural bookstore might be intrigued by.
Installation Notes:
I want to paper the foyer with 4x7 drug store prints of signs,
providing a visual reference to the overwhelming number of signs and
signals that one get from living in a city on a daily basis. By making
them appear nicely in rows, there is also an attempt towards making a
visual taxonomy.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Art often feeds on that which is passing away, and in doing so, assits its passage. In Britian, with its precipate deindustraliaztion , much of tradtional working class culture has now aquired a nostaligc patina, celebrated in the cliches of a film like The Full Monty, in which social collpase is recast as what is meant to be bitter-sweet comedy. Similary in Sensation, there were curse kokes, kebabs, tabloid spreads, figments of pornography, confessional and lurid peices--in short artists trying hard to behave badly . The mere form, the shadow of working-class culutrre, is cleberated but only in the grosses and most cliched outlines (of course its silly for anyone to object, because this art is so knowing, so ironic.) The solidatry that those forms prodced and were produced by is forgotten, and the result has only the appeance of life. So this vampristic art draws life from its already anaemic subject. (233)
Pastoral , says Empson, can give expression to a critique of social injustice, at least in a limited way, since the exceuluded or those who have alittle of no stakje in society has less to risk by relatiing some hume truths about it. Now it has to be said that in Britian art thjat criticises social injustice has been thin on the ground for some years...but nevertheless contrempary pastoral art has conrained a critrique of the way things are, not so much in the wider society, as in the art world. The snobishness, cant and false high seriousness of the art world is at least implicitly criticised by an art that uses the form of high art to relay obsecnties, crudities and the detrius of modern urban life . Such art makred a sharp rejewction of hiugh theory, of the elite and autonomous concerns of art, and of the comventional pities of these artsits beloved byt he art establishment..( 252-3)
High Art Lite, Julian Stallabrass, Verso, 199.
brutalist architechture pool on flickr.
i really want this bearded man poster by keith shore, his combo of macho boys and twee aesthetic has a queer charm
a man has a bet where he has to spend a month at the bellagio.
21 condom wrappers including the amazingly named devils skin.
fantastic scrabble qoutes from the 50s onwards.
i really want this bearded man poster by keith shore, his combo of macho boys and twee aesthetic has a queer charm
a man has a bet where he has to spend a month at the bellagio.
21 condom wrappers including the amazingly named devils skin.
fantastic scrabble qoutes from the 50s onwards.
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