Fountains flowing into musical streams

click image to enlarge! 

"Here is a musical streams-of-story, an appealing history of 'marketing trends and stylistic patterns in the development of pop/rock music.' Topping the chart is a time-series of popular and rock music as a share of total record sales, although the names are not scaled in proportion to their contributions to the grand total. Bold letters indicate some of the 24 stylistic categories, fountains flowing into musical streams,  (eg Schlock Rock, lower left). Several fashions, including Bubblegum and Surf, did not last, to the relief of a grateful world. In these overlapping parallel time-series, a few names of the 470 artists are repeated, as they resurface in fresh currents. The multiple parallel flows locate music-makers in two dimensions - linking musical parents and offspring from 1955 to 1974, and listing contemporaries for each year. With an intense richness of detail (measuring in at 20% of the typographic density of a telephone book), this nostalgic and engaging chart fascinates many viewers - at least those of a certain age. Also the illustration presents a somewhat divergent perspective on popular music: songs are not merely singles - unique, one-time, de novo happenings - rather music and music-makers share a pattern, a context, a history.

Library find of the day: Chart of musical groups and movements from 1955 to 1974, discovered in an Interloan book 'Visual Explanations: images and quantities, evidence and narrative', Edward R. Tufte, 1997. A fascinating chart, which I have also printed out to put up on my walls, and hopefully will work as a blueprint by which to discover more bands. And I could even do that chronologically.

No train to Stockholm

 

Snap happy

I have been enjoying the immediacy of documentation with my new smart phone, something I finally succumbed to purchasing. Hopefully now I will be better at capturing images of Sweden as part of my daily life, not just when I am on holiday, which is my current avenue for photography exploits. While I do not want to be a person attached at the hip (or the hand) to this mobile device, collating images of items of interest/daily curiosities can now become an ongoing occupation (for me along with the rest of the world).

FYI I am now present on Instagram under the moniker bruceanddeirdre.

Above are three buildings of interest - Heleneholms gatukök in dying light, small balconies on Vesterbrogade, Copenhagen, and the new mall monstrosity which is Emporia, Malmö. Actually I take the mall monstrosity comment back, I find the structure of Emporia quite fascinating.

More images to follow

Furniture for flats

 


































So far in the epic adventure that is to be called 'furnishing my flat' I have sourced two pieces of furniture from Malmö's rather good second hand establishments, both very reasonably priced. I love to gloat/share my successes, so I have documented them in situ and plastered them all over the internet. Unfortunately not much else exists 'in situ' (I write this sitting on a cushion on the floor in the corner where the internet lives) I have no tables, no blinds or curtains, no ceiling lights. Yet it isn't bleak at all, having always lived in rooms with filled to the brim. It is nice to downsize and I hope it remains that way.

Gaze and Glaze

Ceramic cups and teapots by Isobel Thom as part of the exhibition 'The Berlin Years' with Saskia Leek, shown at the Hamish McKay Gallery 18 October - 10 November.

Sometimes objects are so beautiful their presence overwhelms their functionality. I have always liked to think that I would be the person who would use such things in my everyday life - and thus get the most pleasure out of them, having been incorporated into the drudgery of my routine. Then again, I broke one of my prized glasses with a picture of a vintage car on it, and am still ruing my carefree attitude towards possessions I do actually care about.

The angular shapes of the tea sets and the stackable nature of the cups are so alluring - all those modernist sensibilities captured and executed on a small scale, while imbued with a sort of zen calmness and the practiced movements of the Japanese tea ceremony. The tea pots themselves have an almost Communist feel about them, their shape and twisting lid seemingly reflecting the hammer and sickle.

I am drawn more and more towards art and designs more closely aligned with craft arts - textile crafts such as embroidery and knitting, ceramics, whittling, jewellery, the making of objects. I am at a sort of cross roads in my life at the moment, and I am not sure what I am wanting to do. All I know is that I do not want my career to be 8 hours a day sitting stationary in front of a computer, and I want to do something with my hands. I believe this is why my artworks are delicate, time consuming and hand made. It is a way of combating the pull of the internet - a direct backlash to the power of technology. Crafts seem to defy the claims that everything can be done on a computer.

