Gift Horses: 2/1/14

"He thinks he and I have a secret together
but I do not know what it is."

Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, p. 215

"The theological hair-splitting that surrounded paintings' ability to persuade the eye while proving nothing by the Word or by reason, remains ubiquitous."

(p. 90)

"In this exact sense, choosing beauty over content (or choosing beauty as content) is always an act of sedition. If we accept the cant of official culture, we must believe that the beauty we steal from any man-made thing is stolen from its more virtuous and metaphysical backstory, wherein 'real' beauty is said to reside... Andy Warhol would invent a strategy for feigning compliance by 'getting it exactly wrong,' by creating the effects of Abstract Expressionist paintings while stripping away the expressionist cant that informs their piss-elegant aura.
So, all our great fortune begins with a crime"
(pg.97-98)

"Any citizen conversant in the discourse of relative beauty, with its perpetual promise of radical destabilization, must then be disposed to question established authority at every turn, because the experience of beauty itself invariably overrides it."
(p.116)

Dave Hickey, The INvisible Dragon

Now, doesn't that feel good and come with a blush of pride?

When does beauty shift into the sublime (terrifying unknown)?

"In societies where precipitous change is not an everyday event - in tribes, villages, theocracies, armies, academies, monasteries, laboratories, and government bureaucracies - pleasant surprises take on a darker aspect. In these realms, one's eccentric taste is more likely to be construed as a threat to the community, as a symptom of disloyalty, than as an icon of aspiration. "

Hickey, The Invisible Dragon, pg.84

Make it a little bigger and think about individual experiences.
What is the individual's motivation (reason? impetus?) for recognizing beauty?

I contributed to Z/W/A/R/T Magazine's Nuits et Noirs issue. Find it here.

Autre voix, dit Iris (Another voice, called Iris),
found at the Metropolitian Museum of Art. 2013

I contributed to Saint Lucy's One Picture One Paragraph section. Read about this image here.

tarot for photography

I am so restless waiting for responses about graduate work that I threw my tarot cards for MAKING PHOTOGRAPHIC ART. Or maybe, I'm throwing it FOR photography.

If corporations can be people, than media can too.
I imagine photography as a dark gender fluid person with beautifully arched eyebrows whose personality oscillates between unsettling reticence and effusive friendliness.

Here are the results:

1. (you in the situation) Queen of Swords.

perception, independence, honesty, intellect

2. (opposing factor) the MOON

illusion, the unconscious, receptivity, the psychological shadow

3. (unconscious influence and/or the distant past) Four of Wands

celebration, return, satisfaction, the home

4. (recent past) Nine of Swords

depression, anxiety, fear of the future

5. (conscious influence/soon future) Six of Cups

childlike joy, sharing

6. (possible outcome) Eight of Wands

focused fast movement, haste, quickness

7. (you as you are) Eight of Swords

self-imposed boundaries, restriction, temporary blindness

8 (environment) King of Pentacles

material satisfaction, abundance, discipline, control

9. (factor to consider/advice) The LOVERS

union, perfection, harmony, crossroads

10. (ultimate outcome) Seven of Swords

deceit, loner, secretiveness, wariness

You are cerebral, sharp person, whose dreaming sometimes gets in the way of clear thinking. You yearn for a place, and know what it feels like to reap the benefits of success and family. Recently, you have been gnawed at with painful worrying, but now something has come into your life that has brought naive joy and a love of sharing. Soon, you will move quickly into a new area. Be careful to not neglect details in your haste. You are a person who binds themselves. Know that your restrictions are largely self-imposed. Your environment is secure and abundant financially and this is due to your discipline. Consider the joy found in working with others, and in forging partnerships. Ultimately, you are and will remain a lone wolf type. Your wariness could be assuaged if you considered others more generously and with more openess. What are you hiding? Or what are you hiding from? You don't have to be so frightened and distant.

I just got my copy of the Invisible Dragon in the mail.
It is proving to be just as sexy as hoped.

mmmm thinking about beauty makes me so hungry

"It was, after all, the invention of illusionistic space that bestowed upon the visual language of European culture the attributes of "negativity" and "remote tense", which are generally taken to distinguish human languages from the languages of animals. These properties make it possible for us to lie...For four centuries visual culture in the West possessed these options and exploited them. Today we are content to slither through the flatland of Baudelairian modernity, trapped like cocker spaniels in the eternal, positive presentness of a terrain so visually impoverished that we cannot even lie to any effect in it language of images - nor imagine with any authority."

-Dave Hickey, The Invisible Dragon, pg. 36-37

Video Black, 2014

So many ways to explore lens-based work. Exciting, but in a detached way! Not like painting or drawing - not so connected to myself. This is completely different. I haven't decided how I FEEL about it, but its nice to just THINK instead of FEEL. ICY. Fitting that this image would be made from combining a found, isolated video camera and a snatched pic from a pirated copy of the LEGO movie. Coldchildishcombines. Everything I make these days is just a building block taken from something for something more. Its all very stogy, contained. That's cool - chill - a recycled and sustainable practice. Much less draining but not as satisfying as the finger-gnawing energy that goes into the things I actually touch to make (button clicking isn't touching). Plus, is it art?
LOL
keep your
tongue
in cheek
girl

makes art about art
joins a community
of makers
somehow
believes the sky
isn't falling
right now

and smile
without teeth

Radiolab Black Box Episode