David Byrne

PLAYING THE BUILDING
this is pretty rad, i was reminded of it today, it's a pretty interesting concept, David Byrne is one of those guys that just seem to get more creative with age.

Chronophotography

These are from a man from the 19th century called Etienne-Jules Marey. He was one of the pioneers of Chronophotography:

Chronophotography is a Victorian application of science (the study of movement, and art photography). It is the technique precursor to cinematography. The word is from the Greek 'chronos' and photography, "pictures of time."Chronophotography is divided into two separate processes: Motography (continuous exposure of the subject) and Strobophotography (intermittent exposure of the subject).

People like Duchamp took it up later on, and as you can see, his 'nude descending a staircase' was a reference to this type of photography. The image below is by someone called Eadweard Muybridge, who was a pioneer of using multiple cameras to capture an image during the 19th century,

he also did horses, and proved that galloping horses for a time always had four legs on the ground.

Dada Film

I have been reading up about dada film, here is a quote from the internet:

Dada-related films have several characteristics in common: they disrupt viewer expectations of a conventional narrative, use cinematic defamiliarization of social reality to undermine the norms and code of social convention, and are constantly pointing to the film apparatus as an illusion-producing machine. The difference between Dada and Surrealist films lies in their different strategies of defamiliarizing social reality. Surrealist filmmakers largely rely on conventional cinematography as a means to draw the viewer into the reality produced by the film. However, Dada films work to keep the viewer at a distance, which accounts for the viewer not being deeply disturbed by the film.

La Coquille Et Le Clergyman with music by Swans

the screenplay is by Antonin Artaud



Also David Lynch has done some pretty amazing short films, one of my favourite being The Grandmother, a film where a kid who has a hard time from his parents grows himself a grandmother.



there is also this by Marcel Duchamp, displaying his foray in ANEMIC CINEMA

Tristan Tzara

The Weight of The World by Tristan Tzara

(an extract)

I struggle on
the anger the happiness admitted
day for day and tooth for tooth
here's the hour that stirs
night strikes
these are the clogs of those who set out
to sea to batter the waves with the weight of their bodies
with their fists with all their faith in life
upset the depthless drawers
their truth has no price
it's the open laughter
it urges on the daring of the world
it causes the mountains of light
torn from the seaweed's evasive kisses
to climb to the light
it's the armed song on the fringes of light
there is only one man to hear
at the height of the brawl
tender cry of the babe-in-arms
the future to cry still louder
and the flashing waves
pile up the mounting clarities
surrounded by a thousand promised languages
joy i could foretell you
reinvent your dazzle
until your image on earth
was hidden from me under the dregs of grimaces
the stinking rags of death

I struggle on
i've seen lost eyes the war
beseeching eyes turned away from the war
wide-eyed the war
cowardly eyes low ignoble eyes
the eyes of little girl lovers
and mothers
but don't talk anymore of mothers' eyes
their brightness has forever
fulled the brightness of ours
they've watched wall of silence
for the fishermen's return
their foreheads pressed to the window-panes
the storm burst out at sea
a champagne cork lightning fastener
the lighting all along the body of a naked woman
standing on the edge of the horizon
the champagne gushes out
it's a festival free for all
the bass drum setting the world afloat
jump who can
turn turn each one
the storm around you
there are all kinds of people
one's broken the bank
another's dandled the little girly
on his knee
the little dancer you know the little girly
the grand life at last the grand
the grandest is so obvious
while one by one the ships fall
on their knees
it's better than at the slaughter house
bodies tossed about
like flies
arms torn off
endless tears
coffins
faces without noses i don't know what without mouths without ears
put that back in order for me
and get on with it
at your command general
deaths in shreds deaths for nothing
comic deaths easy deaths
why haven't they waited for the grand dance
that's coming here
hardly noticeable
button warfare closures lighnight
neon warfare hesitation waltz
death by laughing
forward the music
dead people in lace
mangled packed liquified
tossed on the rubbish-heap
what does the fitting song matter
love song sad song life song
at your command general
there's no possible song left
love tossed in the dust bin
suppression of sorrows cure
by the release of closures lightning
you don't have to say it
it's a frenzied dance
block-head
i ask you
it's the expressive waltz
block-head
devil's brass foundry
hag-head
you want to laugh
automatic release
whore-head
billiard-head
headline pig-head
king-head mule-head
the war above our heads
what
the war
who's being fooled
i struggle on
i've seen the horror engraved right on the retinas
of those who by wanting to survive
have died a thousand times at the back of their eyes friends
the bottom of a sea shows all the memories
bottom of grief
the dreams flow round there green cavalcades
with long strands of seaweed
deep is the breath of the wind between the rocks
and long long the history of tortures
i struggle on
the night is long
the story for the rest of us
soon reaches it's end
will we have stopped believing in grief
we must take life
as it is again
face to face
good and evil
always as a comrade
shaking it from head to toe
or talking to it gently
according to what it says according to what it thinks
take it round the waist
shake it like a plum tree
and perhaps we will have to fight
so that some life is left us comrades
that each one finds his share
filled with dreams sown with childhoods
the first clarity
common to all and which has no name