Literal flow

Set of open plan book shelves seen on small spaces - a tumblr with a serious case of indoor-outdoor flow, showcasing architecture and design that will make you want to vacuum, put things away, and wipe down table surfaces with a great feeling of inadequacy. Working in a library, I have a great affinity with shelving. Or at least, I feel that I ought to.
These shelves at common room - "a non-profit exhibition space that supports artistic experimentation and dialog in contemporary culture", and described as "bookshelves mounted between the wood studs create a bookstore and social bar on one side of the partition and a more private archive on the side of the artists space" are great because they are accessible from both sides - just like all good things (cloths racks, buffet tables, christmas trees), and provide incentive to collect volumes of books by which to fill out the space into a complete wall.

Sometimes there are so many inspiring things in our alternate reality known as the internet, it makes me want to erupt into a flurry of creativity and then destroy everything in the throes of self loathing. A bit heavy from just looking at a set of cleverly made shelves, perhaps. 

Stills from the weekend

Film stills from 'Suna no Onna (The Woman in the Sand) /  newly acquired record rack (made in Sweden!) / pie / Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl

The weekends become increasingly more important as winter inches nearer, and the nights grow even longer, dusk now falling some time between 4 and 4:30 pm. By the time I leave work during the week, it has already been dark for about an hour, skewing one's perception of time. So I try to take advantage of my weekends, the only time I can go out and wander around Malmö without turning on my bike headlights. 

Saturdays are the best days for doing things. On Sundays nearly everything is closed, or at least feels that way. Sundays are good days for cycles to the beach, which is a rather soothing place when it is cold and grey. Last weekend when I saw an old man swimming - it was probably 6 degrees at best. I am sure he has been swimming in November for many years. Old people are very resilient, I find. 

Yesterday was a day of small achievements for me. I saw a fantastic film at Cinemateket, Suna no Onna  (The Woman in the Dunes) as part of the Japanese New Wave series they are showing this season. Though visually captivating, I was also able to actively engage myself in the narrative as my Swedish comprehension appears to have reached the level where I can easily follow Swedish subtitles. A small coup as I continue to attempt to carve out a life for myself here.

After the film I challenged myself to make a meat pie, including the short crust pastry shell. My culinary skills are pretty hit and miss (though somewhat improving) and I began to think I had bitten off more than I could chew. (this would literally, be the case when it came time to consume the pie.) I conveyed my fears to a pie maker of some repute, who told me it would be a success and that I was "excellent at making mince". The pie, I must admit, turned out better than expected. I even went back for seconds. 

Sunday I went to a second hand store, ostensibly hunting for a  gift for someone and naturally coming away with a few for myself instead, coming away with a near perfect condition record rack in handsome navy to house my slowly expanding collection of singles, and a lucky find of a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl, the blurb on the back cover proclaiming "If your taste is for the macabre, the sick, the outrageous, the unexpected, the horrifying - Roald Dahl will give you orgiastic delight. If not, you are going to miss one of the most sophisticated collections of short stories in print."

I look forward to some sophisticated orgiastic delights  from Roald Dahl, starting with my lunch break at work tomorrow.

4 things

 

4 images that I have been really drawn to of late. Firstly a lovely colour page from my excellent book 'The Lore of Ships' -  the flags make me want to write out mantras to live by in a sort of drape-y semaphore as a hanging soft sculpture. A wonderful knotted sponge-like form, created by Jens Risch, twisting and contorting upon itself in painful confusion. TV series 'Psych' parody Twin Peaks, and include many of the original cast. Here Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer) and Lenny Von Dohlen (Harold Smith) discover the body of 'Paula Merrel' "wrapped in plastic". And fourthly, a very large palette with (in hindsight) a rather Audrey-ish looking girl) found in the wonderful image archive that is Old Chum.

