Things that improved my life #2 – E2 – E4
I have known of this album for more than ten years, but had always been put off by the discussion that surrounded it, that rendered this album in my mind as unlistenable avant-garde egghead music for people who masturbate over circuit diagrams ie: readers of The Wire.
Anyway, having acquired it, the surprise was total - this is a hugely listenable recording, 58 minutes of slowly evolving early electronica, overlaid in places with improvised guitar parts.
Thank you Manuel Göttsching! You improved my life!
MRT writings – NTU Hospital
Birdsong again, crushed by hammers and drills.
An old lady walking slow, hour-hand slow, using her umbrella for support, shit-brown slacks and white sneakers inscribed with a single mocking word - “SPORT”.
A guy in camouflage pants and a white T-shirt on the other side of the road. I see him in a forest, a gliding torso.
A teenage girl waves away cigarette smoke in immaculate disgust from immaculate taxi driver.
A bus pulls up - “Microinject revitalising mask with map.” With map? Of what? The Paris Metro? The old quarter of Panama City? And this product comes from Dr Wu, the Taiwanese Time Lord, who travels through the universe reducing the signs of ageing.
A bow-legged teenage schoolgirl in knee-high black socks, black skirt and white blouse, slouches, like she is waiting for boys to become men, stood at the bus stop, and everything is too slow, everything is a substitute, waiting for a bus that won't come. She twirls her umbrella, that for now is a parasol. The twirling stops and she stares at her fingernails with surplus intent, banging her hip with a fist, punching her ass with a hard fist, now hand in pocket, now hand in bag, checking cellphone. Strutting again, and the procedure takes her in an ellipse, going nowhere, and begins with a surge of energy that dissipates by the third step – vitality vs torpor – and a hard spin and short flounce back and rest. Shaking her legs, twirling umbrella, frowning, pacing, loose arm slapping her thigh and on the third slap becomes an act repeated in steady rhyhtm, turn and pace. A pregnant woman genuinely hobbles by, with plastic bag of sandwich and tea. The girl, shirt riding up off hip, legs open, adjusting black-framed glasses, hand in bag, flash of teddy bear, on cellphone now, walking in circles, smiling, walking in circles, listening, it's over, folds down umbrella, and teddy bear rises from bag. An MP3 player and headphones appear, elegant white headphones, thick black cord, teddy bear in hands, clutched for an instant against stomach, check cellphone, teddy bear half in bag, teddy bear limp at side, all is still. Five seconds. Umbrella out again, unfolded, folded again more tightly, teddy bear in bag laying prone, shirt riding off stomach, arms folded, shirt pulled down, eyes closed, eyes open, adjusts glasses, teddy now in sitting position, head visible, now only nose and ears, MP3 player in hands, more people now and people gone instantly. A cigarette-thin man smokes a cigarette. The girl gives up, teddy bear vanishes, takes taxi, the immaculate taxi driver pulls away, and they are gone.
Things that improved my life #1 – Harold Budd
A new series.
In concert with the iPod Nano (that also improved my life) and Taipei City (that also improved my life), #1 is the recent discovery of the music of Harold Budd.
Listening to the same music at home only demonstrates that this is not the same music at home.
The recording I have is fairly quiet, so the sounds of the city are necessarily blended into the mix to produce a location-specific picture, as scooter engines, cellphone blips and human babble rises and falls. The effect is great, a folding of sound and images into the experience, a sense of completeness in a city that is vibrant without ever being beautiful, that lacks a signature (other than Taipei 101 - not enough).
That signature is provided by Harold Budd. Thank you, Harold, for connecting the dots.
Taipei Friday
Out of the rain, in sight of TaiShin Bank, sat. For now, I am the proud owner of ten free minutes. I remove my notebook, from a bag, not from my nose. I include the bag solely in order to exclude my nose, and now I touch my nose, and say, “You're excluded.” My nose says nothing. First line in the notebook:
My nose says nothing.
A person that I deduce to be a woman (dress, breasts beneath dress) sits down with what I deduce to be two children (far smaller, toys). They are girls. They sit and begin eating, and I decide that this is why they sat to begin with. Second line in the notebook:
The plan is simple – sit, then eat. And then?
I am guessing they will stand, as sitting commits a person, usually, to later having to stand. It is rare that somebody sits and knows they will never rise again. Third line in the notebook:
They will rise again as one.
As one? I can only hope.
