Indeterminacy




Am loving the John Cage Indeterminacy random excerpt generator. A wonderful appropriation of Cages' ideas around chance and spontaneity  in art and music making. Cage defined Indeterminacy as 'the ability of a piece to be performed in substantially different ways', and with the random arrangement of the stories, each telling, each performance is unique.

 I like the simplicity:
I tell one story a minute, and, when it’s a short one, I have to spread it out. Later on when I come to a long one, I have to speak as rapidly as I can.”

 I am looking to explore ideas of indeterminacy through installation, where objects become like characters, works have the ability to be displayed in substantially different ways, and display takes on aspects of performance. 

 And I will continue to write down stories, sans time-frame. 

 generate your own Cageian lecture HERE

Prince to Queen



From Prince to Queen (2009)

was a part of Magazine at Gambia Castle

a slideshow of images from the LIFE magazine archives
of royalty of the hereditary and music persuasions

think
Prince
Prince Charles
Freddie Mercury & Brian May
the Princess of York in a space ship

there and back again


Modern Love




In 2008 Ash and I had a show together and we wrote this about it and I spelt Jonathan Richman's name wrong (on purpose or not I can't recall) and now it seems like a nice little artifact so here is a little act of preservation - because archival handling, as Ash says, is important.

Ongoing goings on

Have started a tumblr as a means of viewing, organising, grouping and collating photographs and images of artworks, sketches and items of interest. From both digital and analog cameras, home and abroad. An excellent method to find new patterns and narratives within images and creating previously unrecognized links to other photographs, some long forgotten.

follow the continuous stream here
http://thetally-ho.tumblr.com/

dröm dikt



Dream baby

In dreams

Sweet dreams

Dream baby (how long must I dream)

Dream

All I have to do is dream

Beautiful dreamer

Big as I can dream

When I stop dreaming

(All I can do is) Dream You

Afraid to Sleep 

In the real world




Roy Orbison’s dream


/


Afraid to sleep.

   (dream)

how long must I dream



in dreams / in the real world

all I can do is dream. Dream you,



Dream baby.



in dreams

all I can do is dream you

beautiful dreamer



All I have to do is dream-



dream

Big.



as I can dream

In dreams

In the real world



When I stop dreaming

 sweet dreams



(how long must I dream?)



Roy Orbison's dream - a poem/text work built of Roy's song titles mentioning dreams. An experiment in  words which straddles that thin crevasse between song and poetry. The word 'dream' now appears completely foreign too me. As when one repeats a word aloud too and it loses any meaning, reverting back to just sounds. It seems this can happen with written words as well. Too many dreams, Roy, too many dreams.

Pantheon, after Bruce Wild



I knew the Pantheon was the one place in Rome I needed to see, because of The Moon. A photograph which hung in the hallway of the family home throughout my childhood. For many years I had believed this photograph to be depicting the moon, and was very impressed at my father's ability to capture the moon up so close, a looming, perfect sphere suspended in the inky matte darkness.

I don't remember when I became aware that the photograph was not of the moon, but I had grown; grown tall enough to see the detail in the image: the visible rectangles of the coffered dome. Clearly this was no moon. How I managed to learn this was in fact a building, a large dome, and my moon was in fact a 9m diameter skylight, I don't recall.

My dad was in Italy in 1981 - he was in the crowd when the Pope was shot. In June, I went to the Pantheon to attempt to recreate his original image from memory. I had last seen the photo over a year ago, and had not studied it closely for more than five. I am not even certain I got the angle right.



On the Seine







Tourist boats on the Seine, scanned and distorted. Attempts to create a surrealistic sensation reminiscent of the boat trip in the 1971 psychedelic masterpiece that was 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'.
The poor quality of the images give the tourists trigger-happily photographing the banks of the river, cameras raised high, the impression of hands help up in terror or exhilaration. Rollercoaster of the Seine.

Sundries - sketch

Sketch of cover for proposed publication 'Sundries'.

Described as following:



Sundries by Florence Wild

Sundries
Various items not important enough to be mentioned individually.
Extras in cricket.

Sundries as an idea came to me from some pieces of advice my father gave me, via facebook chat, after I asked him if it were better to take the path of job as job, or career as lifestyle? Work to pay the bills and devote your free time to your interests, or make your interests into your career? 

The initial reply

“Follow your dreams and be true to yourself.”

-        -  That’s not actually that helpful

“Oh.”

But he expanded on this cliché, and I realised that I should listen to my father more often.

“yeah it is a hard question. You dont want to feel that you are treading water or sinking in to hole that you cannot climb out of. Exploit all of the things you do to find a direction or added value, like writing about travel for instance - change the creative direction to find a new edge.”

