what does your soul look like (pt 4)

2011-10-11T03:01:00.001+01:00

Untitled
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

essence of memory

2011-10-01T22:10:00.001+01:00

essence of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

(1) Patterns and concerns

february

2011-02-25T03:01:00.001Z

february
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

bodies at rest and in motion

2011-02-09T02:17:00.001Z

bodies at rest and in motion
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

bodies at rest and in motion - gravitational collapse 1.

1000 bodies, initialized with v=0 at t=0, random mass and random position, then propagated under gravity.

newton’s law of universal gravitation + processing + photoshop.

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i could never quite decide what to do with my occasional dabbles into generative work... so i started a new tumblr blog for those that like this kind of thing.

bankers

2011-01-30T21:32:00.002Z

It's been a long time since I've felt politically exorcised, in large part due to the perception that everything is so self-evidently farcical that there's really nothing to add. Hold that thought...

Now read some snippets from Bob Diamon at Davos:

In emollient form afterwards, Barclays' chief executive, Bob Diamond, said the get-together had been an opportunity to deliver "very heartfelt thanks" to governments for rescuing the banking system.

"We have to recognise, although there is some fatigue, that an awful lot has been achieved over the last few years," said Diamond. "We should say thanks to the central bankers and regulators because we're operating in a much safer system than a couple of years ago."
The Guardian

Uh huh. Sure Bob, what a nice fella you are. From the same article on the Davos summit:

There was no respite when they [British ministers] met anxious financiers alarmed by "banker bashing". At a closed-door session today as the Alpine jamboree drew to an end, more than 40 bosses of banking and insurance companies met finance ministers from nations including Britain, Canada, France, South Africa, Turkey and Sweden.
The Guardian

And:

Impatient with criticism of bonuses, tax avoidance and lending to small businesses, many banks used the occasion to turn up the volume in protest at what they see as undue punishment. JP Morgan's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, snapped last week that banks were not prepared to simply "bend over and accept it" from regulators. The Goldman Sachs president, Gary Cohn, declared that extra regulations on banks would simply encourage people to put their money into riskier hedge funds.
The Guardian

I mean, this level of gall is quite astonishing, not least because it's so self-evidently farcical. How can they say this with a straight face and get away with it? Seems that, as perhaps we all suspected (or knew deep down despite hopes to the contrary), nothing has really changed over the last couple of years and business continues as usual.

january

2011-01-13T05:48:00.001Z

january
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

december

2010-12-29T18:48:00.001Z

december
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

2010-11-25T04:31:00.001Z

Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

artists wanted

2010-06-15T05:02:00.002+01:00

Every so often I decide it's time to make an effort with photography... most recently it's the Artists Wanted: Exposure contest. I'm not sure if the contest, or show, is/will be any good. I'm not sure if I care. But either way I somehow feel proactive for trying.

april

2010-06-07T01:56:00.001+01:00

april
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

may

2010-05-30T05:44:00.001+01:00

may
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

landscape of memory

2009-03-02T10:55:00.001Z

landscape of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

document

2009-01-08T08:28:00.001Z

document
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

universal statement

extant in the world

2008-12-14T16:44:00.001Z

extant in the world
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

the production of the modern world

2008-11-09T15:37:00.001Z

the production of the modern world
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

(ii) the growth of the system and the development of momentum*

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*Adapted from The Final Frontier: America, Science and Terror by Dominick Jenkins

landslide?

2008-11-05T08:06:00.003Z

hurrah. here's to a change of tack at the top and, regardless of how an Obama government ends up ruling, nothing can be worse that the bush/cheney/rummy hydra.

-

it's interesting to look back 4 years...

watching democracy... closely followed by an existential howl to the winds.

steve bell, the guardian

landscape of memory

2008-10-04T19:36:00.001+01:00

landscape of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

return

magenta flash forward 2008

2008-09-28T20:31:00.001+01:00

magenta flash forward 2008
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

I'm quite excited to be included in this year's Magenta Flash Forward photography prize. There is a book available with some great, and some not so great, work in it... but it's well worth checking out and is available as a free pdf from the magenta site.

Some of the works will also be on show, see the magenta site for details.

duffy poem to be destroyed

2008-09-06T15:54:00.005+01:00

Officials at the AQA board said their request that schools destroy the anthology containing the Carol Ann Duffy poem Education for Leisure had been triggered by concerns in two schools about references to knives. A spokeswoman confirmed the decision had been made in the context of the current spate of knife-related murders.
(as reported in Thursday's Guardian)

Of course it's the same old idiocy and knee-jerk scare reaction to complaints:

A spokeswoman for AQA confirmed there had been three complaints, two referring to knife crime and a third about the description of a goldfish being flushed down the toilet. The first complaint about knives was made in 2004. The second, made in the summer by an exams officer, was then taken up by an MP.

The most recent complaint was made by Lutterworth grammar school's exams invigilator, Pat Schofield, who welcomed the board's decision and said: "I think it is absolutely horrendous - what sort of message is that to give to kids who are reading it as part of their GCSE syllabus?"

And, of course, it's the same old misunderstanding of the point of the art, perhaps wilful or perhaps spurious.

But what sort of message does the call for destruction of a text give to kids? Hopefully the same ideas that the syllabus should be trying to get across: the very power and relevance of literature.

