Monday 31 October 2011

Sunday 30 October 2011

Janieta Eyre
Sisters Sophia and Sarah 2002

Scanned from Autofocus by Susan Bright

Bibliophile

A friend recommended this (disturbing) book to me, it’s a very perverse take on adolescent innocence with elements of the grotesque. My work focusses a lot on identity and how it is shaped and formed, as well as observation of development/the body. It’s the story of four children and how they cope with losing their father and dealing with a depressed mother who eventually dies as well. The children decide to bury their mother in cement in the basement. Some of the ideas and imagery are quite repulsive - the oldest boy remembers playing a ’game’ in which he and his sister touch their younger sister as if two doctors examining an alien and despite growing up and knowing that the game is inappropriate - he wonders why they cant play it anymore. He obsesses over his older sister’s body and masturbates to her. The youngest girl becomes mute and isolated with her journal, the youngest boy regresses and becomes a baby (coddled by the oldest sister) as well as attempting gender swapping. I think the whole book is clouded in mystery, we know that they all have a rather incestuous relationship yet they don’t seem to hold any affection for each other. The oddest thing is they are so detached and numb in regards to their actions and thoughts that it normalises the situation and almost makes it seem like a natural progression. The description of the surrounding suburban landscape is also quite haunting, their environment becomes alienating and deadening, as if they are the only people left on earth. You get a sense of emptiness, that the characters are disconnected from life. In a way this mood and atmosphere is something I’m trying to capture photographically.


Reading it I was reminded of The Story of the Eye by Georges Batailles, they both hold pornographic, perverted and voyeuristic parallels.



I Danced with you in the Gargage Night Club Glasgow one night 2005-2006. I was tall 6'1 wearing a grey hoodie & blue jeans you where shorter brunnete & georgous waering a silky top. I could'nt keep my hands off you. I was brushing them accross your tits & down in between your legs. I thought I was in trouble then I fealt you grab my balls. We continued to dance it was hot & sexy, you where hot & sexy. We where so busy heating up the dance floor we did'nt even talk. I was there with mu cousin a shorted guy, you where where there with a girl friend who did'nt look to happy. I was time to leave the club. I was standing with my cousin & you with your girl friend. When I went to speak nothing would come out, I could only look at you in awe of how beautiful you where. I knew my cousin had to leave & since know words where shared I left never to see you again. I have been thinking about you all day today, I am now back in Canada where I was from. If you ever see this I just want you to know I had a great time that night, you where beautifull. Would luv to here from you.



Posted on Tuesday 14 Sep 2010
By sws510@hotmail.com
Sourced: http://www.glasgowwestend.co.uk/isawu/

If anybody could help this sweet guy out, please get in touch...

But seriously, sometimes I'm very concerned as to what we will expose of ourselves online, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube - we are all just a click away from self-destruction - and I say this without any hint of melodrama. My dissertation this year looks at amateur content and 'internet celebrities' as well as why people choose to self-publish because arguably, some thoughts are better just left in your head. I too question the reasons as to why I blog and why I want to publish the material I'm collecting and writing about, and I think we should all reassess whether we need another self-indulgent place in cyberspace.

 Janet Murrary states in Hamlet on the Holodeck: the Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, (p 99) that, “…the enchantment of the computer, creates for us a public space that also feels very private and intimate,” we can become drawn into this world that technically holds no meaning or reality so users can feel secure and somewhat disconnected from the source, “…located on the threshold between external reality and our own minds.” However, many a career is being launched online, and over half of employers now check their potential candidates' facebook pages before their hiring decision -mailto:-sws510@hotmail.com you've been warned.








I'm sure she wasn't that special anyway.
 






Coffee Jerks


A series of 1950's and 60's-era coffee commercials from the Prelinger Archives

Introduction


This is my studio at the minute, it is gloriously big and a bit empty - mainly because the thoughts in my head have all been photography and film based.




Plans for the studio: turn it into a forest.
 





 I love playing with ideas of artifice, and a ‘knowing’ artifice at that (the idea that you know something is false/enhanced/modified or specifically created in such a way to become believable and yet you can still be drawn in to a false sense of security). I’m hoping to shoot a few stop motion video pieces in relation to the fake forest.
 



In regards to the blog, I intend it to be a bit of a bookmark for images and sources that inspire me and my work, occasionally a bit of writing to update on my process in the studio and throughout my final year in art school.