And

“Even writing about Sweden and publishing in NZ, or the otherway around, just sharing ideas with others and giving with sincerity not just for commercial gain.”

The two main points which struck me were to 'exploit all things you do to find a direction or added value – change the creative direction to find a new edge; sharing ideas with others and giving with sincerity not just for commercial gain. 

One idea for a physical manifestation of all of my different thoughts has been to create ‘environments’ for want of a better word – spaces with furniture, artworks and patterns I have created residing harmoniously together. Sundries is a two-dimensional manifestation of the same concept – juxtaposing texts, photographs and sketches into cohesive thought patterns over a series of pages. 

All of my areas of interest collide at one point – myself – as the generator of these ideas. I strive to create connections and patterns between these separate things. Exploit all of the things you do to find direction. Sundries offers a gateway into my thought process and enables a reader to create their own links through the words and images included. 

A series of essays or short texts primarily on my life in Sweden and thoughts around art. Texts I have written to accompany shows, and pieces from The Tally Ho. Failed proposals.  

How does that sound??









 



Att plugga

             




                                   







A portrait taken by Jane where I am slightly obscured by the ongoing, never-ending, cascading knitted fishing line project which has now taken on so many possible exhibiting forms I can't remember them all. It is like a security blanket in some ways, something to work on as a way to just to keep working. It is filled up with scores of ideas both related to the work itself and of other works, as I sit and think and knit, plugging away at it. 

In swedish 'att plugga' means to study. I like that. 

All these ideas have accumulated within this knitted mass, and have lost their original form - instead morphing into the texture of the knit, becoming transparent, a tangled mess of lines of thought and streams of consciousness. Sort of how I am writing about it now. 
Sometimes the futility of the whole thing gets me down. I don't even what it is meant to be anymore! I jokingly (not so jokingly) cry to anyone within earshot. First it was to be stretched between the floor and ceiling, then laid out like a wobbly rug on the ground, anchored by some small island like objects. Then it was a wave, a waterfall, a galaxy - a hammock, a camp bed, a curtain. Just now I think of it as a sort of wrap - like the suitcases you see at the baggage claim swaddled in Gladwrap. 

As a thing in itself it is aesthetically pleasing, and tempting to touch. And it's malleability is it's strongest asset. The longer I work at it, more manifestations will emerge. This is as much about the process as the end result. 
I fret too much about the end result. 

"To be installed in a manner which expresses the amount of ideas that were thought of during the making of this large knitted beast."
        A working title.
Or

"All of my ideas from the past 2 years are tangled up in here somewhere."

A prop. I feel an artists book in the works. The various forms of the knitted fishing line project in a long accordion book. Apropos Ed Ruscha or some such. Black and white. 

I should just let it grow as long as it needs to. The practice is being maintained, and it provides me with time to wonder about what is going on, what I want to be doing. It is relaxing. Right now it feels like I am finally admitting all I want to do is knit a seemingly endless train of fishing line, without really knowing why. 
I am constantly reminded of the Mainland Cheese ads from New Zealand - (not the one where they replace musicians with cheese, "Chubby Chedder! The Brie Gees!" but the "Good things take time" one. As in cheese.) 

I wonder why I always try to be so serious in my art practice, when in general I am really quite silly. (re: cheese ad. I spend a lot of time knitting and thinking of more cheese musicians.) A recurring thought as I knit, and one I believe more firmly in with each stitch, is that Art is too serious. 

It will be finished at some point - and the best thing will be deciding it is finished due to some occurrence in my life: an outside influence will decide its conclusion. And then, holding all my ideas, I will decide how it will be. At least in it's first incarnation. 

It is my 27th birthday on Sunday.






Paris through the blinds with furniture - a series




Paris on film - inside Musée des Arts Décoratifs, photographing the Tuileries through the sheer blinds, creating the effect of an interior projection of outside. Ash peers through the blinds to capture an unobstructed shot. Art Nouveau furniture quietly fills the foreground. 
The framing, narrative and diffused light have such a cinematic quality. 
Images to be converted into slide film and projected somewhere which isn't Paris. Because even though this is Paris, it doesn't really feel like it. 

Follow through

2013 has drawn to a close and 2014 has commenced. I spent 10 days in Stockholm where it wasn't snowing and not that cold. This was the warmest December in 50 years, I was told.
I walked around, visited the monument of the Andrée Expedition, the graves of the three Swedes who attempted to reach the North Pole by balloon in 1897.
The monument is a tall concrete sail, depicting the efforts of the party and charting the haphazard journey of the balloon, the three graves facing outwards from this point. It is on a small hill, surrounded by trees on three sides, and I felt a stillness there that I still think about.