But what sort of message does it send about those calling the shots? That they can't see the line between the content of the syllabus and the existence outside this syllabus of other text? The very idea that the books containing the poem, although AQA branded and tied to the syllabus, should be destroyed, is surely the antithesis of what the board stands for as a provider of education. Choosing to remove the poem from the syllabus is an understandable, if disappointing, response to complaint, but there is never a need for censorship via destruction.

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Education for Leisure

Today I am going to kill something. Anything.

I have had enough of being ignored and today

I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,

a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets

I squash a fly against the window with my thumb.

We did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in

another language and now the fly is in another language.

I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name.

I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half

the chance. But today I am going to change the world.

Something's world. The cat avoids me. The cat

knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.

I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain.

I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking.

Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town

For signing on. They don't appreciate my autograph.

There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio

and tell the man he's talking to a superstar.

He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.

The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

Carol Ann Duffy

fragment

2008-08-16T23:10:00.001+01:00

fragment
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

31) A programme and an illustration.

the idea of landscape

2008-08-06T08:20:00.001+01:00

the idea of landscape
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

p11#9

2008-07-26T13:40:00.001+01:00

p11#9
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

ache

2008-07-05T11:57:00.001+01:00

Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

-

Unfortunately I am a completely impractical person, caught up in endless trains of thought. All of us are fantasists, ill-equipped for life, the children as much as myself. It seems to me sometimes that we never got used to being on this earth and life is just one great, ongoing, incomprehensible blunder. When Mrs Ashbury had finished her story, I felt that its significance for me lay in an unspoken invitation to stay there with them and share in a life that was becoming more innocent with every day that passed. The fact that I did not do so was a...failure that still sometimes seems like a shadow crossing my soul.

The Rings of Saturn
W.G. Sebald

-

art aid

2008-06-18T08:32:00.001+01:00

art aid
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

Art Aid Exhibition & Auction 18th - 21st June 2008
View from the Top gallery, Nottingham, UK

See art-aid.org for more details and previews of the work to be auctioned, proceeds go towards Christian Aid and their current drive to combat climate change and its effects on poor communities.

I have landscape of memory in the show.

2008-06-07T20:47:00.001+01:00

Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

bird in mouth; lost things; waste

jaylab - only traces

2008-05-22T20:55:00.001+01:00

jaylab - only traces
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

jaylab's new album approaches... check out the demo reel on youtube featuring some of my (potential) cover art.
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you can also download the previous album - negative edge - if you'd like to hear some more... i think it's rather good...

the idea of landscape

2008-05-20T08:10:00.001+01:00

the idea of landscape
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

vague inadequacy
loss

d5#10

2008-05-11T20:10:00.001+01:00

d5#10
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

p10#10

2008-05-01T22:05:00.001+01:00

p10#10
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

there is nothing to say

2008-04-18T13:24:00.001+01:00

there is nothing to say
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

there are no words

vanity publishing

2008-03-25T09:54:00.001Z

vanity publishing
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

Negative Memory
7x7" hard back (£15 + p&p) or soft back (£10 + p&p)
80 pages
31 images (excluding cover), comprised of half and full page spreads, mixture of bw, sepia and colour.

Question: would you be interested in a copy?

Please message me if so, I'm planning to order a batch from the printers sometime over the next couple of weeks. Delivery time is likely to be on the order of 6-8 weeks, depending on the printers and how quickly I can get them packaged and posted. P&p will depend on your location, likely to be ~£2 for the UK and perhaps ~£5 for elsewhere, but I'll confirm this before billing anyone. Payment will be via paypal.

-

external made internal made external once more

landscape of memory

2008-02-26T11:09:00.001Z

landscape of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

dreams of mountains and distant industry [7]

2008-02-22T15:58:00.001Z

dreams of mountains and distant industry [7]
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

some things have been lost

pin mill

2008-02-10T13:50:00.001Z

pin mill
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

sleepy-eyed, sleepy-headed, sleepy-hearted.
Winter proceeds.
I fumble with my polaroid in the gloam.

november, december, january

2008-01-15T23:01:00.001Z

november, december, january
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

quiet time

nottingham open 2007

2007-12-11T08:33:00.001Z

nottingham open 2007
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

Nottingham Open 2007
Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham, UK
Until 20th December

I'm a little late posting this - as usual - but it's exciting to have some work in Angel Row, a gallery space I've always loved. This is the last exhibition there before the new Art Exchange at Weekday Cross takes over, and there's some great work there including a fair bit of photography. I have landscape of memory and is deconstruction the same as taking apart? [13] in the show. As seems usual with the Open there's a complete lack of information on the web, although some further details can be found on the Notts Council website and a very brief review from the evening post.

essence of memory

2007-12-09T22:39:00.001Z

essence of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

fragment

2007-12-07T11:19:00.001Z

fragment
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

58) an examination of the axiom of randomness

landscape of memory

2007-12-03T09:12:00.001Z

landscape of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

this world is still out there

east midlands contemporary art auction

2007-11-21T20:18:00.001Z

east midlands contemporary art auction
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

auction this saturday, 1pm, nottingham (uk)... see lakeside arts for details.

i have superfluous to needs in the show

once more

2007-11-18T21:02:00.000Z

The disclosure of the Defra cuts plan will embarrass Gordon Brown, who is expected next week to give a major speech on climate change, recommitting Britain to supplying a fifth of its energy requirements from renewables by 2020. Previously government officials had said Britain would struggle to meet the target and lobbied to be allowed to use different statistics.

