digressions and hiccups

Ulises in the UK

2010-06-14T02:54:00.005+01:00

"Gossip, Scandal and Good Manners"

book/video/installation works by Ulises Carrion

12 June - 26 June 2010

The Showroom, 63 Penfold St, London (opening hours: Wed - Sat, 12 - 6pm)

Curated by the first year MA Curating Contemporary Art Students at the Royal College of Art in collaboration with Martha Hellion.

The Blue Notebook, Vol. 4 No. 2

2010-04-20T11:30:00.002+01:00

The Blue Notebook: Journal for Artists' Books
Volume 4 No 2 April 2010

is now available here!

It includes essays and reviews that explore and examine the artist's books and is accompanied by conceptual artwork housed on its artists' pages.

It also includes a more thorough write-up of the ICA seminar the idea as book : the book as idea, which I briefly outlined here in July.

first day of spring

2010-03-28T23:23:00.005+01:00

It's official.

British springtime is here.

I found it on my window ledge.

The Brownies' Book Set

2010-03-28T19:57:00.001+01:00

Today I re-found my Brownies set of little books by Palmer Cox. The books include: The Brownies' ABC Book, The Brownies' You Can Count Book, The Brownies' Joke Book and The Brownies' Song and Dance Book. Many primary school hours were spent reciting jokes and

rhymes from these little pages.

The Properties of Paper

2010-03-28T16:22:00.003+01:00

In my last two projects I've been working with all kinds of paper but I don't really know much about it, I mean about paper and its properties. So before embarking on the projects, I took some time out to get to know the page.

In both of my bookworks the materiality of the paper used plays a significant part in conveying the concept. The covers are either partly or fully made out of Rag Paper, which has a fabric-like quality. Rag Paper with a weight of 210 grams per square meter was chosen specifically for the front and back covers of Elmer’s One-Day Project. This is because of its strength, which makes for a sturdy cover and at the same time its malleability, which enables the cover to be embroidered with ease.

At 230 g/sm a heavier type of Rag Paper was used for the interior of the concertina, I PATCH, which not only holds up the folding-out structure but also achieves an interaction with the typewriter, for example, on close inspection Rag Paper, like fabric, has a woven quality and therefore a textured surface, a surface that is raised and dipped so that any text printed onto it undergoes ‘texturisation’ by either falling into the dips or sitting on the surface. Thus, the paper affects the outcome as it allows for the stamps of the typewriter to just kiss the surface rather than indent or engrave, the kiss sometimes leaves behind a bold letter and other times a fading outline. This points to the physicality of mark making and the bodily gestures made by the artist, again pointing to the concept of the book as a record of its own making.

The materiality of the page has been experimented further in Elmer’s One-Day Project with the inclusion of Lamali Paper, which consists of stencilled and painted prints. Therefore, unlike Rag Paper, the embossed patterns on Lamali provide a raised surface, which creates interesting results with the typewriter, as it cannot always mark these painted areas. On the other hand, Jari Paper and Nat Lokta Fibre, both at 25 grams per square meter, is semi-transparent as it is not made up of fabric but parts of cut-up thread pressed together. It is used in the same was as the plastic sheets of Hsia Yu's transparent poetry bookwork 'Pink Noise', to create a multi-layering of text. Its transparent quality means that any text typed on to the page is carried through to the page underneath. However, unlike printing onto plastic, the paper possesses its own texture and is further dented with the stamps of the typewriter.

I hope to start making my own paper soon.

Elmer's One-Day Project

2010-03-22T00:07:00.000Z

Elmer’s One-Day Project is a 12 x 6 cm book consisting of 54 hand cut pages. It is a limited edition of 5. Each book is individually handmade and bound using Japanese Stab binding. The bookwork is made of offcuts of paper from previous projects, including the concertina I PATCH. The cover is made from Rag paper with embroidered text and a chain-stitch border. The text inside of the bookwork is typewritten. Elmer’s One-Day Project has been constructed to reveal the handmade and craft skills involved in its production.

I have used a variety of paper to sew or type through in order to present these materials performing together. They not only draw attention to themselves but also the process they have undergone. Consequently, they show “work” in performance. “Work” as in embroidering, binding, folding, ripping, patching and typewriting, where the holes, stitches and stamps of the typewriter possess a sense of immediacy, a sense of something being created and unique to a particular moment. I hope that each of these processes becomes a record of production.