The woman and the two children continue eating, and a man sits down on the other side of me. The arrangement of people is now this, from left to right – man, me, child, woman, child – the man is staring at the tiny illuminated screen of his cellphone as if it is the most important thing in the world, with the same look that Howard Carter used as he broke into the tomb of the boy king, Tutankhamun. Only, now the same look can be generated by a cellphone. I see Howard Carter, covered in dust, finding not Tutankhamun but a cellphone, a phrase forms – Valley of the Rings. Fourth line in the notebook:
In the valley of the rings.
The man is so absorbed by the cellphone, that I am free to study him in depth. Normal hair, normal skin, normal shirt, normal trousers, normal... I am about to think normal shoes and complete this great work, but his shoes stop me. His shoes are extraordinary. The man is wearing the most anonymous black shoes I have ever seen, and the effect is, yes, extraordinary. I am amazed that I can even perceive such blandness, that the shoes do not sidestep perception totally, and appear instead as two inexpicable voids at the end of each leg. Home-made? No, never home-made, so what? Am I to believe that a person or persons unknown designed these shoes? For what possible purpose? I see the finished design inducing spontaneous comas in the marketing division, and later, a billboard at a busy intersection, and cars and buses simply flying off the roads, at each wheel a catatonic pilot trailing a metre of drool. One other thought forms, and that is the question of what would happen if, Heaven forbid, these shoes were stolen? What then? I see the man, with a policeman, his pencil poised over his notebook, and the man at a complete loss...
Policeman: “So, if I may have a description?”
Man (without shoes): “It was a dark night, and the air around the cabin was still. At length, an owl hooted in the mid-distance...”
Policeman: “Of the shoes, Sir, of the shoes...”
Man: “They were black.”
Policeman: “Black. And?”
Man: “And what?”
Policeman: “Could you be more specific, Sir, there are an awful lot of black shoes in Taipei City, particularly of late.”
Man: “I'm trying to visualise them...”
He starts to sag.
Policeman: “Are you alright, Sir?”
Man: “I am starting to see them... they're...”
Policeman: “Laced or loafers?”
Man: “They're... Oh, my God... the horror... the horror...”
He collapses, eyes closed, gasping.
Policeman: “Full leather uppers, Sir?”
He tries to speak, groans, and dies.
The policeman folds up his notebook, slides away his pen.
Policeman: “We'll be in touch, Sir. Goodnight.”
Fifth line in the notebook:
And see a dying vision of anonymous shoes.
I look down at the notebook and read:
My nose says nothing.
The plan is simple – sit, then eat. And then?
They will rise again as one.
In the valley of the rings.
And see a dying vision of anonymous shoes.
I guess that covers it. I have one minute left.
One Taiwan, One China
Today, having been invited, I marched through Taipei to show support for Taiwan to pursue its destiny without further interference from mainland China. In this, I was joined by around 400,000 other people and together we marched to the final destination, where we sat on the ground and listened to impassioned speeches and waved our flags. Throughout the day, I was approached and thanked for being there, basically for being a Westerner prepared to come and be a part of what might appear a fundamentally Taiwanese question. That, I suppose, depends on how broad a conception one possesses of one's interests.
Some pictures:
Post deleted
Here is nothing, rather than something.
There are to be no more posts on England. I am sick and tired of the feelings that generate the posts and of the majority of the responses to the posts.
Likewise, while I may write about art, I will again limit this to art that did not originate in England, etc.
Looking further forwards, I will write this blog in another language full-time at a future date, hopefully not later than a year from now.
Actualmente, no hay una razon para esperar, aqui es el future de BookArmor, ahora. Caulquier persona que quiera aggregar un comentario a este articulo, por favor, escribelo en caulquier idioma excepto Ingles.
Goggles
“Are you going to wear those goggles to bed?”
“No.”
“Have you put those goggles back on?”
“No.”
“Let me feel...”
“Okay, I'll take them off, Jesus.”
“Let me lock them in the drawer.”
“Okay.”
“Goodnight...”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Where are you?”
“I am just stretching my legs.”
“At 4 am?”
“If that's the time, then yes.”
“You were picking the lock.”
“No.”
“You were, what were you using, a hair grip?”
“No.”
“Come here and give me what is in your hand.”
“There's nothing there.”
“I heard that! Ha! A bent hair grip.”
“I wonder where that came from.”
“If you want the goggles, just ask.”
“No, it's okay...”
“Just ask me if you want them, there's no need to be picking the lock...”
“No, it wasn't that, it was just my legs.”
“Of course, you had to stretch them.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, are you done?”
“Just about.”