From yesterday's guardian. The wording at the end just makes me laugh and fills me with despair.

yep

2007-11-07T08:17:00.000Z

The ruthless unity in the culture industry is evidence of what will happen in politics. Marked differentiations such as those of A and B films, or stories in magazines in different price ranges, depend not so much on subject matter as on classifying, organizing and labelling consumers. Something is provided for all so that none may escape; the distinctions are emphasized and extended. The public is catered for with a hierarchical range of mass-produced products of varying quality, thus advancing the rule of complete quantification. Everybody must behave (as if spontaneously) in accordance with his previously determined and indexed level, and choose the categories of mass product turned out for his type. Consumers appear as statistics on research organization charts, and are divided by income groups into red, green and blue areas; the technique is that used for any type of propaganda.
- Adorno & Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)

superfluous to needs - east midlands contemporary art auction

2007-11-03T10:51:00.000Z

superfluous to needs will be exhibited as part of the east midlands contemporary art auction at the djanogly gallery, university park, nottingham. hurray.

the exhibition is on from the thursday 15th - saturday 24th november, with the auction running from 1pm on the final day.

oh, and i also recommend lustre, the arts & craft market running next weekend (10th & 11th) at both the djanogly gallery and lakeside gallery. i've been to the event for the last couple of years and there was some really great stuff.

fragment

2007-10-30T21:21:00.001Z

fragment
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

84) Remarks concerning the use of the concepts 'true' and 'corroborated'

essence of memory

2007-10-25T23:24:00.001+01:00

essence of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

(I) 0.0000000; 0.00000000; 0.00000000 + 0i; 0.00000001;
(II) N/A
(III) The force of this reply depends on some kind of commonsense realism.

document

2007-10-24T17:18:00.001+01:00

document
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

full scale deflection

fragment

2007-10-23T11:23:00.001+01:00

fragment
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

9) Causality, explanation, and the deduction of predictions.

i'm an animal trapped in your hot car

2007-10-11T08:32:00.001+01:00

radiohead frenzy, the new album on repeat, sucking me in, over and over, shivers, goose bumps, volume increasing, mind floating away

tumbling tumbling

pay as much as you like

essence of memory

2007-10-05T08:17:00.001+01:00

essence of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

part I: slow burn, fever, essence, essential, rectilinear, log, log/log, grid work, storm, thunder, thunder, rain, spills;
part II: some structural components of a theory of experience.

landscape of memory

2007-09-17T18:00:00.001+01:00

landscape of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

dreams of mountains and distant industry [1]

2007-09-13T08:57:00.001+01:00

dreams of mountains and distant industry [1]
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

landscape of memory

2007-08-30T22:22:00.001+01:00

landscape of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

surface gallery open show

2007-08-18T09:49:00.001+01:00

surface gallery open show
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

i've just been away for a few weeks, so as usual i'm a bit late posting this, but i've got 2 images from the series 'is deconstruction the same as taking apart' in the current surface gallery open show Turbulence.

it's on until the 25th, full details at surface gallery.org.

r2#7 - visiting at the kelso dunes [3]

2007-07-25T18:49:00.001+01:00

r2#7 - visiting at the kelso dunes [3]
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

Laid up with illness, the rain tumbling down outside, I begin to trawl through old images, hankering for the world, in technicolour, to surround me: vicarious life.

landscape of memory

2007-07-20T15:37:00.001+01:00

landscape of memory
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

proper telly

2007-07-19T09:46:00.000+01:00

As usual i'm a few days late in posting this, but i must, must, must point out the brilliance of channel 4's Iraq Commission. Public service oriented, completely fascinating and serious. No flashy graphics, no dumbed-down narrative, just smart people talking about an important and complex issue. Check the website for a wealth of material on the issues and the final report.

of sorts

2007-07-12T13:56:00.000+01:00

whoa, super busy this last month or four, photography is blooming, science is blooming, blog is pretty dead... not sure if there's a correlation here, probably just the fact that there are only so many hours in the day and i must spend at least a few of them pottering and reading and doing nothing much. i have seen some good and some bad of late, but who really cares, all your should look at right now is lucy's new etsy store at EthelandIris.etsy.com; only one item so far, but it's a beauty.

memory unspools

2007-07-12T13:54:00.001+01:00

memory unspools
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

r5#9 - superfluous to needs

2007-06-10T23:15:00.001+01:00

r5#9 - superfluous to needs
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

half remembered/half forgotten

2007-06-01T13:01:00.001+01:00

half remembered/half forgotten
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

is deconstruction the same as taking apart? [4]

2007-05-15T13:36:00.001+01:00

is deconstruction the same as taking apart? [4]
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

/lost/lost/lost/lost/lost/lost/lost

2007-05-06T19:54:00.001+01:00

/lost/lost/lost/lost/lost/lost/lost
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

exhibition postcard #2

2007-03-27T23:30:00.001+01:00

exhibition postcard #2
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

Exhibition time again.

For the month of april 2007 american desert//on the edge of space//our sci-fi future//engineering for tomorrow//travels close to the stars will be on show at broadway cinema and media centre, nottingham.

For more details see the flickr or monkeyinfez.net.

dying suns

2007-03-12T23:43:00.001Z

dying suns
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

i watch the last light of the dying suns fade

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100 suns

provisional future #11

2007-03-06T00:28:00.001Z

provisional future #11
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

I finally got back to working on this series and it also looks like it's going to be exhibited next month. Very exciting! More details soon...

oh etsy

2007-02-26T23:44:00.001Z

etsy
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

After a two year slump in exhibitions and sales i've finally decided to try and get organised again. Not that i don't just love art and photography for its own sake, as a pursuit of memory and beauty; but if it's not shared with others then does it lose its resonance, its power, on the world?

