https://chumly.com/n/27167a2
lundi 30 juin 2014
Painting History circa 2001
If the first element of History is Time, the second element, in my mind, is Text. Because, we could say, history is the textualizing of events that happened in time. But it's not any time we can portray, it should be time past. That's where memory becomes important, and the best figure to elucidate memory is the phonograph or the camera, or better yet, TEXT itself. Markings on a text form their very own history. A text is a history. I can feel myself getting closer and closer to my goal. I've already made a painting of a clock. I've made collages of text, a special one with clippings from an old Radio magazine, yellowed images of electrical diagrams. My goal is to paint a pure abstraction that is the concept of history, but I'm a long way from there. Nevertheless, an obsession is an obsession and I will keep trying until I'm content with myself.
https://chumly.com/n/271515d
https://chumly.com/n/271515d
From a notebook of conversations of a young, erudite painter
History: (circa 2001)
I might have mentioned this before, I'm trying to paint History. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in 1866 painted a panel in a hotel, I think, called History. Now, his is an allegory, and I wanted mine to be an allegory but finally I've decided to paint the image associated with the concept of history as it is seen in the mind. When I go through the various fields of knowledge, philosophy, history, psychology, I make these little diagrams in my mind which I use to 'locate' history, say, in my understanding. I think that these diagrams are universal, and I want to paint them. I've been working on it for a month and I'm starting to think it's going to take years. I don't want to have a title, I want people to look at my abstraction and think, "Hey that's history!" So the painting has to work in the same way that history works. That's the hard part, because history isn't a simple machine. How does one paint 'research'? I know, I'm the painter, I should know. Maybe you could help me. What is history to you? How would you visualize history? I took a picture of one of my history paintings and when I develop the photographs I'll scan the picture. It'll give you an idea of where I'm trying to take this thing.
https://chumly.com/n/2714f57
I might have mentioned this before, I'm trying to paint History. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in 1866 painted a panel in a hotel, I think, called History. Now, his is an allegory, and I wanted mine to be an allegory but finally I've decided to paint the image associated with the concept of history as it is seen in the mind. When I go through the various fields of knowledge, philosophy, history, psychology, I make these little diagrams in my mind which I use to 'locate' history, say, in my understanding. I think that these diagrams are universal, and I want to paint them. I've been working on it for a month and I'm starting to think it's going to take years. I don't want to have a title, I want people to look at my abstraction and think, "Hey that's history!" So the painting has to work in the same way that history works. That's the hard part, because history isn't a simple machine. How does one paint 'research'? I know, I'm the painter, I should know. Maybe you could help me. What is history to you? How would you visualize history? I took a picture of one of my history paintings and when I develop the photographs I'll scan the picture. It'll give you an idea of where I'm trying to take this thing.
https://chumly.com/n/2714f57
dimanche 29 juin 2014
TECHNOLOGY AND TIME [circa May, 2001]
The internet and other new technologies of the past several decades, have only accelerated our vision of the present as global/universal simultaneity. Our conception of the past is loosening its cables whereas the future reigns over the past, and the present over the future. The lines between present and future are confused. Ten times a day on television they tell us the news we'll hear about at the next hour. This concept of getting news hours from now is frightening. It means to our conception of past, present, and future, that we are willing to wait days after something has happened to hear about it, and yet the news is still in the future somehow, because it's playing at 11PM, which hasn't arrived yet. It means that our concept of time is changing, or has already changed. Not only do we have super-simultaneity [brought by globalization], but we have traces of the future in the present, traces of the past in the future, traces of anti-time in the present; thus time has cracked, has split into various shards. We can say that we helped crack the crystal ball of time, and that we are suffering from it in the pure terror at not knowing what time it is.
https://chumly.com/n/2711aee
https://chumly.com/n/2711aee
samedi 28 juin 2014
vendredi 27 juin 2014
jeudi 26 juin 2014
mercredi 25 juin 2014
mardi 24 juin 2014
lundi 23 juin 2014
dimanche 15 juin 2014
vendredi 13 juin 2014
jeudi 12 juin 2014
dimanche 8 juin 2014
A Lamentation
I find that in my lifetime, the vast majority of people have been against me, as far as my beliefs are concerned. The norm seems to be violent opposition to my ideas. I've come to accept that, more or less. I at the very least expect a continuation of the trend for the near future.
What can I do? If I say I believe in Jesus Christ, I am made fun of, or even persecuted, antagonized. If I say I believe in the Freedom of Choice, I'm just a nasty neoliberal and also happen to be everything that's wrong with the world. If I love Picasso, I'm misogynous. If I love van Gogh, I don't know what I'm talking about.
Almost every time, I'm the one that's wrong and I'm what's wrong with the world. Well, my friends, this is impossible. I cannot be what's wrong with the world when the world's problems preceded my existence here. I am not the one responsible for Human History.