2010-02-27T21:08:00.003Z

- ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA -
- CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION -
- ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA -
- CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION -
-ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA -
- CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION -
- ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA -
- CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION -
-ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA -
- CONCERTINA - ACCORDION - CONCERTINA - ACCORDION -

are these two terms simply interchangeable?

2010-02-27T20:37:00.002Z

I've been thinking some more about Japanese methods of bookbinding.

The use of Japanese Stab Binding enables the binding to be exposed on the surface of each bookwork. I've noticed that many artists’ books by Japanese artists draw upon craft based methods, specifically working with the concertina form or with binding that is intricate yet visible to the reader.

Often they combine both of these elements to create bound concertinas or accordion bookworks. This is where all the panels of a concertina or an accordion are bound along one side using a hand-stitched method. As a result the bookwork opens like a conventional book, however, the spine is the giveaway, as is each folded edge, clearly showing the signs of a closed and bound concertina - great stuff!

I PATCH

2010-01-18T22:09:00.002Z

I PATCH is a one-off 14 x 14 cm concertina book made up of ten panels. Each panel consists of a typewritten text in the form of a square measuring 9 x 9 cm. The front and back covers are made of foam board covered with navy Japanese Washi Paper onto which is sewn sixteen hand-stitched squares. Inserted in between the foam board and Washi paper is wadding for a padded effect to create the illusion of a patchwork quilt. Each panel of the concertina consists of handmade paper joined together with a strip of paper measuring 1.5 cm in width. Each side of the strip is hand stitched to one side of two panels. This strip is the bind as well as the fold, which creates the extendable concertina structure. The book is packaged with a pink satin ribbon.

The form plays a part in conveying its concept, as the concertina form draws attention to the craft element of the bookwork through the use of hand stitching. This particular bookwork looks to tie in all elements of book form, which includes the physical form of the object and the form of its content. The squareness of the bookwork both outside and in is made to resemble the square patches of fabric to be found on a patchwork quilt. The title, I PATCH, is not only reflected in the patchworks of the front and back covers but also in the square patches of text within the bookwork. The text is laid out in the form of a square block of text, which visually marks a square patch. It is surrounded by a white border, which further draws attention to the squareness of the text and the object.

The exposed stitch work and binding, hand-cut panels and typewritten text are each a record of production. Stitching and binding are a record of the craft methods employed during the making of the book. The unevenness of hand-cut panels marks the process of production, as does the use of a manual typewriter. The typewriter is a particularly interesting instrument to use as it stains the page with not only letters but also accidental streaks from the ink ribbon. As a writing device it is successful in capturing all the elements of a production process, as mistakes cannot be erased and rewritten. As a manual device the markings are reliant on the artist using it; depending on the pressure placed on the typewriter keys, some letters will imprint the paper darker than others. Equally, each page is fed into the typewriter by hand which means that some words may appear out of line with others. Each of these aspects captures moments of making and to borrow Ulises Carrión’s term; the bookwork becomes ‘a sequence of moments’.

The content is a crisscrossing dialogue between the artist, the book and the reader. It is a dialogue that records the thought processes in those moments of production. Therefore, in the same way that the book form has been constructed as a record of a production, the content also documents aspects of this process. However, instead of a physical record, the text is a mental note that taps into the psyche of the artist at the time of production, to create a bookwork that captures these external and internal processes of making.

2010-01-18T21:57:00.000Z

Until now there has been no activity on this blog - only there has been some activity, just not on blogger. During this time there's been some book making, amazingly just in time for the what-it's-september-already-i-need-more-time September deadline.

Pop-Up Letterpress Studio

2009-10-08T21:06:00.000+01:00

For one week in September 2009 there was a letterpress machine available for public use at 'the maker-difference pop-up letterpress studio' by Cockpit Arms and SORT in Newburgh Quarter, Carnaby Street. I got to use a letterpress for the first time and printed text on to a lovely little book, courtesy of SORT. The letterpress man was friendly and extremely helpful and told me that sometime in the near future SORT plan to run letterpress workshops from SORT HQ! Excellent news!

2009-08-18T23:21:00.003+01:00

So I'm having to consider what I mean when I say "artist's book".

Today I'd like to think of it as
when the book as subject is the art rather than when the subject of the book is art.