And of course the obvious fact of a capitalist world, i cannot just follow art in isolation, i must live, i must eat... damn it, even writing these words feels wrong. Why not buy a picture... (they're all still creative commons though)

As for an exhibition, one coming up in April hopefully, more details soon.

-

etsy store

-

If anyone has any thoughts on the philosophical legitimation (or otherwise) of the artist as sales person please feel free to share. I just keep getting tied up in a big knot between wanting to do nothing else yet accepting the necessity of earning money versus having a day job but not enough time, never enough, never enough...

kombat opera - the applicant

2007-02-26T23:10:00.000Z

"Not just any shit, but shitty shit from a shit eating shitty cow's arse"

Oh my, this was by far the best thing i've seen on telly for a long time. Brilliantly observed and scripted, and opera to boot. As Stewart Lee said about his key idea behind Jerry Springer the opera: 'swearing in opera is funny'. Oh yes it is, can't wait for more.

Kombat Opera presents

we now come to the general mechanism

2007-02-22T15:59:00.001Z

we now come to the general mechanism
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

More text fragments from Johann Johannsson's excellent IBM 1401: a user's manual.

terra firma

2007-02-14T09:02:00.000Z

Parade #1 – Terra Incognita
Angel Row, Feb 07

I feel intense disappointment. This is the first show in the Parade trilogy, an open-entry, panel selected series at Angel Row gallery. I was really looking forward to these, a chance to see something new, exciting, different, beautiful; and if not that then at least the opportunity for some newer artists to get their work hung.

The first disappointment was seeing the line-up of people chosen for the show. Not because I have any dislike of them, but simply because I'd heard of some of them before – not as new as I'd have hoped then. But still, at least those I had heard of where artists whose work I'd previously enjoyed.

The next problem was reading the exhibition blurb:

"Terra incognita – an unknown country. But the lands these artists explore are not entirely unknown to any of us. We all recognise these places."

OK, I'm being a little glib with my quotation here and there is more to the idea than this (and some interest in the theme) but, but, but: as a curator it's a very convenient box in which to place whichever disparate works catch your eye. In practice I found that most of the works only fitted this schema in the very loosest sense and there was little, if any, feeling of the "boundaries of our own interior landscape abut[ing] and overlap[ing] those of our neighbours". Granted it's always going to be a challenge putting on an open show that retains a sense of coherence, but it'd be better not to bother trying to theme it than this shoehorning of work into some nebulous conceptual container.

So, the work. Almost uniformly it felt flat and lifeless. Intense disappointment. This is an open show, here is the opportunity to see new work, exciting work, passionate work, energetic work; something beautiful, something profound. There must have been enough entries, there must have been enough depth, there must have been enough life evident for this to come off. But no, the work feels perfunctory, by the numbers, neither profound nor beautiful nor interesting.

There were exceptions. S. Mark Gubb's Scooby Dead was interesting, albeit hard to hear on the crappy TV it was being shown on (I've also no idea how long it actually is, probably too long). Anita Mudaliar's semi-animated figures, shown in projection, were quite striking, if a little one-trick pony. A couple of photographs from the selection by Keith Morris were also OK, but not fantastic. Mik Godley's blue paintings, suggestive of degraded/over-compressed jpegs (interestingly the second example of this idea I've come across in painting over the last year or so) were fine too, but still disappointing as I've previously really liked some of his work. Lois Wallace's paintings, colourful whimsy with a nod to Turner, were, too, fine, just fine, in a ho-hum sort of way.

Special ire is reserved for the photography of Stephen Connell. The series on show here, Insomnia, a collection of interior shots taken over the course of a sleepless night due to light pollution at a friend's house, was awful. Again I come back to my expectation of art being both insightful and beautiful, or at least one of the two. This set had nothing. It felt like there was some potential in the idea here, but the composition was poor, the whole series hasty and repetitive and again the flatness, the lifelessness apparent in the whole show was manifest. This was the worst example of shoe-horning, a series chosen because it looked modern, it felt cutting-edge. All well and good, but this isn't enough if the artistry is lacking.

Looking again at the three exclamation marks I'd scribbled on Stephen Connell's write-up in the exhibition blurb, just under the bit which says 'graduated in 2006 and had photographs published in the British Journal of Photography in the same year', I thought it fair to look him up and give him a chance. The BJP shows some more interesting examples of his work, a damn sight better than what I saw here, but there is still a slight problem. He refers to Dan Holdsworth as one of his inspirations. I agree, Dan Holdsworth is amazing. Unfortunately the photos shown on the BJP site look pretty much the spit of Holdsworth's work, just not as good. Sorry fella, no deal.

In writing this I am forced to investigate one ugly possibility: am I just a bit jealous? I did apply for Parade, I did not get in. Perhaps this is part of my malady. This is a danger, but I hope that I have not let it taint my views. Part of my disappointment actually stems from the expectation I had on the potential of an open show at Angel Row, the thought that if I'm not in then at least a bunch of people better than me are. That's not supposed to sound egotistical, merely to hope that the general standard of entries was high. Furthermore I'm usually pretty good at appreciating technical skill or ambition or interesting theoretical underpinnings even when the work itself doesn't grab me (my ongoing fascination with the idea always being far better than the execution), and I think this is still true here. Finally, as a happy get out clause, Al saw the exhibition last week and came out with much the same comments completely independently of any of my potential bitterness. That's corroboratory evidence right there.