In any case, to wrap up this lamentation and keep it short, there are a few people who "get" me, and for that I am both proud and honored to have such amazing acquaintances. For the naysayers, keep saying nay. Go for it. It's water off this duck's back.
https://chumly.com/n/265e07c
What can I do? If I say I believe in Jesus Christ, I am made fun of, or even persecuted, antagonized. If I say I believe in the Freedom of Choice, I'm just a nasty neoliberal and also happen to be everything that's wrong with the world. If I love Picasso, I'm misogynous. If I love van Gogh, I don't know what I'm talking about.
Almost every time, I'm the one that's wrong and I'm what's wrong with the world. Well, my friends, this is impossible. I cannot be what's wrong with the world when the world's problems preceded my existence here. I am not the one responsible for Human History.
In any case, to wrap up this lamentation and keep it short, there are a few people who "get" me, and for that I am both proud and honored to have such amazing acquaintances. For the naysayers, keep saying nay. Go for it. It's water off this duck's back.
https://chumly.com/n/265e07c
samedi 7 juin 2014
The Exhibition in Tonal Cinema
In the mid-1990s, I began a massive artistic project I came to call The Exhibition in Tonal Cinema. It was part Text, part series of Images, and part series of Songs/Musical compositions. I basically worked almost exclusively on the Exhibition in Tonal Cinema from 1998 to 2004, give or take.
By then, I had already begun another project of similar magnitude: The History-Project. That seems to be how I work. I am constantly working on this one project that consumes all of my time and energy, all of my thoughts and feelings. These days I am dreaming about my current project, as I used to dream about Tonal Cinema at night, and then The History-Project.
The "Exhibition" in Tonal Cinema, that is, the "Exhibition" itself, was meant to be seen as this massive "Exhibition" that was going on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It was a massive building greater in magnitude than the very Tower of Babel. It would have been roughly the size of New York City, all encased in a single Building (of massive size, evidently).
The Building of the Exhibition had countless Rooms and Corridors (Hallways) linking the Rooms together. I think that at this point, 16 years later, I can finally admit to the world how grateful I am to Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett, as well as a few others, like William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, and still others, for instilling such amazing VISIONS in my head. It was by studying such amazing and expansive Visions that I came to develop my own, beginning with the Exhibition in Tonal Cinema, which was my very first "Magnum Opus".
The Exhibition was often envisioned as both a Village AND a Voyage.. it was the Villa-Voyage... The Exhibition itself IS a Villa-Voyage. You enter INTO the Exhibition in Tonal Cinema... it was a 15 minute voyage, and became known as Crackland & The Crackland Journals, a.k.a. Alphonse OR, The History-Project. Always these massive buildings with countless Rooms & Hallways, a.k.a. The House of Changing Rooms & Hallways, a.k.a. House of Permuting Rooms & Hallways, a.k.a. The House of Habit and Memory...
In any case, I am now entering straight into the thick of a new Magnum Opus. Not sure what this one is called yet, but it supercedes both The Exhibition in Tonal Cinema AND The History-Project. This one is a million times more massive than the last, which was a million times more massive than the one before that. I hope you stay tuned. This should be amazing. :)
https://chumly.com/n/265c0ec
By then, I had already begun another project of similar magnitude: The History-Project. That seems to be how I work. I am constantly working on this one project that consumes all of my time and energy, all of my thoughts and feelings. These days I am dreaming about my current project, as I used to dream about Tonal Cinema at night, and then The History-Project.
The "Exhibition" in Tonal Cinema, that is, the "Exhibition" itself, was meant to be seen as this massive "Exhibition" that was going on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It was a massive building greater in magnitude than the very Tower of Babel. It would have been roughly the size of New York City, all encased in a single Building (of massive size, evidently).
The Building of the Exhibition had countless Rooms and Corridors (Hallways) linking the Rooms together. I think that at this point, 16 years later, I can finally admit to the world how grateful I am to Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett, as well as a few others, like William Carlos Williams, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, and still others, for instilling such amazing VISIONS in my head. It was by studying such amazing and expansive Visions that I came to develop my own, beginning with the Exhibition in Tonal Cinema, which was my very first "Magnum Opus".
The Exhibition was often envisioned as both a Village AND a Voyage.. it was the Villa-Voyage... The Exhibition itself IS a Villa-Voyage. You enter INTO the Exhibition in Tonal Cinema... it was a 15 minute voyage, and became known as Crackland & The Crackland Journals, a.k.a. Alphonse OR, The History-Project. Always these massive buildings with countless Rooms & Hallways, a.k.a. The House of Changing Rooms & Hallways, a.k.a. House of Permuting Rooms & Hallways, a.k.a. The House of Habit and Memory...
In any case, I am now entering straight into the thick of a new Magnum Opus. Not sure what this one is called yet, but it supercedes both The Exhibition in Tonal Cinema AND The History-Project. This one is a million times more massive than the last, which was a million times more massive than the one before that. I hope you stay tuned. This should be amazing. :)
https://chumly.com/n/265c0ec
jeudi 5 juin 2014
mardi 3 juin 2014
lundi 2 juin 2014
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