Illuminating Times

Today the opposite of tomato is 'a secret in the shape of a song'


graphite & putty eraser/diptych 20x60cm
original source: 'The Guardian' 10/12/08

In what might be the last official act of The Project (at least that being the intention), a coincidence occurs, neatly, forming something of a circle. In the very first drawing of the year & The Project as it was to become, the original source from which it was processed featured an illuminating burst of white light, as does this example, albeit on a more dramatic scale: whatever the circumstances depicted (always, of course, being of no particular importance, form over content being the guiding principal in the choice of images to transcribe, to 'de-photographize') the photographic effect is the same, with sharp contrasts of light & dark prevailing.

Again one muses upon the presentation of imagery as mediated: the drawing as processed, of course, becomes one more step removed (which distance, as ever, increases to this present point, through the subsequent scanning & blogging procedures), but the dramatic action as depicted, a classic 'frozen moment in time' as captured in quintessentially photographic fashion, is already aestheticized for consumption, for considered analysis, in comfort & safety, by the time it appears in the newspaper.

Regarding the image content of the drawing, there's a certain something about the attitudes of the human forms, the figures' 'choreographed' movements - however instinctive these may be under the actual circumstances of real time & space as photographed - that vaguely suggests Matisse's 'The Dance': coincidental to the processing of this drawing, I've been reading a most interesting & lavishly-illustrated monograph of the work of Allen Jones, often featuring figures engaged in the act of dancing.
In terms of the subject matter of active social protest, the survey volume 'Vitamin D: New Perspective in Drawing' features this drawing by Sam Durant.


Sam Durant 'Boys Throw Objects at British Forces, Belfast 1976'
graphite on paper/2004

By way of further coincidence, the theme of incendiary civil unrest might also be found depicted in the artwork accompanying Lambchop's recent 'OH (Ohio)' CD (mentioned previously here),


which brings us rather neatly to...

Soundtrack:


Lambchop 'OH (Ohio)'
Cocteau Twins 'Lullabies to Violaine' vol. 1 (CD 2)
DJ Shadow 'Endtroducing'
Moon Wiring Club 'Shoes Off and Chairs Away'
Belle & Sebastian 'The Life Pursuit'
Low 'Trust'
Sparklehorse 'It's a Wonderful Life'
Lambchop 'Is a Woman'
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 'Abattoir Blues'/'The Lyre of Orpheus'

As the processing of the drawing straddled the cusp of old & new years, so, inevitably, did its accompanying soundtrack, resulting in 2008's listening being rounded off by two enduringly stonking albums, Sparklehorse's beautiful, brittle 'It's a Wonderful Life' & the masterpiece that is Lambchop's 'Is a Woman', as perfect as it's possible to imagine a suite of music to be, where every note as written & performed, & the intervals between, & the warmth of the underlying electronic burblings, are so exquisite in form & so subtly weighted as to seem effortless in conception & realisation: this is unquestionably art of the highest order & most certainly 'the opposite of tomato', the research into which continues, however, into another year...