In sum then, flat and lifeless; hugely disappointing. I only hope parts II & III of the show are better.

A final note on applying for exhibitions: enter your blandest work or most repetitive series; you must have umpteen works along the same lines, the more constrictive the better. This is what I have been taught, I will now go forth, with a flat cap and an attitude, to multiply.

i like snow

2007-02-08T08:10:00.000Z

really a lot.

thoughtfully exploring the limitations of humanity once more

2007-02-07T08:30:00.000Z

another climate report, another dodgy rebuff attempt. don't they get it yet?

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

b1#6 - walking the fields [3]

2007-01-30T00:35:00.000Z

b1#6 - walking the fields [3]
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

winter

2007-01-23T08:22:00.000Z

Gloved hand, waving in the gloam; two dogs, heading west. Headlights sweep the tree line.

Bird in the attic, flapping, scared, shitting everywhere, eating an apple, flailing against the window.

Almost a frost today, almost.

the clock on the wall says five minutes to midnight

2007-01-17T21:11:00.000Z

Take it Blair! The OECD are laying the boot in about this whold BAE systems corruption scandal – or at least the part of it that involves Saudi Arabia (not to be confused with the South Africa allegations, or the Tanzanian air traffic system and probably a hundred and one other dodgy deals involving secret slush funds).

The thing that has entertained me most about the whole caboodle is the impassioned defence by the government of what is clearly serious fraud and criminal practice but, as it's been carried out by a massive company, it's basically ok. This sends such a delightful message. The main get-out clause? National security and protection from terrorism of course! Yes, all that terrorism that arises from other countries not buying arms, that's the stuff. Oh, and jobs. Yep, crime is fine, just fine, as long as it pays the bills... hang on, isn't that what most organised crime achieves? The whole thing is absolutely ludicrous, once again it's like the government is being run by a bunch of school kids making dares with each other to see what they can get away with. Sure it's naïve to expect the government to actually have principles (although they've certainly been banging on to plenty of other countries about how to do things proper like), but when you've been found out and all you can do is come out with "um…the wider public interest outweighed the need to maintain the rule of law" while BAE says something along the lines of 'if we didn't participate in bribes then someone else would' you're at a new low.

Meanwhile the decision on trident looms closer (another plus for BAE?) and another volte-face; we've dropped national law about serious fraud, hell, why not break some (more) international conventions while we're at it. Who needs nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament anyway? We've got the fucking bomb.

And tick goes the doomsday clock, 11.55pm, five minutes to midnight, here we are close to the end of this wild ride of self-determination/self-extermination, nothing left but to hold on tight and enjoy this orgy of military might, imaginary growth and greenbacks while the world turns and burns and burns and burns and burns and burns and burns and burns and burns and burns and burns and... wait, did I mention principles earlier?

r9#2 - haunted by structure

2007-01-04T16:22:00.000Z

r9#2 - haunted by structure
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

The morning is fresh. The wind blows hard in my face, the grass ripples in the fields oh so green, the hills undulate under a glowing sky. I walk, we walk, just like always. It is good, just like always. The year has turned again, just like always. I feel the same, just like always.

The structure on the hill in my dreams haunts me, just like always.

trident pt II

2006-12-18T08:43:00.000Z

The "debate" still rumbles on, and as our beloved leader draws to the end of his time he seems yet more determined to push through the big military spend on a replacement for trident. I ranted about this way back in august but it seems that little has changed, save that the promised “full and open debate” has changed into a white-paper recommending renewal; Brown backs the scheme. Logic is still on holiday, as nicely evinced by this post from Jack on the big debate forum:

If we give up our nuclear detterent and then North Korea attack us, I dare say the people against Trident are going to blame Mr. Blair for it. Once again Mr. Blair has made the right decision, the only mistake was downsizing, we must bring the total of subs upto 6. This provides jobs, security, etc. May I also add that the trident missile and submarines are built in Great Britain. Terrorism; what are they fighting for? nothing. Except to see their own religeon reign supreme, so you may wonder how we would use a detterent to combat terrorism when they have no specific cpuntry, EXCEPT THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST. If they attack us we nuke the Middle east. that would destroy any reminants of terrorism and certainly be a rettalliation. You may wonder what would then do for fuel, We turn to renewables. Better for our economy and better for the plannet. Only good comes from replacing Trident

Yes folks, it’s all fine, just fine round here. If any shit happens it’s good to know we could still nuke a region of the world and damn the consequences… oh, and it’s good for the economy too, so that’s alright then. Just like BAE systems and the Saudi bribery ‘accusations’. As far as the evidence goes it’s all true, only Lord Goldsmith, Blair et al have derailed the investigation as being “against the national interest”. Jobs might be at risk don’tchaknow? It’s worth taking a moment to consider the precedent this is setting – as far as I can tell it basically means that crime is ok as long as it’s good for the economy and, by extension, the government. By this logic, presumably, most organised crime is fine too, or perhaps only organised crime that involves members of the government? It’s so confusing these days, just remind me again, is it the rule of law that’s importation, or is it just what the government tells you?

myspace ballache

2006-12-15T08:55:00.000Z

steps to follow:

1) here about some new musician/band/whatever

2) google them, go to website

3) find website is just a link to a myspace page, go to myspace page

4) grimace at the look of myspace, frown and squint a bit hoping it'll get better

5) wait for music player to load so you can decide if the band are as good as you thought
...
...
...
...