the corn is till not ripe
stalks paler than thistles
in the autumn wind

the vineyard still lies fallow
man has laid his greatness
at the foot of the abyss

the sun prepares peaceful fellings
the forests will pale
with an explosive thirst for greenery

where are you newborn youth
the crimson flowers of youth
on your delicate cheeks

like the seagull's lost cry
I've lost you
the wind that night

it's true i struggle on
but in each laughing face
appears apple of my eye
my love
the present and future love
the weight of the world

Translated by Lee Harwood

Billy Childish

Thought i should elaborate on Billy Childish. He has been a great inspiration for me over the past few years, until i discovered his art i considered myself quite lost, i didn't understand why people would pay the sort of outrageous prices they do for art. Here is a quote from Robert Hughes from a conversation he had last year, where he is talking about the young generation coming into this cultural market, and how he would have reacted:

...I would have shied away from it, i would have found it alienating, people who know nothing about art, running around paying ridiculous prices for undesirable things.

Being part of this next generation that he talks about, it is funny to hear such a scathing quote from such an esteemed voice in the art world.

And it is exactly what he is talking about that really put me off art, and it put me off wanting to study art, especially at cofa - it is such a fucking money grubbing shit hole in lots of ways, but it can't be blamed directly, it is happening everywhere. To come across Billy Childish was quite a relief in lots of ways. I learned that what i was doing made sense to other people too, and that although it's quite shocking, the majority of people involved in art these days are misguided delusional wankers with no souls - well, those involved with art that makes money. Not that i think there has to be a romance of the impoverished artist painting for their bread, but their does have to be the romance of an artist painting because they need to do it, not for money, but to satisfy their SOUL.

So here is another clip of the man from an exerpt of the film Billy Childish is Dead, which was released a couple of years ago. Aswell as a link to a recent article on him, which i like as it recognises him as a man to be taken seriously, unsurprisingly lots of people don't take him all that seriously, because he sees through their meaningless and shallow conceits - and they know it. Oh,and that moustache is just a thing of beauty.

BILLY CHILDISH ARTICLE

Billy Childish

billy childish

Dada Etc

Tristan Tzara was one of the main men of the dada movement. I think there is a lot of truth in the DADA movement, i think that it strikes a chord in the core of humanity, that inherent absurdity i was getting at earlier. There are elements of this approach which i am sure were studied by future playwrites like Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard, people that thrived off that humour. It's kind of sad how boring the way that DADA art is taught, often its humour is forgotten. I guess it was never really a suited to analysis or teaching, it's more in the action and the act.



Antonin Artaud is another very interesting figure, he was part of the surrealist movement for a while, completely drug fucked most of the time, addicted to heroin and opiates, also naturally inclined to "depression" . What i find most interesting about Artaud was his view towards reality, which naturally influenced everything he did thereafter. to quote his wikipedia page:

Imagination, to Artaud, was reality; he considered dreams, thoughts and delusions as no less real than the "outside" world. To him, reality appeared to be a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real.

Tom Waits liked him, if that means anything...i think it does. he is as much a performer as he is a musician - which is really saying something. I really like Waits's aesthetic approach too, he's a pretty awesome dude.



I think a lot of what i consider to be good art always deals with one's approach towards reality, in an emotive sense as well as physical, i think it's for this reason that a lot of conceptual art sort of goes over my head, i don't mean that i don't get it, I just don't see the point of it. So that is something that i want to avoid in my work - too much conceptual thought, which might sound ironic, but there is a difference between knowing that you're thinking and thinking that you're knowing.