2009-08-15T15:48:00.006+01:00

Recently there have been some interesting finds in my mailbox. This is rare.

Last week came a note that read:

you look like a blade of grass with 4 incisors sticking out of the sides. it has no legs, so it obviously hops around with no feet. This means that balance is an issue, but it's fine, because this is kept constant by its own homeostasis system. It never falls over, but it can do. If it does, it has to wait for the wind to push it back upright again. This can be quite troublesome in the summer, when wind is at a minimum. It has no arms because its a blade of grass so when it wants to eat, it must turn to the side and use its incisors to mash up food, it then lies on the food, and then the necassary nutrients enter the blade of grass by diffusion and osmosis through the partially permeable memebrane that forms the outer layer of the blade of grass. It has a small brain positioned just behind its bottom left incisor. the end.

Yesterday came this:

It's the latest publication from the WET INK PRESS. A book for John Sparrow. Put together and bound by Becky Cremin with contributions from all at WET INK HQ.

2009-08-08T03:08:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I bought an old Victorian Flat Iron. I've been looking for one for a while now. Despite not being fond of laundry I can't wait to use it.

I've been reading up on the Flat Iron and apparently Flat Irons were used in pairs so that one could be used whilst the other was being heated up. As one iron started to cool it was switched for the other. The irons were either placed face up in front of open fires on stands known as trivets, or they were suspended over the fire using hangers. So I guess I need a pair before I can really start using the Flat Iron. The laundry will have to wait! Just until I find another one which may be a while as this one was hard to come by.

The Idea as Book : The Book as Idea

2009-07-31T19:49:00.006+01:00

I've been meaning to do a write-up of a seminar I chaired at the ICA earlier this month in association with MA Poetic Practice, but I've been putting it off as my transcript is sketchy with a lot of gaps. The seminar entitled, The Idea as Book : The Book as Idea, took place on the 14th of July and looked to interrogate the artist’s book in relation to ideas of conceptual art and concrete poetry. It was part of a series of events tying in with the current exhibition Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. which takes an imaginative and expansive look at text-based art practices from the 1960s to the present day.

The aims of the seminar were to explore the limitations and the potential of artists’ books with regards to the book as space, the book as self-reflexive, the book as performance and the book as process. It drew upon past and present examples of book art, conceptual art and concrete poetry in order to foreground the ever deepening cross-over between these art forms. Members of the panel included Redell Olsen, Allen Fisher, Mark Pawson, Elizabeth James and Kate Gallon.

The following was discussed: "Space" as public and private and the 2D/3D relationship between a work and how you view it. The social formations thought to be missing from the show. Typewriter works looking old-fashioned yet possessing a nostalgic quality. Redell Olsen referred to Lilian Lijn's 3D sculpture, Sky Never Stops, as a type of book, a "cone book" in fact. Like a book it invites the viewer to read it but in a way that requires the viewer to be aware of his/her own physical presence as well as the presence of the moving cone. Both object and viewer are moving and participating. We talked about books not only referencing spaces/sites but via their materiality they can very much hold a site too. I guess an example of this would be Dieter Roth's Daily Mirror. The "preciousness" of the art object was also brought up and in particular the issue of allowing artists' books to be handled. Suggestions about their display and distribution were also made. Ed Ruscha's Information Man was mentioned but I can't remember in what context.

If I were to take one thing away from it, it would be the concept of space in relation to the book, that is, the book as an object made up of pockets of space as well as the book as an object occupying a space. Some did say that they didn't think it useful to discuss the book and space, but I'm interested in Ulises Carrión's play with space in relation to the book. It's potential is limitless and that's not just in conceptual terms but in actual physical terms. How people choose to use the book is obviously interesting as is the space in which it is made and then stored or displayed. During the discussion Allen Fisher pointed out Carrión's book Tell me what sort of wall paper your room has and I will tell you who you are, a book that comprises of a selection of wallpaper pieces with labels such as 'Living Room', 'Bedroom' and 'My Friend's Room' overprinted onto each page. Each page references an external space collated into the space of one book. Carrión moves you from space to space / place to place, each individualised as the reader turns the page and feels the uniqueness of the textured wallpaper. I think it's important to bring up Carrión's work as concrete and visual poetry did play a part in his break with literature in a more traditional sense. He also emphasised the close relationship between poetry and artists' books, insisting that poets were responsible for opening up the way to such bookworks.