Like balloons being controlled by the wind, most things rarely go in straight lines. I think Agent Cooper mentioned that in an episode of Twin Peaks (I added the balloon bit to reiterate the pertinence of this phrase). Though everyone has pretty much uttered that sentence in one form or another at one or more points in their lives. Sayings like that make sense because they are true. An occasional reminder however, never goes amiss.

I have been thinking about following through. Usually when I think about following through, I am thinking about cricket, as that is what bowlers do once the ball has left their hand. As I have now retired from my cricketing career (as of 10 years ago - I decided to quit while I was ahead, I had peaked by 16 I believe) I apply this thought to myself in terms of ideas. I have ideas all the time, sometimes words, sometimes images, written on post-it notes at the library, sketches masking taped to the wall at home by my desks, laboriously scrawled in my journal, mentioned in passing to a friend.

And then nothing really happens.

An idea doesn't get any better the longer you ruminate over it. It isn't a cheese, or whiskey, or wine, or anything else that matures. It doesn't rot, like fruit or eggs. It is more like a loaf bread that gets left out - it just goes stale.

I have been working on a sculpture for over a year now. Knitting fishing line. How I envisage it now is nothing like what I first considered doing with it. The more I work at it, the further the ideas evolve. Today Kjell asked me if it would ever be finished. I said I didn't know. The process knitting the straight line into interconnected loops functions as much as a way for ordering my thoughts as jotting them down or uttering them aloud.

If there is one thing I have learnt through spending over twelve months knitting fishing line in my spare time, it is that I personally do not make much progress in my thought process if I am not working on something. Need to keep the hands busy so the brain ticks over. I have spent 2013 attempting (somewhat in vain) to figure out 'what it is I want to do'. I have not made any great strides forward in that rather vague endeavour. But I believe, as with the knitted fishing line, that if I follow through on ideas which have occurred to me throughout the past year or so, act upon them, then perhaps I will be closer to realising this. 

2014 is the year of the follow through. I'm calling it now.



This is a spotlight that can be fixed to any appropriate surface, even the user's forehead.





Small things - clever, perfectly formed. Simple ideas, functional.
I want to simplify everything. I use so many words, smother works with a deluge of different ideas, theories, concepts each trying to justify the other while at the same time elbowing to the front of the queue.
I want to employ a new simplicity in my work - pare things backs, no over-involved plotlines; but to remember important phrases: a wild sheep chase; the macguffin; tangled threads of crime.

Just make statements. Of intent. I feel like I have been drifting aimlessly along for the past while (I don't even know when this feeling set in).
I found these lights in a book I was processing at the library. Great idea, suction cups! Beautiful and useful.
I am particularly partial to the light suction cupped to the forehead.

I want to put caster wheels on all my pieces of furniture so things can be easily moved around. I used to call these wheels 'coasters' because that is what they did, coast around.
Lights/Bookshelves/Cabinets not just tables and chairs. The ability to reassemble your living spaces. Living in movement.
Inspired by book trolleys at the library and a lamp suction cupped onto a dude's forehead.

Reflections in him






We spent two days mincing around Denmark: Helsingør, Louisiana, Klampenborg, Copehagen. 
Here we are reflected in the gleaming metallic veneer of Elmgreen & Dragset's permanent public sculpture  as he basked in the sun. Positioned on a small pier at Helsingør and titled 'HAN', he clearly rreferences Copenhagen's iconic Little Mermaid.

We went and checker HER out when in Copenhagen - it was a grey drizzling day, two busloads of tourists had just alighted, I helped a solo middle aged man get the requisite photo op of him and the 'maid. 
She was surrounded by shallow dirty water,  and mounds of stinky seaweed which buoyed up piles of waste - bottles, cans and plastic bags. Discarded most likely by the tourists or brought in by the tide. 

It was a sorry spectacle.



I would describe my title like this

I don't appear to have many words in me these days, but then I have always considered myself a bit of a rambler. I would like to be able to explain my ideas and feelings in a few well chosen concise sentences. As yet I am unable to do this.

A drawing of mine currently hangs in one of the corridors at my work. It reads:

OM NATTEN ÄR ALLA KATTER GRÅ

in capitals.

I thought about why I chose this phrase for this drawing. Why any phrase? And then I realised I could have chosen any phrase, in any language. But in my head, whenever I read any sort of statement, film/book/article title, tag line, slogan, my voice takes on a grandiose tone. The phrase is read as a actress making a melodramatic climax accompanied by the sweeping gestures of her arms. 
The thing is, in your head, it always sounds different.

It has become important.
Perhaps it's the Capitals.

The Gallery at the library has a standard template of questions the exhibiting students are required to fill in. The one I am always frustrated by (perhaps due to the fact I am an artist/library assistant, not a student, and this template is not really catered towards me) is:
Mina verk skulle jag beskriva så här: (I would describe my work like this:)

 I didn't want to describe my work. That was too difficult. I wanted to title it. So I looked at it, and thought how would I describe what this phrase 'OM NATTEN ÄR ALLA KATTER GRÅ' is. The title would simply describe what the work is, as titles used to. Do they still? Don't know.