“Well, come back to bed then, and stop this.”
“Okay...”
“Goodnight, then, can I have a kiss?”
“I can feel a fever blister coming, we better not.”
“Well, just a cheek then?”
“Maybe in the morning...”
“And why have you got your back to me, anyway?”
“I prefer to sleep pointing at the window...”
“I knew it! Finger meet elastic band! You're wearing goggles again!”
“Okay! God, I'm wearing goggles, do you have to wake the whole street?”
“It's you that's causing all this!”
“Causing all what? God, I don't know why it's such a big deal.”
“It's not, it's the lying about it.”
“I have to lie about it, because you don't approve, can't you just ignore it?”
“Can't you just stop doing it?”
“Why should I? Do I make you give up your hobbies?”
“My hobbies aren't weird, I like fell walking.”
“Good for you, you're not weird, you like fell walking, hobby of the sane. Congratulations.”
“Don't be sarcastic, don't think you can lie in bed wearing goggles, being sarcastic with me.”
“I am not hurting anybody. In fact, I am protecting myself, and if you roll over and accidentally put a finger in my eye, well, it won't happen now. You should wear them, too...”
“No thanks, I'm not ready to be converted to the cause...”
“You won't even try, you're so hung up on the idea, when the reality is quite different. You might even enjoy it.”
“I'll stick to fell walking.”
“You're so conservative.”
“You're so weird.”
“And open-minded. And I won't have legs like chair legs when I'm sixty, like fell walkers get.”
“No, you'll have strange circles around your eyes from a lifetime of goggle abuse.”
“I'll just look very tired.”
“And so will I, I can never get to sleep, not with this going on.”
“Sorry about that, sorry my hobby disturbs you so much.”
“Well, how would you like it if I started fell walking around the room at 4 am?”
“To be honest, I wouldn't mind, so long as I could wear my goggles.”
“You wouldn't, either, sleep doesn't seem to matter to you, you're like a vampire...”
“That wears goggles.”
“Right.”
“Night, love.”
“Night.”
Notes to a dishwasher
The work itself is not demanding, beyond the fact that it requires you to stand indefinitely at your station and to never stop, but beyond that, the work is simple enough and not subject to change, be it from the advance of science or the vagaries of fashion, as, I assure you, to the best of my knowledge, that all such evils shall be resisted, and that the dishes will remain more or less the same, with reference to colour (white) and shape (circular) and material (ceramic), and the food, too, more or less the same, and the cutlery, or the silver as it is to be known, from now on, yes, it will be replaced from time to time, but always with items of the same specification, and in increments, so that effectively the silver will never change, although it will change, and this is something you will never be required to consider, and so, I promise you, that there won't be much at all in the way of change to engage with, and to be left free of all that, of all that responsibility, is better, perhaps, though we need not speculate on quite why, or indeed, for whom, but rather focus on the business of placing you, here, and of situating you perfectly, here again, for the fullest engagement with your work, work that won't do itself, after all, and that is best done in the absence of any distraction, such as that produced by change (in my example), or that produced by a window (to provide another example), not that there is a window, only the absence, entirely, of a window, so that there is no need to ruminate further upon the matter of your climbing out, or equally, upon the matter of somebody climbing in, neither situation being acceptable, or possible, or worth the risk, and truly, all this rumination and all this risk, for what? For a view of the outside and the ongoing saga, interminable in its own way, of a tree, and all that green, with all those fluttering moments and the dropping of its leaves, only for twigs to ascend, to prominence, and then all that brown, so that the mind is filled with twigs, and brown, and the whole process, interfering with you, and, more importantly, with your work, the only thing that matters, and permanently contrasting itself with you, and your situation, with it, and its situation, the thought is suspicious, at heart, of all of these contrasts forming, over time, and ending who knows where, with an idea, maybe, there I've said it! And a quite worthless idea at that, as ideas are quite worthless here, other than as a drain on your already limited resources of time and energy, so, no, in answer to the question of a window, we won't allow it, and we will not permit anybody, let alone you, to drift away into contemplation, and, rest assured, that even if there was a window here, we would board it up immediately, in the interests of you and of our company, that is to say, in the same interest, because, and please, don't correct me if I am wrong, not that I am wrong, but aren't these interests essentially one and the same, identical in every way, and, further, isn't it better for everybody that you cast aside every possible thing, other than what is absolutely relevant to your future, which in this instance are dishes and the silver and the business of washing, and to complete this without complaining, even though your work can never be complete, and besides, complaining or not, neither condition will ever be recognised, as there simply exist no channels for registering something so... what did people say many