I was here

Coming from New Zealand it is not often one gets to see buildings that are so grand, majestic, overwhelming, and frankly, just old. Frederiksborg Slot as it stands now was constructed between 1602-1620, though some parts date back to the original structure from 1560. This notion is rather dumbfounding to me, realising I have wandered through the same spaces as people from 400 years ago.  Every tourist cliché emerges from the woodwork and nestles in my terribly formulaic expressions as I take it all in.
The place is a visual overload - a slight dizziness comes on from turning around in wonder while staring up at the impossibly lavish ceilings, weighed down with ornately carved decorations.
In the end, the place just seemed too improbable, too removed from my reality to full comprehend it's history. It was not until I noticed the few scratches on the window pane, which I endeavoured to photograph above, that I could fully appreciate just how 'old' this place was. (the more I write here the deeper the hole I am apparently digging for myself is getting. It must be impossible to write about this sort of thing with any sort of sincerity without sounding like a bit of an ignorant ning-nong.)
Above a couple of names and a date have been scratched into the glass, a way for other tourists to leave their marks in history, and in a time where it was easier to get away with such vandalism. This was etched on in 1930, and it was quite glorious to think of others marvelling over this fantastically ridiculous building, and creating some sort of perspective for someone visiting 82 years after them.

I was reminded of Highwic, one of Auckland's historic houses open to visit. On one of the windows in a servant's room, the name 'Florence' is etched into the glass. The story goes that Florence was a housemaid who stole her mistress's diamond ring, and used it the scratch her own name into the window pane in her room.

Not in an empty room

Wise words from Agent Cooper:
Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it. Don't wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee.

In my case, it could also be Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's South Side Band - one of my favourite records, or LP's which contain some of my favourite songs (Deirdre by The Beach Boys, and 'You Better Move On, The Rolling Stones' version of the Arthur Alexander classic.)

It could even be sitting on the grass with a cold beer and a book by one of your favourite authors (Ngaio Marsh, Raymond Chandler and Haruki Murakami) after just having a swim.

These are a few presents I have treated myself to recently, to fill up sometimes lonely days with words, conversation, lyrics and music. 
Besides, there is something very comforting about reading Murakami when the times are tough - almost all of his main characters do little more than read, listen to music, drink beer or whiskey, and make mouth watering meals for themselves seemingly effortlessly. They are always alone, never lonely. And there is a comforting companionship when one follows another's solitude within one's own.

Warm knits

One of perhaps three or four large knitted lampshades hanging over the bar at the Grill Room, Barcelona. Evocative of bait catchers and fishing nets, made with slightly fraying twine, it looked much more robust in real life. They immediately caught my eye due to the current knitting work I am making at the moment, one of those pleasing coincidences in life. The wooden frame and brown twine complement each other nicely with the natural colours and materials, I am thinking of marrying my fishing line knitted pieces with the shiny copper wire, for a more sparkly effect.
From the restaurant's menu I chose their 'Japanese burger' - a pattie marinated in soy sauce, accompanied with Japanese mayonnaise, and the usual salad-y suspects. There was meant to be tofu in it as well but I couldn't see any (the possibility I ate it without realising cannot be ruled out). It was pretty damn delectable, but anything with Japanese mayo in it generally is. 

an idea and something to accompany it

Leonor Antunes at Marc Foxx via Contemporary Art Daily.

"assembled, moved, re-arranged and scrapped continuously"

(excerpt from press release:)
In this exhibition, Antunes considers Brazilian modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi in “lina” 2012, a delicate brass and silver constructed curtain which is a reflection of the parquet floor design in the immanent modernist house she designed, known as the “Glass House” built Sao Paolo in 1951. Bo Bardiʼs influence can also be seen in the soft red leather floor work, “discrepancies with L.B.” which takes its form from the hard gridded window treatment of Bo Bardiʼs building “Sesc Pompeii”, also in Sao Paulo.

“lina” is installed upon “assembled, moved, re-arranged and scrapped continuously”, 2012, the exhibitionsʼ title and largest sculpture. The 9.5 x 9.5 foot walnut wooden pavilion is also the venue for “chão”, 2011, a 12 part hand- knotted and incrementally increasing, gridded series of delicate black nets. The canopy itself delineates the room, asserting an almost domestic feeling and providing an exhibited arrangement of grid upon grid within the show.

Hanging from the rafters and breaking her gridded constructions is the organic work “random intersections #7”, a sculpture made from handmade black leather straps, similar to horse bridals and referencing Carlo Mollinoʼs equestrian school in Turin “Società Ippica Torinese”, built in 1937 but destroyed in 1960. Antunes, like Mollino, has a great appreciation for the movement of material and this work brings her materiality back to a more corporeal connection.