SAGE ADVICE FROM A HARD-BOILED DETECTIVE.

this is to be my method for titling from now on. "I would describe my work like this..."




inadequate photo documentation courtesy of instagram





Making things




     



































I am working on things. The library gets in the way. 9-5 drudgery which drags on as I tell students where the photocopy rooms are and how to return books correctly. I spend time meant to be working doodling ideas on post-it's, which are then ferried home and drawn up on proper paper to I can take a step back and have a look at them. It all feels so insular, isolated though. Perhaps I actually need to verbalise these ideas instead of just writing them down. But these sketches are going to turn into actual physical things: I am going to build my first piece of self designed furniture, print my first fabric design, I have some grandiose plans for something I have named 'The Rocky Road' doorstop. (you'll get it when you see it - it's a pun).

I type this lying in bed with a throat that feels a grazed knee, unable to do a hell of a lot except read books and eat grapes. But it feels good to know that I have a vague idea of what I want to do with my life. I want to make things.

About a Boy


Charles Ninow from 'Dance Yourself Clean' at Ozlyn.

Last month my friend Charles had a show at a gallery in Auckland. He asked me to write a short piece to accompany the works. This is what I wrote.





ABOUT A BOY – 823.914

  1. The library I work at in Sweden has a split personality. One half in Swedish, the other English. The signs, the books, the general information, the students: both in Swedish and in English. I spend a lot of my time translating text from English into Swedish, and vice versa. In high school I studied Japanese. But now whenever I try to think of words, phrases or sentences in that language it comes out as Swedish. I guess my head only has the capacity for two languages at one time.


  1. In the early twentieth century, Malmö – the Swedish city I live in – had a city registry for dogs. Every hound, pooch, mongrel and bitch was duly recorded and archived. I learnt this on a trip to Malmö’s city archive with the Interloans team of which I am affiliated with. Did this mean that in circa 1910 there were no stray dogs in Malmö??


  1. At the library, we are currently in the process of transitioning over to the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Previously, they used SAB (the Swedish Classification system) which ordered material into different fields using letters as Dewey does with numbers.
    Letters into Numbers. The transition is an ongoing project, and at present both systems rub shoulders with each other on the shelves which the collection of numbered books steadily increases, while the lettered collection slowly fades away.  It seems strange to think about numbers replacing letters in a building housing the written word. I could say it’s the way of the future, but it’s been around since 1876. 
    As a library assistant, one of my particular roles is to change books over from SAB to DDC. It is a mind-numbingly simple task: delete some letters, add some numbers. Suddenly a book is reclassified – if it could think it would most likely have an existential crisis.
    If they could invent a machine to do this task they would.
Instead, they have me.


  1. Every dog owner was required to pay a ‘dog tax’ in order to keep the animal; hence the registry. The dog tax wasn’t much – perhaps a couple of öre. In fact, the monetary unit ‘öre’ is obsolete now, finally phased out a few years ago like the 5 cent coin. What was once the cost of registering your dog these days wouldn’t even get you a match stick (incidentally, a Swedish invention). The dogs were well documented – noted down were their respective breed, age, colouring and address, as well as the name of the owner and that of the dog. I would like to say that the dog registry was organized by the name of the dog, but on second thoughts, now I can’t be certain.


  1. The Swedes, being stereotypically a socially tolerant society, are not especially taken with the Dewey Decimal System. They believe it sexist, racist; too hierarchical. I would say they are probably right. Take for example, the 200’s: 
    Religion. 
    200 – Religion / 210 – Natural theology / 220 – Bible / 230 – Christian theology / 240 - Christian moral & devotional theology / 250 – Christian orders & local church / 260 – Christian social theology / 270 –Christian church history / 280 – Christian denominations & sects / 290 – Other & comparative religions.
    But I guess when your classification system is invented by a 25 year old white Christian male, what can one expect?



  1. Like baby names, ships names, and street names, dog names fall in and out of fashion. In Malmö at the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘Boy’ was THE NAME to call your dog. An exorbitant number of dogs were registered under the name Boy. Why was this? Boy is not a Swedish name. Heck, it’s not even a Swedish word. Were unsuspecting Swedes reading English literature and mistaking the generic phrases of ‘Good boy!’, ‘Who’s a good boy?’  as the poor mutt’s actual name? Or perhaps this was the Swedish dog equivalent of John Doe – a dog with no name. I image this heightened popularity in the name Boy would be particularly problematic when one needed to beckon their faithful companion.




HERE BOY!



and they all came running.