years ago, it sounds like pastrami, personal? Yes, disgusting, but that was perhaps another time, a time with its own management team, a time with its own imperatives, where there was perhaps some compelling reason for the essentially useless theatre of examining what a person said, some spirit or other, and that a complaint was examined and perhaps even taken seriously, yes, a terrible business, of feedback, of dialogue, an age of cupped ears, and best forgotten, for we are no longer prone to such notions, because we are no longer in the business of listening, nor appearing to listen, as it were, but are focused on other things, difficult to disclose, and for you, without any meaning, for these things maintain the world and you are one of the things maintained by it, know that! And no more! And know this, also, that, should you remain at your station, you will be given the chance, every chance, to work without cease for less than a living wage for as long as you remain capable, and that, when you are no longer capable, a manager will appear and dismiss you, and you will then be relieved of your uniform and forcibly removed from the premises, not that there exists any need to think of that now, to be thinking about that day, about the death of your time here, and your forcible ejection, and about what might come after, if anything, after you are no longer capable of producing work, no, it will be too late then for thinking, just as now it is too early, for the future is another place, complete with glistening robots, such marvels, that may stand ready to assume your office, so that the handover is seamless (perhaps this is my dream), or it may just be that a younger person is taken on, an eager type, eager to get on (perhaps this is your dream), who will then learn again what you have learned, firstly the process of washing dishes, washing silver, and so forth, and then that other lesson, that never ends, until it ends, that there is work enough here to last a lifetime and that a lifetime is perhaps too generous an amount of time, so that its filling becomes the work, too, and that everything is devoted, necessarily, to the filling of this time, in order for the time, any time at all, to pass, to make that incredibly long journey from one moment to the next, and for things not to last forever, because, while the thought that work lasts forever is worthy perhaps of a specific brand of awe, the thought that you also may last forever, this thought is too much, at heart, to hold, though, in this regard, let me make it clear, that in no way do we discourage you from lasting forever, and, if you should, through some obscure mechanism, indeed last forever, and remain at your station, forever, washing dishes to the desired standard, that we will not disturb you from such endeavours, at least until such time as a glistening robot dishwasher provides better value (as it presumably will, as it inevitably must, at a point, no matter how distant, in the future), and that further, that your presence, continued indefinitely or not, will constitute neither a plus nor a minus, but simply an enduring, no, I hesitate to call it a fact, but then again, what else is there, what else is so boring and real and enduring as a fact, and so little worth remarking upon? Ha, I don't mean to stare! Just my little joke, and well, that concludes things, for now, so I will leave you to it, no reason not to begin at once, is there? Yes, you may begin now. Goodbye.
Extraordinary prohibitions #2
The photo is of a sculpture, Bunny, by Masao Kinoshita, currently exhibited at the Eslite Gallery in Taipei City. The Eslite Gallery, which, I would contend is simply a room, is located in a department store that also contains:
Starbucks coffee shop | Food court | Various designer clothes shops |A bookstore
A stationery store | A music store | ATM machines | The Eslite forum | Elevators
Restrooms | Glass cabinets | Cashiers / cash registers | Security devices / surveillance cameras
These things are at the disposal of the public, subject to a set of prohibitions.
If I say it's a gallery, it is
Firstly, as patriarchy dictated a role for each room of the house, the designation “gallery” and the use of doors and extra prohibitions (as opposed to the prohibitions already permeating the rest of the department store) seeks to contain art, while also asserting that the rest of the Eslite complex is not art. The extra prohibitions are the same as documented at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum – no touching, no speaking in a loud voice, no mobile phone use, no photography, etc.
Yes, I have a penis
The prohibition on touching, coupled with the items on display not being encased in glass, it has a curious effect, because, of course, once the idea of touching is implanted via a sign, the visitor may be forgiven for experiencing exactly that which is prohibited, a strong wish to touch the items. Truly, is there any difference between such a setup and the rules prevailing in a lap dancing club? Is art supposed to include titillation? This question is amplified in its relevance by the fact that the items in question are naked and anatomically accurate, albeit fused with fantastical notions – the item is a fiction, the erection it produces is not. We could say. Naturally, that would mean my confessing that I have a fully-functioning penis, but as ownership of this dangerous device was not included on the list of prohibitions, I will simply note this fact here and move on.