6) if you're lucky the player loads, wait while it says connecting...
...
...
...
...

7) wait while it says buffering...
...
...
...
...

8) after 5 minutes click reload in the hope it'll work this time, repeat steps 5-8

9) about 1 in 30 times you might get some music, decide you're not sure about the band and want to hear another tune, return to step 5.

grrrr, myspace. why, why, why? you're shit, you look shit and you work shittily and now murdoch owns you too. why has everyone fallen for this shit? i just want to listen to some music.

imaginary calculation

2006-12-06T21:16:00.000Z

imaginary calculation
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

r8#12 - old place

2006-11-26T13:58:00.000Z

r8#12 - old place
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

morning glow

2006-11-24T08:22:00.000Z

Golden sun, orange radiance filling the sky, soft and enveloping. A fog, a haze, a
miasma of gentle light fills the air. The world is tinted; cars, trees, buildings, concrete, tarmac, traffic lights, all overlaid with the warm glow. The buildings on the hill bask in the light, windows catching the rays and flinging them straight back in a reflection of gloriousness. The air is chill but the eyes feel the warmth.

what it takes to get on in this world

2006-11-14T08:04:00.000Z

a flat cap and some attitude.

on a shingle spit

2006-11-08T21:18:00.000Z

new gallery on monkey in fez

r8#6 - distant platforms

2006-11-04T14:28:00.000Z

r8#6 - distant platforms
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

the usual crap, and repeat

2006-11-02T21:57:00.000Z

the grid

...choose a square...where are you from...that's nice...a3...oooooh dear, it's red...oh that's 75% of your money...b3...look at the skills, it's gold, yes...do you want to know what you could have won...we're gonna chop your hands off...cake...that's £3000...where are you from, that's nice...oh dear, it's red...oh dear, oh dear...it's green!...that's numberwang...

the state within

...choose a politician...choose a state...choose an act of terrorism...see a plane fall from the sky...secret filming...secret people...ambassador...secretary of state...mid-eastern country...bombs...shouting...prejudice...wobbly cameras...that's terroristwang...

sega: a retrospective

2006-10-28T21:41:00.000+01:00

A magic event this afternoon. As part of the current GameCity mini-festival thingy, a smogasbord of computer game/art events, myself and lawes got to see richard jacques. He's a composer who works for sega writing music for games, and this afternoon he played some stuff - both recent and old - on piano in a church. brilliant.

i think the sonic medley was my favourite moment for pure nostalgia and the added 8-bit backing tracks, while some of the more recent stuff was firmly into the category of 'orchestral film score' in terms of narrative intent and lush execution. the only dodgy moments were a couple of lyrical works which were very much in the J-pop miliue; fine if you like that kind of thing (i've most often heard them played over the end credits of manga films), but i'm sticking to 8-bit sounds from here in.

check out richardjacques.co.uk for more info, i'm particularly impressed with the fact that his score for headhunter was played by the los angeles philharmonic at hollywood bowl last year. nice.

on a shingle spit [2]

2006-10-13T08:36:00.000+01:00

on a shingle spit [2]
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

on a shingle spit, i stare at the dereliction left behind.

from a visit to orford ness over summer.

go paxman

2006-10-11T13:27:00.000+01:00

... it's not a final report ... it's the first step in the research process ... they're just research notes ...

are they bolloxs. luckily paxman is on the case, take that Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely. has he ever done research before? do you write notes in the form of a report then pass them to newsnight? i don't think so. no way out general, you're just a cock working for a bunch of cocks and defending utter cock.

go paxman!

the content of the "notes" is about the war in afghanistan, the failure of strategy, the whys and wherefores of al qaeda ideology taking hold in the region... in short pretty much what everyone has worked out but the government and mod still deny.

watch it on bbc

rolling through another week

2006-10-01T23:05:00.000+01:00

Last week I saw three artistic events:

- Dan Hays, Impressions of Colorado [painting]
- Martine Hamilton Knight, Nottingham Revealed [photography]
- Three Strange Angels, Steve Reich at 70 tour [percussion]

They were, in reverse order, absolutely mind-blowingly amazing; bland as a sales brochure but with twice the pomp and ceremony; intellectually and technically interesting, but overall a little disappointing. More on these later.

Meanwhile I can hear the Sunday night boy-racers on the bypass, my brain is complaining of sleepyness, my thoughts turn to autumn once again after another warm week but rainy Sunday and I don't have much to say or at least not much inclination to write, except to reiterate – don't go and look at Nottingham Revealed, probably worth skipping the book of same title too. Do go and watch the Three Strange Angels, or any other Reich-related stuff, or just go and listen to some of his music, because it is wonderful, really wonderful.

feeling mild disappointment

2006-09-26T07:58:00.000+01:00

Last year, about this time, an entry form for the Nottingham Open came in the post. It was pretty exciting, not least because I had no idea how my name had got on the mailing list. So I spent some time on putting my entry together, sent it off, sat about for a while and had no real expectation of getting in.

Then I got in. Grand. Went to the opening, felt rather strange as I didn’t know anyone but they all did. Saw some good stuff, saw some poor stuff, saw my picture looking very small on the gallery wall, despite being the biggest print I’d ever done. Weeks later the show finished, I picked up my picture and that was that. I didn’t receive any emails, comments, feedback, sales… but still, it had been good to get in.

