Pop Goes the Roadkill (Again)

Today the opposite of tomato is a.......Drill

And another example of aesthetically-pleasingly-reformed subject/object matter (of the habitual 'found' variety), with once again the available synecdochal fragments of its iconic brand identity offering more than sufficient information to imaginatively (re)construct the whole.


graphite & putty eraser, with watercolour/30x20cm

Soundtrack:


Cabaret Voltaire 'Voice of America'/'Western Mantra'/'Red Mecca'
AR Kane 'When You're Sad', 'Lolita' & 'Up Home!' EPs
Miracle Legion 'Surprise Surprise Surprise'
Pavement 'Brighten the Corners'
Wire 'The A List'
Moon Wiring Club Solid Steel Radio Show mix

A largely ‘historical’ soundtrack, owing rather a debt to process, & specifically that of conversion from analogue to digital form, cassette to CD, having finally got around to the practicalities of doing so & subsequently enjoying something of a post-punk indulgence-fest (comfortably including the aesthetically-compatible sounds of Pavement – a fine ‘English’ word/name for an American band, to boot - within such a designation).
Also burned to CD for keeps has been Moon Wiring Club’s latest online ‘mixtape’, another fine example of the genre & addition to the growing collection of: the sourcing of found sound material & old electronica, & seamless collaging of it (exemplary research & development!) into a richly-textured & -satisfying ‘hauntological’ whole, creating an alternative world at a slight remove from the here & now, once again produces delightful results, constantly surprising & engaging.


On a related point, the process of re-reading Graham Rawle’s ‘Diary of an Amateur Photographer’ enabled the drawing of aesthetic parallels between itself – book-as-art-object & a narrative collaged together from all manner of found archive visual material - & Ian Hodgson’s sonic & visual creative project of the Moon Wiring Club, both being poignantly redolent of periods of a past still yet not too distant to have faded from memory but enough to be recognizably so, of referencing a time other than the contemporary.
Subtly-nuanced similarities abound, not least in the dynamic combination of a sense of humour & unsettling undercurrents, but most obviously in the ingenuity of the respective collage or bricolage techniques employed, ever admirably inventive as they are.

One can't help but think art-historically in terms of Rawle's 'Diary' (or that, rather, of his protagonist Michael Whittingham) with its cut up-&-pasted black & white photographs, newspaper advertisements & paper oft aged beyond yellow to a smoked, tan colour that recall the appearance & hues of Cubism: its overall appeal, & that of Moon Wiring Club, might be considered rather obvious to the aesthetic inclinations promoted here at TOoT.

More Cutting & Pasting & Retro

Further to the preceding post, regarding the aesthetic of the Blank Workshop/Moon Wiring Club in particular, & techniques of collage (visual & aural) & cut-&-paste, issues of nostalgia & retro more generally, all this provides the perfect opportunity to mention a much-loved, fairly recent work of art in the shape of Graham Rawle's graphic novel 'Woman's World'.

The book is such an involving, entertaining & amusing read & also a very engaging visual experience. Most definitely a work of graphic art, the entire text is composed of cuttings from women’s magazines of the 1950s - 60s in style (form & content, in terms of typefaces & the language used, which is both enlightening & quite hilarious in its pre-feminist way), all collaged together in such an inventive way to form a coherent (if peculiar!) narrative: the mind boggles at the amount of work involved, the sheer endeavour, in terms of research & physically compiling (cutting & pasting) it all, it really is an astonishing thing just to look at, let alone then read. But it is a good story too (form & content co-existing in equal, mutually-enriching partnership), fast paced & full of intriguing & surprising plot twists, taking one into another world, time & place, & someone else’s head & personalities altogether. Intensely poignant & human too: considering all, form & content, it's some achievement.

This is what it looks like, in terms of the cover image & also a selection of the text content, better to illustrate than try to explain, perhaps, so singular is the form & effect:



Again, the whole aesthetic is so vividly redolent of socio-cultural time & place, displaying in its retro stylings a quintessential Englishness, provincial, suburban, petit-bourgeois. One might consider too a certain Dada-punkiness to the cut & paste, 'ransom note' aesthetic, & recall Jamie Reid's graphic design that so suited the Sex Pistols' music - more art that suggests its Englishness & particular place in socio-cultural history as an indisputable matter of fact. There's also that atmosphere of the somewhat sinister, the surreal, & a delightful eccentricity that pervades the work & aesthetic of the Blank Workshop too.

It's also worth checking-out Graham Rawle's earlier 'Diary of an Amateur Photographer' for more of his retro collage aesthetic & collections of 'Lost Consonants' from his work in The Guardian for their batty humour, an unmissable weekly treat back in the day.