Internationalism
So, as touching is prohibited, sight is the means by which the items are touched and touch the viewer, as pictures formed in the head. One thing that troubles me, in looking at the results of this, is the degree to which visual perceptions differ, from culture to culture. The artist comes, presumably, from Japan (little information is available on Kinoshita), and belongs to some kind of tradition, has received training, etc, but how (and, why?) are these images to be classified? For example, I could say, “They look like things out of Hellboy...” What I am getting at is that there is this internationalism in the arts, so that items are transported around the world, separated from the host culture and implanted into this novel culture of international art, a category that emerges from its own practices. But what does this mean? Is there some standardised means of seeing? Or is that the aim, to produce a detached class of art professionals and buyers who see the world in the same way? And what possible purpose would such an aim serve? Do we want a person in Germany to see the world in the same way as somebody in Mongolia, etc... On a related note, this trend, this aim at a supra-national language (specifically Western in origin) was noticeable in the language of the English text for the Taipei Biennial, which awkwardly appropriated Western descriptors for the event and its purpose, or, are we supposed to believe that somehow, magically, the aims of artists and art galleries and ministries of culture the world over, just happen to be the same? - Alternatively, perhaps the individual's way of seeing is thrown into relief by the limitations unveiled through seeing a model of a woman with giant rabbit ears, our sense of wellbeing is temporarily disrupted by considering the fact that evolution (or God, etc), may have charted a different course, that we are ourselves, fundamentally, accidents (or again, if God is involved, designs), and the works in question are profoundly curious, or (God again, some kind of blasphemous product), etc. But, again, what lays at the end of this beyond the dream of being sophisticated, of becoming inured to the substance of art because, in some specific way, we have seen everything and all that remains is claiming our seat on Late Review.
Unclassified material
So, for the items (I am avoiding labelling them as 'work' or 'art' etc, and item is the most neutral term I can find, as thing seems a little derogatory), I am literally in a void, a void doubled by the fantastical nature they exhibit, by the fact they are impossible. So, there is a woman with a rabbit's head, the simply titled Bunny, but as to what that means, I have no reason to suppose. As for its effect on the viewer, the effect was begun by the general shock of recognising a naked woman, rendered in the style of an anatomical model, with large breasts and even larger ears. As this shock dissipated, I considered the complex construction of the model (made from fiberglass), and, as such, I admired this in the same way any structure created in sufficient detail might arouse a reverence for the presumed labour expended upon it. I would not group this sensation as being in anyway specific to the item in question, I have considered the panels in manga comics in the same way, likewise, motorway flyovers, the rockets at the NASA museum in Huntsville, AL, etc. The general character of one of these thoughts might be, “How long did this take to do?” and then, of course, the fact that the artist themselves may not have been involved in this process at all, and that the manufacture was a question of a technician working from a drawing to realise a particular vision. That does not, to me, detract from value (this would be akin to expecting a writer to type out their manuscripts or bind their books, etc), but it complicates the notion of considering the artist as a man with extraordinary patience or some such, which is sometimes impressive in its own right (unless the finished thing is made out of matchsticks or enclosed in a bottle), the grand statement of having ceded thousands of hours of a commodity as precious as your own life, for what? The production of Bunny...
The nameless multitudes
Then again, there are people, often referred to as almost all of humanity, the herd, who equally cede their entire lives in the service of something that simply won't bear their stamp, that defeats utterly any attempt to sign themselves into history, such as standing in a supermarket checking out goods, or packing sandwiches, or stitching together luxury handbags, etc. In the last instance, it is not the name of the person who manufactured the bag, or the person who designed the bag, but the name of the corporation that oversaw the process – Gucci, Luis Vuitton, Fendi, etc. We know the names instantly, as something that consumes identity as it also disseminates its own vision of itself, one that is always necessarily exclusive and additive. In the last few months, there was the case of the iPhone worker who left test pictures of herself in a product she tested, that were then discovered and uploaded to the web – super kooky, the happy Apple worker, the unlikeliness of it all – it was good for a day of coverage, but perhaps all workers should be permitted to add their testimony, just as artists contexualise their works, through choice of agents, through selecting photographers, through choosing galleries, through writing essays, through inclusion in particular journals. On this basis, I propose a Journal of the Experience of Ordinary Working Life, and that the products of such are given the same reverence as this “gallery world” that today Kinoshita makes use of, that tomorrow will spread its meaning, its weight, over another “artist” and continue injecting the same set of relationships into the minds of all who attend it.
Taipei spinning tower of Bond, James Bond
A lucky strike with the crappy camera while wandering through the city.