This year, a couple of weeks ago, an entry form for the Nottingham Open came in the post. It was pretty exciting because this year I had some really great stuff I’d just been working on. So I spent some time putting my entry together, sent if off, sat about for a while and had full expectations of getting in.

Then I didn’t get in. Arse. Funny how that happens, I blame expectations. For my next trick I will compile an entry for Parade at Angel Row, I have no expectation…

homity pie

2006-09-19T08:20:00.000+01:00

autumn comes, red jumper and homity pie. i like homity pie.

provisional future #3

2006-09-08T21:33:00.000+01:00

provisional future #3
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

Driving through the desert I am on the edge of space. Bleak, barren landscapes stretch up toward the sky; pylons reach for the stars; road unrolls as steadily and evenly as the contrail of a rocket ship, a copper wire, a smoking chimney. To our sci-fi future: it is here. Here in the desert where moon-scape meets advanced industry. Where ingenuity and engineering tame and harnesses rivers, where railroad cages the open landscape and shrinks it as to our will, where the future is tested and designed and developed and built and stands over us, monolithic, secretive, hidden in the wide, wide, open, behind the beautiful barren landscape, within the ugly, barren lives, and just beyond reach of today.

r6#1

2006-08-25T12:58:00.000+01:00

r6#1
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

more medium format + light leaks.

more crap

2006-08-17T23:09:00.000+01:00

Saw the new superman the other night, it was crap. There were some good elements, a couple of exciting set-pieces, but I’ve been left with the same post-blockbuster thought as the last time I saw one: why bother?

The reviews were good, I like Superman and the director previously helmed X-men which I liked a lot. I went along with high(ish) hopes. And what is presented? The usual crap. A checklist of big-budget special effects heavy action, a dash of [standard superman elements] – as I imagine it was signified in the draft script – rubbish characterization, poor plot and, perhaps worst of all, a horrible feeling of inconsistency and doubt about what the hell they’re doing.

For me this was the main failing of the film, it had no commitment to make its own world believable. This is probably the hardest thing to pull off in a good superhero/fantasy film, and when it fails it really does make your film suck. The problem here was the seeming inability to decide if this should be a new or old Superman, and therefore a new or old world for him to act in. As it turned out we got an unhappy mix of both, a wide-eyed 1940’s style newsroom that featured TVs showing rolling news; little Jimmy Olsen acting like he’d never held a camera before and Pulitzer Prize winning Lois Lane behaving like she's writing for a 6th form newsletter; Superman being shot at with a gatling gun for no particular reason except modernity; cringe-inducing scenes of men in bars clapping Superman's latest heroic feat; Clark gurning and acting like a klutz in a way that just doesn't seem at all feasible in a 21st century, super-cynical environment… yadda yadda yadda. I'm not arguing for 'realism' here, I know this is fantasy, but a self-consistent world is still crucial and if you want to modernize then modernize everything, not this awful half-way house of crap. It can be done, new Spiderman is ace, and Burton's Batman and Nolan's Batman show that you can pull off both a pure fantasy and a more 'realistic' interpretation of your source material; here it all just felt so wrong.

Meanwhile, the plot. What? Are you seriously suggesting that evil mastermind Luther is going to gain the secret technology of an alien planet and use it to broker a real-estate deal? Come on, this is tosh. It's not very evil (well, Ok, there is death and destruction for the America, but it's hardly trying to take over the world), and who'd want to live on his poxy crystal island anyway? More importantly he should fire whoever is drawing the child-like maps he used to reveal his schemes, they were rubbish that no self-respecting super-villain would be seen with. Just like Bond villains of recent years it seems that Luther has discovered that all the good, really nefarious schemes have been used up, probably by Pinky & the Brain.

And the final nail in the coffin? The current Hollywood trend of conflating 'epic' with 'long'. It was far too long, no need! Please stop your film before inducing REM sleep. Also, please have an ending and not 'here's a thought for parts 2,3 and 4…'. Thankyou.

And the positives? Quite entertaining at times (by which I mean isolated 5 minute segments), Spacey is pretty good at hammy evil, er, better than the last shit blockbuster I saw (Kong). But, in sum, it's the same old crappy blockbuster that, this year, just happens to have Superman in it.

the facts

2006-08-04T10:49:00.000+01:00

following that no trident rant, here are some factsheets courtesy of CND:
Trident Q&A
Nuclear power info

They're nice, brief, primers on some of the key aspects of these issues.

meanwhile, uptown, the dj plays…

2006-08-03T00:29:00.000+01:00

Looking at a huge picture of a new submarine in the paper at the weekend I was impressed (words but sadly no picture). Here we are, the pinnacle of technology, nuclear powered (relatively cleanly too, it seems) and capable of circumnavigating the globe without the need to surface. Here is the power of man, engineering at its most astounding. But, just wait a moment, what are we building this for again…?

Let’s see now. Clearly we, a faded empire, a small island nation clawing at past “glories”, have no need of such projects. Who are we guarding against? Who were we ever guarding against? The strange, the unknown, the different… What for? What for? Why are we spending £3,492m on three new submarines, and then more on another four? What for? Surely not just so that we can look in the paper and be impressed by a big fuck-off picture of a steel leviathan, our own kraken capable of fighting giant sea monsters and enemy ships with equal ease? Ah, defence, yes. Defence? Defence? Defence? What are you talking about?

