CosmiKnot

It is very possible that Kids Co. have become too famous and in this country fame and money are a highfalutin abstraction. I feel very sad to see the amazing work they do broken down into lists of incomings and outgoings but judging by the centrifugal forces of finances I should not be surprised. The critical article in the Spectator starts its case by saying that Camilla never wrote to a woman who donated 200,000 pounds after selling her house. I can only say that I received, from Camilla, the most touching letter I’ve had from anyone when I asked a few friends to donate money for my 40th birthday instead of buying a present. It was the closest I ever came to receiving a medal whilst having a compassionate hug. This was also the case when we organised an art raffle a couple of years ago. The tone of the second letter was perhaps less personal but hey I thought it’s an art raffle and by now Kids Co was a celebrity cause. The criticisms of Kids co are all on the secretarial level. I s...

I have recently considered the validity of making some telephone paintings in the vein of Maholy Nagy as a means of exploring Art in the age of Mechanical reproduction. This is still a salient text but the title is anachronistic. I mean it implies some kind of delay whereas now the dissemination of an image is instant. Also with the arrival of the meme we have managed to weave our over awareness of imagery into language itself. This is Derrida’s idea of the trace gone literally mad if madness is life led by neurosis. I mention this because I think it get me close to the reasons I make paintings in oil on canvas, which in a chronological sense are even more anachronistic. It is understandable that   people believe that progress means that using a certain look of painting is not valid as a serious art form because its “been done before”. Sometimes we are more comfortable with a deliberately mechanistic strategy, which unmasks the fake universality of the individual mark of expressio...

It’s Monday and they’re here The bluebells I mean Their timid arrival trumpeted By one final clarion call From some sheepish looking daffs Like stragglers from yesterday’s marathon The Crataegus monogyna blossom spatters Nettle leaves and ivy making Polka-dot pattern below eyeliner Stagnant millpond water wafts I’m not going to beat myself up Over rhyme and reason Just walk and observe Flinching briefly at the sight of a gnarled Pendulous snail hanging from a twig Twisted black plastic bag Doggy do doggy don’t A document of owners urge to forget Birdsong drifts through the trees Mingling with human utterances Pastel polo shirts glimpsed between branches Titleist specs upon the fairway visible If Camus had been a golfer would he have felt? More connected?

There is a growing awareness of the limits of our gnostic culture. This is a confusing turn of phrase because I always thought that gnosticism was a mystic take on Christianity but in this case it refers to the faith (with its origins in the Enlightenment) we have in ever expanding knowledge to cure all ills.       The Flammarion wood-carving illustrates either the scientific or mystical quest for knowledge   Today that icon of gnosticism, Stephen Hawking reassured fans of One Direction with the insight that science will soon prove that there is a parallel universe where Zayn Malik is still a member of One Direction . "Is there only one One Direction?" so to speak. These parallel universes may also prove handy as places to store the ever expanding knowledge. This reminds me of  Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward declaring that the gallery's History is Now exhibition is like  “... jumping into a three-dimensional encyclopedia,” That he stated this ...

You are in the living room of the high ceilinged Edwardian ground floor conversion flat belonging to your girl friend. You are kneeling on the smooth paisley fabric of the luxurious three-seater sofa. This is a sophisticated room, the style of which you had no hand in forming. You are essentially an archetypal musician who moved in with his bread-winning girlfriend. The black plastic hi-fi stack of record player cassette player and radio is tuned to BBC Radio 2. You have been told by your plugger to tune in and are now illegally recording the Simon Mayo show. His producer is talking, telling the disc jockey that he has found the most amazing song, which will surely be Christmas number one this year. Simon Mayo is not convinced and in a sneery voice announces that he finds the song to be similar to “Life is Life” (actually the title of the Laibach cover of “Live is Life”. You inwardly squirm at the absurdity of making a comparison based on the fact that both the Opus song and your own ...

Was Christ misheard? In growing older I seem to have nodded off and found myself in a realm where everything I once found to be cringe worthy and unworthy of serious attention has taken a strangle hold on the western world. We have abandoned all sense of our own hubristic absurdity and dived headfirst into the hottub of comfort entertainment. John Berger - he saw it coming It’s pretty obvious that digital technology makes what was once pedestrian in pace of dissemination now instantaneous - like a match dropped onto a trail of gasoline in a western. Boom the whole barn has gone up. First it was Star Wars. I mean that scene where they’re playing a future jazz in a bar full of alien freaks that was quite funny and verging on resonant. I even liked the tune enough to be able to watch it smiling. But please the whole of the western mytho-poetic mind occupied by notions of the darkside and the whatsit called the… oh fuck it? Republic?  So now it’s those colouring books ...

Face to face Dogs are like human beings That is why after centuries They have been selected As man’s best friend Er that’s what we do We see ourselves as the default The building block Projecting tech The electrical circuit  Cog or dog Dog cog cog dog What am I responsible for? Don’t forget to take all your belongings with you Evolutionary approach The mathematical theory of information Informational process Sudden emergence of language Biology to language The web exploits means We’re entering a new age of transparency Oh my god Ludwig Mies van der Blair’s revenge Or what?