The marriage of the fine black netting, the metallic glimmering curtain and the robust and darkly slick wooden structure upon which the works adorn, makes for an interesting and pleasing relationship. It reflects various thoughts I have myself had recently, revolving around an abandoned metal spring-bed base (which has since disappeared, and whose disappearance I may not fully get over for weeks or months) and a large pile of flaccid overstretched rubber bands.

I think it is only recently that tactility has taken on such importance in my work. The overwhelming feeling of wanting to touch something is luring me into the photographs of Antunes' work.

Knotting, linking, twisting; connecting ideas and materials is a common motif represented in my practice, building up textures and surfaces, images from small marks or gestures - stitches, knitting, creating patterns, repetition of shapes, reshaping the line - whether it is a length of embroidery thread or a pencil mark on paper.

(some notes from my journal)
"an interesting object (the bed base), black and silver and brown, stripped bare of any embellishments. skeletal. the bare bones. structural, architectural. the inner workings, masculine. Uncovered, exposed.
a single bed, only room for one.
standing upright, no room for anyone.
removed from it's original function/identity.

the coils and springs have a hypnotic quality, round & round.
rubber bands - the opposite of the coiled spring: soft, flaccid, stretchy.
mirroring the circular motif of the springs but out of shape, wobbly, chaotic, disorganised.

spring : springa sprang har sprungit (run, ran, have run)
spring is run in swedish.

a netting of rubber bands, covering the upright bed base. draped over the frame like a caress, an arm across the shoulders. a shroud/net encompassing it.
the bands are like thoughts, ideas, anxieties, unanswerable questions, dreams.
what fills the mind and what weighs one down.
tangled threads - made even worse with no beginning or end, circles connected to more circles, no straight lines here.
rubber bands with the ability to be stretched and reached through but can they ever be escaped from?"


just some thoughts to be thought about.
first item of business, sourcing another perfect spring single bed base, and ruing the missed opportunity of the one I thought was languishing casually waiting for me to get home from work to be rescued.

Lakes of Note

Have at long last been able to hang up my dear friend Claire Cooper's amazing work 'Notable Lakes part iv', a graphically compiled collation of lakes, both real and fictitious. The shapes of the Real Lakes are plotted on one side, and the Fictitious ones on the reverse (or vice versa).

I love the way the semi-transparent paper allows both sides to be visible - the overlapping of the dots creates an interesting variation in tone. After in initial quandary, I decided to hang it with those plastic poster holders, they rather exacerbate the feeling of looking at some kind of high school geography class OHP projection of how the world looked at some point in history.
It does make for an easy and painless transition from Notable 'real' Lakes to Notable 'fictitious' ones however.

Because it does look like a map. Occasionally I will look at it thinking how much lake xxv 'Taal Lake' could almost pass for Brazil. I asked Claire to send me one which she had folded, how she originally envisioned the work. The sharp creases keeps the work from being completely flat, and the poster holders do their job of helping it keep it's shape. The folds give a worn physicality to the work that the flatness and sheen of the paper would have overpowered. I think they give the work more character.

This is the second piece of art I have bought, along with my friend Ash's brilliant piece The Travelling Mime. I look forward to expanding my collection, especially with my works by my exceptionally talented friends.
I would also recommend Claire's various Internet endeavours, Olio Ataxia, as one half of Diamonds & Wood, and not to mention her War and Peace tumblr: dedicated to film stills from the 1968 mammoth adaption of Tolstoy's War and Peace and a personal fave.

Interiors (New Zealand)

Seeing where people live, how they display their possessions and what to them makes a livable and harmonious environment are a never-ceasing area of interest. I think my extended family have always had impeccable interiors, successfully reflecting their personalities and aesthetics.

Granny's flat, complete with many amazing artworks installed Salon-style. There was nearly no free wall space, every available square inch utilized for displaying her collection.  Staying here for one week while in NZ made me fully appreciate framing works/pictures, and I have been scouring second-hand shops in Malmö hunting down suitable frames with which to house my few prints and drawings, mainly done by myself.

