outside my window

is being recorded to be edited. in the meantime: a little trailer teaser.

thank you, l!

eindruck_ausdruck

eindruck_ausdruck [aka reflections 2]

impression_expression
imprint_exprint
inprint_outprint

ein_aus
on_off

the limitations of translations mark out the cheesiness of the simple polarity of impression and expression. i remember back to how i could never remember, or rather: differentiate, which method defined which school: what was the inside/outside, stimuli/response of the impressionists and the expressionists. it took a long time until i remembered that the former were the keen outdoorsy ones, soaking up the world in all its fleetingness to then express these impressions.

eindruck_ausdruck signify research and art. the keen observation of empirical facts, relations and circumstances. the correct identification of these impressions stimulates research. it is impressed, never to be impressionistic. how different from the cheap and hazy thrills that paint offered on canvas. and colour even. my heart races, my gullet sings with adrenaline and it all turns into colour and mark on canvas.

simple. isn't it.

departures to define a break with observation, impression, towards one of gesture and mark, expression.

i remember being scalded for not being expressive enough about my national, if not international expertise.
i remember the impressions left from fraught research relations and the bewilderment of others if these were dared to be expressed.
i remember the realisation that the kind of politics that mattered did not have a place. could not have a place in the institution (see expressive expertise).

observations that fed the lack of expression as the expressions i would seek were not sought.

i remember the excitement of the problems that a canvas could posit.
i remember the recognition that only close observation could resolve whatever expression.

i remember the boredom with proclamations that artistic expression was all that was needed.

present memories that simply are the internal relations of eindruck_ausdruck. they only exist in each other, are one everchanging dynamic. one

reflections 1

to see the sea... just

to see again

"I wanted to see Kafka’s tomb. Knowing perfectly well (having verified it so many times) that you cannot see what you want to see, I went to the cemetery to see what I could not see. It’s the law. All is law. It’s because of desire. The law makes its nest in the peels of desire. Go on: you will not enter. If you did not desire to go, there would be a chance that the door would open." (Cixous, H. (1997), ’Attacks of the Castle’, in Leach, N. (ed.) Rethinking Architecture, London, New York: Routledge; p.303.)



i had forgotten about it. about the law that nests in the peels of desire. so i stumbled upon it over the past fortnight. as time unhooked itself; the temporal unfolding of anticipation dissipated one by one. peel by peel. events undid themselves. never took place. took place elsewhere and without. a series of undoings unmark time: plans that did not happen. a fortnight that did not happen leaves the plans as unmade.


and still time passed. in not happening it passed nonetheless. interrupted by the occasional sound outside the window. another leaked cable. another emptied battery cycle. time structured by anticipation - vorfreude - making its own laws of desire. with anticipation pulled, linearity dissipates. time? never there in its everpresence.

to show

against the setting sun south of ibrox we skidded on icy pavements. first north, then south. tried to cross the road, not to drop the paintings and not to get too overtly lost. all the while covering (a) urban politics; (b) the innecessity of expensive pavements but of occasional grit; (c) academic attitude that cannot be explained by habitus; (d) the between rather than the either/or; (e) berlin, frankfurt and glasgow as elsewheres; (f) whether to turn corners tightly or not; and really that this city is so definitely build for cars. all the while nonetheless getting lost at every possible corner, despite the googling.

finally, the paintings were dropped off, unscuffed by the ice. we laughed: really the only way to deliver paintings to the house for an art lover. and skidded on.

it does make me reconsider painting though. i have to admit.

the show. here.

'I wrote for...'

'I wrote for women whose lives consisted only of work and sorrow.'

- says the text for this week's calendar page. by hedwig courts-mahler in memory of the sixtieth anniversary of her death.

hedwig courts-mahler. the name is familiar. i came across it again and again in the verneered book shelf that i browsed as a little girl. along with other names and titles who proclaimed promise, love and tragedy in equal measure if preferably not in that order.

i also remember my mother's comments... 'och, that stupid woman and her stupid stories' - if not that phrase, then something to a very similar effect. h c-m nonetheless was her mother's best-loved author and so, my granny duly devoured her many writitings, even if all of them were so same.

how strange to stumble across this writer again. how strange also to reconsider my granny, as well as my mother's rejection in the light of the quote above.

'fairytales for adults' advertises the publisher; i think of something else as it resonates with a current writing that is being finalised for print in december. here's a mental note to this effect.

first breakfast after the drought

or should it be: draft?

in any case. the little sundew is recovering well after the enforced heat and no water it suffered while i was in iceland. it had died back completely but yesterday morning it was happily munching on a little fruitfly. can you spot it?

much of my attention has been revolving around the various 'growing' projects i got myself into this year: the plants inside the house were doing well; a honeysuckle got planted in the backyard along with two marrows. as the usual wet summer onfolded, the marrows got heavily munched on by slugs, so much so that no flowers other than two early ones, pre-slug fest, bore fruits; the honeysuckle got overgrown by the usual weeds in the border and almost fell victim to a sustained attack by our 'gardeners' who ignored long trails and stick and did their best to kill it off - luckily: unsuccessfully so. my avocado plant which in its 20 years has stayed with many friends and has been attended to throughout does not do much more than bristle its dry leaves after three weeks of drought and heat attack. there's no sign of life in it despite the best plant vibes and even more attention by all my visitors and myself since.

much of this, notably earlier, living incarnations of the avocado plant, had made it into print. and again, most of my current art projects involve the sounds, cycles and various states of these plants. along with some contemplations of the vagaries of weather, people and all else. none of them are for show just yet. but i can clearly see a picture of an old eccentric woman who talks to her many plants coming along as a possible future. hehehe... it may even be time to plant some fruit trees... in gardens that aren't mine but others. what strange notion property is.

sketch experiments

i mentioned that i took some laminated drypoint paper with me to iceland, didn't i?
having started to put into practice my 'spending time at the print studio plan', i've begun to finalise and edition some of the plates that have accumulated but needed a printing press.

so, here are, invariably titled greetings from grimsey; otto helms, grimsey; or: opa uelzen war auch auf grimsey. titling through memorised tool: i took the swiss army knife my dad had rescued and cleaned from one of my, by then rather confused, granddads 'de-cluttering' sessions (aka: throw everything you have in the nearest nettle bushes). while the knife doesn't go everywhere, it made it to iceland and was a rather able tool of choice for some drypoint experiments. and while it's unlikely that he ever would have come along to iceland (travelling was  definitely more  his wife's thing), i very much enjoyed the thoughts the improvised tool provided for the journey and after.

four 'postcards' from the island, inked up as intaglio and printed on one sheet. each card is about 7x10cm.

art + labour: a public conversation. 9 November 2010

tomorrow in glasgow, cca5, is this:

just before, there is another workshop on artist loans and internships in the morning (from 10.30am onwards). please see the variant site for details.

chickens don't just scratch

now with improved animation and sound that isn't straight out of the recorder (or indeed a location).
there is hope yet for a boiling mud pot remix.
happy oyster catching!

and in the background

... there is still more: another view, the same sound

yet, the eyes don't blink, don't move, don't change focus. it's rather simple: her video editing skills are not up to such complexities - yet.