CosmiKnot

In making a doctoral proposal there is a certain amount of casting forwards. There is a required intuition that what you chose to research will be compatible with the practical process of researching. This is not a problem for an artist who works outside of linear time but in the realm of academic research the framework is still outwardly representational. The representational world is one of cause and effect i.e. I decide to research this and I make work with the theme of my research. Art has its origins in magical thinking and doesn’t really work as an illustration of ideas. Even as an illustrator I realised that illustration works better when you don’t just illustrate the meaning of the words on the page. Perhaps this is why I am aware of the pitfalls of art becoming illustration. An artwork can have an outwardly illustrative form but this is not where the meaning resides even if the artist themselves declares that it is.  This is my first performance of Blackberries - Blood ...

Funeral The concertina organ ebbs and flows Fingers politely jostle on the keys A chord is resolved Breathe in and breathe out Softly stumble from the pew Feeling suddenly self-conscious Down the aisle now Touch the wood – what tree you wonder? Fingers catch on the varnish Hadn’t expected that Feel more self-conscious Caught out trying to be sagacious Body of Christ Amen Blood of Christ Christ Amen Eyes down body stutters back to pew Pack of tissues in left pocket Mother of dead school friend over right shoulder We always ask ourselves Who am I mourning? The cheerful old soul in the coffin? Body of Christ body of Christ body of Christ Christ the priest has a clip on mic Old chap in the box lived a good life Life and soul Lit up the room Photo in the order of service Glint in his eye I wipe away tears Who am I mourning? Missing mother of two boys? Her mum over my right shoulder How great thou art Filing out now down the aisle God let me be strong enough to listen She’s not in pain any...

Marcus du Sautoy's interactive lecture at the Barbican started with a brief and playful conjecture illustrating the absurdity of the search for consciousness. He joked about the idea of cutting off his hand and whether consciousness might be found residing therein. In terms of "self" exploration it seemed clear that we seem to have remained in flat earth territory since Kant posited that consciousness was located in the pituitary gland. I have written several times (I think) about the obsession with dissecting as path to knowledge that the artists and scholars of the Renaissance rapidly developed and once more I find my self thinking that expecting to find the self by physically chopping up and analyzing the brain in smaller and smaller pieces will not lead to a deeper understanding. We need to make a leap of faith in order to cross disciplines or like children at a party in celebration of our own intelligence we will be left having unwrapped the pass the parcel...

A hang over is a funny thing. I am in the dining room having eeked the last part of the maths homework out of my son and the world seems fuzzy. Not fuzzy as it did yesterday when I realised my left eye was struggling to focus (age and stress) but fuzzy in a way more suited to Sundays spent in an undergraduate bedroom. I never really let go at art college. By which I mean I was always aware that I might have to function the next day. Life was not an Alex Garland ed beach for me. There is probably a certain amount of obsessive compulsive control freakerery to blame for me never really disengaging from an approach of nervous trepidation. The old spectacles testicles wallet and watch is a joke that chimes with me on a number of levels - not least the repeated rituals that Catholicism seemed to instigate. Set off. I never forget the time my parents found me, aged 10, kissing the feet of the deconstructed crucifix that hung over our staircase. You don't need to do that they said gently...