Harriet and Chris' living room at their flat in Onehunga. A great mix of leather, lacquer and vinyl. Wooden floors, wooden walls, open brick fireplace. The best thing about houses in NZ is the abundance of wood, something sorely missing in our Swedish apartment. Swedish apartments have lots of things going for them - double glazed windows, central heating, ornately plastered ceilings - but linoleum floors and concrete walls are not the best sometimes.

Both these interiors made an impression on me, knowing as I did, that after my holiday in NZ we would be moving rooms to the largest on the in flat, complete with walk-in wardrobe and an opportunity to arrange and rearrange my still rather meagre but slowly growing collection of possessions presented itself.

A trick of the light

It's not often an idea or an artwork will stop me in my internet/google reader trawling, but whenever it does it is always instantly rewarding and I (metaphorically) give myself a withering look and disappointedly shake my head, wondering why I don't make more of an effort.
Via Junkculture I stumbled upon these remarkable photographs of Antarctic icescapes, by Belgian architect  Francois Delfosse, deftly created with simply a plastic bag and some clever lighting. The trick with the scale is beguiling - I originally saw these as a sort of large scale sculptural installation: as if the plastic had frozen and gallery goers were free to traverse it.
And as one commentator noted on Delfosse's flickr, it is reminiscent of the crevasse Tintin falls into in 'Tintin in Tibet' - the bowels of the icy abyss illustrated by Hergé in blues, greys, purples and blacks.

On his website a series of postcards are available, including the series of Antarctic 'scapes, and a particularly wonderful image of the Bermuda Islands, as a quavering mirage. I especially like the way the dark, faceted and enclosed plastic bag Antarctica series feel when juxtaposed against the flat, one-hued and sparse open water surrounding the scarcely visible islands. I also have no idea of its 'authenticity', and I think I prefer to keep it that way.

I am always interested in people who appear to share interests of my own, ongoing projects which have been on a bit of a back burner of late involve both icy landscapes and mirages, in however a non-photographic capacity. I also seem to have compiled a large amount of primarily blue postcards, in particular from New Zealand, which I am wanting to do something with, but may also have to add these three images to the growing pile.

Share and Share Alike

 

Animals upon each other, an image from a wall of an old shoemakers in Santiago, Chile / James Franco wearing a Sal Mineo t-shirt, as part of his project Rebel at Art Basel Miami in collab with Ed Ruscha, Douglas Gordon, Paul McCarthy, Harmony Corine (who took this photo) and others / a 1972 postcard of 'Kvarteret Korpen', a street block made famous by Malmö's resident auteur (and my now favourite director) Bo Widerberg in his 1963 film of the same name. The original 1930's block was torn down and this seaweed green and dirty white monstrosity was erected in its place. Every block in Malmö is named, Kvarteret Korpen meaning 'The raven block/quarter'. My apartment is only two blocks up the road in Kvarteret Kråkan' (the crow block) / Pablo Picasso in a backwards bull head /

Karen Barbé . 01 Magazine . Famgus Vykort . Miss Moss .

If I could still share things on Google Reader, maybe I would have shared these. Just a collection of images that have caught my eye, or reflect my surroundings and thoughts on things

Great Scott

Three photographs taken by Robert F. Scott on his ultimately fatal expedition to Antarctica, racing the Norwegian Roald Amundson to the South Pole across the desolate and uncompromising, yet epic and sublime landscape. 

Scott was an amateur photographer taught the technical basics by the expeditions professional, Herbert Ponting, so Scott could document the final trudge to the Pole for scientific (and now, historic) purposes. A collection of Scott's photographs have recently been rediscovered and compiled into a book 'The Lose Photographs of Captain Scott' by David M. Wilson, incidentally the great-nephew of Dr Edward Wilson, member of the Terra Nova Expedition.