New subs, new missiles to replace trident, new nuclear reactors to fuck up the future even further. Why? What has happened to logic and thought? What is wrong here? It cannot be stated clearly enough: there is no reason here, there is no enemy to fight with these cold war M.A.D. machines. Are you going to shoot ICBMs at a terrorist cell trying to bomb a major city? Perhaps we should look instead at, bear with me here, the root causes of such attacks? Still, at least we’ll carry on looking like a big, grown-up nation, breaking treaties and pacts just like a real player! Yay for us.

Meanwhile, the reactors creep up. Blair pledges his allegiance to the atom. To more dodgy pseudo-private industry, helped at every step by the government and tax breaks. I’m a scientist, I’m not afraid of nuclear power, I’m impressed with the physics of its operation, I’m awed by our power of creation… but I’m not so taken with our flaky sense of responsibility, our lack of plans for any form of proper waste disposal or de-commissioning of old reactors. Hey, let’s leave it for someone in 50 years’ time! Yes, what a good idea, we’re handling the old generation of reactors oh so well ourselves! Short-termism: quick fixes abound. And will the uranium mines run dry now that everyone is enamoured with nuclear again? And do the sums add up? Is nuclear really cleaner than fossil fuels once you take into account the carbon debt incurred by construction, transport, de-commissioning?

And the waste! Of the future, of the present, of money and time and ingenuity and you fucking morons; to spend just a fraction of that money thrown at military and civilian nuclear on renewables. Just imagine, all our energy needs covered by rooftop solar panels and micro wind turbines on every house. But it will never be, where is the interest for business in that plan? Where is the centralised industry with big buildings and order and control? It is gone my friend, gone like the power mad pig-dogs who built it all in the first place… if only.

what have we learnt?

2006-07-31T23:21:00.000+01:00

a man on the radio opines, or perhaps repeats, or perhaps suggests that israel, or at least some important israelis, are surprised by the lack of a swift knock-out blown to hizbullah thanks to their overwhelming military force.

hmmm, is there perhaps a precedent for this... iraq ('fear and awe')? afghanistan? vietnam? er, palestine? i don't know enough about all the other 20th century conflicts to generalise further, but it seems like this shouldn't be a surprise to trained military planners. a superior force is never, ever going to completely beat down another people... surely one of the few things that the entire history of the world with all its ridiculous conflicts and wars and rebellions and oppressions and dictatorships makes quite clear. why can't we all just get along? won't someone think of the children?

one day we might try and actually tackle the root causes of conflict instead of just building more bombs, just think about that!

meanwhile, i watched rabbit proof fence. i find it really pleasing - in a head-shaking, disbelieving, so ridiculous it must be true just like all that other shit we pulled kind of way - that our *ahem* decent, civilising colonialism led to such measures as taking children who were part aboriginal and part european away from their mothers so that they could be raised as civilised, white people. the irony of the 'civilised' thinking this was a progressive, modernising stratagem is just too astounding; the skin-tone test involving a chap having a look and deciding if a particular child was white enough to have a well-developed brain, and therefore suitable for a european education, was similarly incredible. that the process continued until 1970 even more so. how, exactly, can anyone, no matter how racist or ideologically wrong-headed, think that this is a civilised course of behaviour? and that taking away kids while shouting "i've got all the paperwork here, there's nothing you can do about it" even remotely makes sense? [for more on this see, for example the stolen generation]

civilisation? i'd give it a miss if this is the sum total of its achievements.

trying to break freedom, again

2006-07-27T16:26:00.000+01:00

An interesting story about VoIP in today's Guardian really gets to the heart of the matter where police and government are concerned:

"At present, law enforcement agencies have great difficulty in tracing the origin of VoIP calls," wrote DS Macleod. "This poses significant threats to our democratic society and it is for this reason that the DCG believes that it must be mandatory for VoIP service providers to be required to retain adequate records in respect of calls made using this technology.

Just to make that a little more explicit, Matt Beal, BT's director of Core Convergence and Capabilities for their new '21st century network' (developed in consultation with GCHQ) says of the internet:

The network was never designed with identity in mind. When it was set up it was for the free and easy exchange of data.

YES! Free and easy! Please fuck off with your 'this poses significant threats to our democratic society' - you pose significant threats to our democratic society you morons. THIS IS DEMOCRACY, in full swing, in action. Free and easy thank you very much.

So let's get it clear. In the digital age VoIP is just a data service like everything else. You've had it easy in the past as analogue, fixed lines were easy to monitor and tap. This is not a given, this is not a pre-requisite of democracy, it's just the way things turned out. Now that the data is flowing in a free and easy manner you don't have control, technology has liberated us. Not only that, but these fears of terrorist and criminal usage of untracable methods of communication are founded on these people knowing less than your experts and therefore not being able to circumvent your surveillance. I don't believe this, you need only look at the history of hacking and encryption technologies (PGP for example) to know that there's probably someone out there clever than you.

monolith

2006-07-26T22:29:00.000+01:00

monolith
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

to ingenuity, to man as god, to technology, to power, to our sci-fi future.

to waste, to want, to desire supplanting need, to man as devil, to our sci-fi future.

tv rip

2006-07-26T22:28:00.000+01:00

it's a sad day: my tv has been replaced. after 10 years of good service the artefact which i bought with the wages of sin from my first summer job has died. it's strange how you get attached to such objects, but then again you spend a long time looking at a tv.

rip my tv.

saturdays

2006-07-23T22:55:00.000+01:00

just not quite the same without a fix of doctor who. amazing how quickly you fall back into the old ways.