They make me feel an astonishing sense of loneliness and isolation that I have grown to associate with rocks, ice, islands and the colour white.

some brief descriptions of the above photographs, via The Guardian

1. Dr Edward Wilson sketching on the Beardmore Glacier, lunch camp, 13 December 1911

Wilson is seen here sitting quietly, sketching. He was one of the last artists in the great expedition tradition in which the pencil was the main method of making records. He produced many yards of accurate geographical drawings, as well as extensive notes and sketches of anything of scientific interest. Here he is drawing the mountain ranges along the Beardmore Glacier, from Mount Elizabeth (left) to the Socks Glacier and Mount Fox (right).
This panorama is the finest example of Scott's mastery of his camera, gained on the march in extreme conditions. The combination of action and repose – illustrative of Scott's unique pictorial understanding – encapsulates the contrast between the Antarctic's majesty and man's diminutive presence

2. Ponies on the march, 2 December 1911

As the pony column disappears into the distance, the "sledgeometer" on the final sledge clicking the mileage as it goes, the straggle of ponies becomes veiled in the icy wilderness. Many of the men in this image would return, but not all. None of the ponies would: within a few days they would be shot.

3. Camp under the Wild Mountains, 20 December 1911

Scott took this impressive image to capture the interesting geological features around Mount Wild. On the sledge in the camp, two figures can be seen sketching. On the left, Apsley Cherry Garrard is drawing the view towards Mount Buckley; on the right, Edward Wilson is making detailed sketches and notes of the geological features so clearly visible in Scott's photograph. The other figure that can be seen is probably Birdie Bowers, who died with Scott on their return from the polar expedition, just months later. Scott returned his camera to base with the First Supporting Party as they departed from the top of Beardmore Glacier towards Cape Evans. Critically, this lightened the sledge loads for the push across the Polar Plateau to the South Pole. Bowers, with his lighter camera, was chosen by Scott to become the photographer for the final pole party.

 

Taking the secret passageway to the Conservatory

Pictures of a house up for sale in Jönköping. Feels rather reminiscent of the Bate's family home in Psycho, with the taxidermied birds, wooden paneling on the upper landing and a mysterious hidden door.

Edward Hopper's The House by The Railroad (1925) was inspiration for the appearance of the Bates' Mansion. The original set consisting of the house and the Bates Motel, still exists on the Universal Studio's back lot.

Deckare

 

 Last week my friend Kah Bee posted a link to the post Cocktaildags: Vintage Swedish Books Covers - a collection of Swedish editions of popular crime stories.

My two personal favourites -

Raymond Chandler, Den stora sömnen (Original title: The Big Sleep), cover by Martin Gavler, printed 1963

John Bingham, Mord i månsken (Original title: Marion), cover by Per Åhlin, printed 1965

And from my own collection - 

Raymond Chandler, Mord, Min Älskling (Murder my darling) (Original title: Farewell, My Lovely), cover by Olle Frankzén, printed 1985

As my Swedish vocabulary slowly but surely increases, I have succumbed to the temptation of purchasing a few of my favourite 'deckare' (crime novels) in Swedish, in the hope that one day I will have become bilingual enough to make it further than the first chapter before I throw my hands in the air in despair and frustration. I recently stumbled across the amazing 1980's Swedish edition of 'Farewell, My Lovely' (Mord, Min Älskling) by Raymond Chandler in a second hand shop around the corner from my house for 10kr.

Judging a book by it's cover is surely one of the best things one can do on such occasions.

Sea Legs

The RMS Queen Elizabeth on fire and as a shipwreck in Hong Kong Harbour, 1972.  While being converted into a University cruise ship (a rather amazing idea), the world's largest passenger ship mysteriously caught fire as her refurbishments neared completion.  So much water was poured into her, in a vain attempt to combat the blaze the ship eventually capsized from the weight, and lay wrecked in Hong Kong Harbour for many months, until eventually being partially scrapped to be used as landfill for Hong Kong Airport. Parts such as the keel and boilers still lie on on the seabed, and are still marked on local maps as 'Foul', an unsafe area to anchor a boat.


The wreck of the RMS Queen Elizabeh made for one of the more interesting film locations and sets when used as a covert MI6 headquarters in the 1974 Bond film 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. To accommodate for the capsized liner's continuous lean, the Secret Service apparently constructed new floors, ramps, staircases and bookshelves, making for excellent clashing wallpaper patterns, bizarrely distorted corridors,and staircases upon staircases.