A big thanks to the panel and everyone who came and to those who helped and read and re-read my list of questions just days before the event.

2009-07-10T23:51:00.010+01:00

Tonight we performed EVERY DAY A BATTLE and we're lucky enough to do this in the impressive Mosaic Rooms.

There was film, a tape recorder, paper cuffs, moving paper structures, entangled paper rope, a list of names on a ream of paper splitting the room in two, bookmaking, books to read, envelopes to open and generally lots of words and actions to respond to. We tried to incorporate each medium and the different aspects of performance. It was all about remediation, translation and the evolution from one state to the next. Not just revealing a finished state but the process involved.

During the performance I made books to be distributed and to be read/performed at the end of the performance. Some weeks ago we all met in Earl's Court to gather and make material which was recorded and would be remediated through performance tonight. In Earl's Court I was filmed making books filled with material provided on the day. Tonight I continued to make these books, however, they were filled with the material circulated during the performance, which was in itself remediated when read at the end of the performance.

Below is an example of the books made. On one side is a map of the Earl's Court area, on the other side are words taken from tonight's performance. The books were made using a sheet of A4 paper cut and folded and placed in a translucent folder.

My aim during the performance was to just make, that was to be my one and only response. However, I soon realised that with paper cuffs falling into my eye line and with moving paper structures walking round me and with language being exchanged in every direction it was impossible to remain transfixed on making. I was naturally encouraged to contribute to an energetic space of words by vocalising my own.

For me the success was that the performance was able to foreground our personal interests but still come together as a collaborative. It took me back to thinking about the bookmaking day and stealing Perree's term "cross-fertilisation" - we were combining individual work, ambitions, dialogue and exchange in the same time, place and moment.

Becky's documented it all with her camera here.

WET INK and Scenery Chewer Present ‘Every Day A Battle’

2009-07-10T06:01:00.000+01:00

Place: Mosaic Rooms, 226 Cromwell Road London SW5 0SW

Time: Saturday 11th July from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm.

£5 – All proceeds to go to charity.

We seek, for an evening, to revisit the notion of Earls Court as cultural battleground. This event takes inspiration from Peter Barry's book Poetry Wars: British Poetry of the 1970s and the Battle of Earls Court which uncovers the 'battle' at the National Poetry Society during the 1970s between radical and conservative factions. Thirty-five years after Eric Mottram heralded a 'British Poetry Revival', the question of how to negotiate with the poetic mainstream still infiltrates choices made in the everyday practice of many emerging poets. We present the work of several new poets and hope they will be joined by some of the leading figures of this historical moment to revisit the scenes of an important struggle for creative freedom.

2009-07-08T23:29:00.004+01:00

Tonight we performed RHYTHM CITY DREAM SURRENDER. It's the first time we've performed something for the second time. I think it went well. We were thinking a lot more about us and space and how we use it and move through it and respond to it.

Anna is DREAM and her Anna-Grams are lined up against one wall which she reads aloud as she walks back and forth.
Becky is CITY and she stands transfixed, a central point reading her city-(sound)-scape.
Ryan is SURRENDER navigating his response to the word in and around the room.
I am RHYTHM keeping a constant beat with a tapping shoe and moving in relation to the sounds around me.

We each fill the room with sounds and words that stop, start and restart in relation to what we each hear, responding through volume, tone, repetition and movement. Our physical presence occupies the space through physical means.

The physical sounds of the city perhaps... dragged in, prodded, roughed up and shaken and then dragged back out with us.

WET INK perform RHYTHM CITY DREAM SURRENDER at Spoken Space

2009-07-08T05:51:00.003+01:00

Yep, that's 6.30 tonight
The Simpson Room in Waterstones, Piccadilly
London

peroxide cabbage

2009-06-29T22:50:00.004+01:00

peroxide cabbage has salad fingers.

peroxide cabbage knows her stuff about all things loud.

http://peroxidecabbage.blogspot.com/

2009-05-21T17:21:00.001+01:00

Today I hosted an informal day of bookmaking in my garden. Poets/artists Becky Cremin, Ryan Ormonde and Sejal Chad attended.
Today the book became our medium.

I've spent a bit of time (I should spend a lot more time) reading Rob Perrée's Cover To Cover, a must for anyone trying to get to grips with the long and confusing history of artists' books. Perrée talks about the collaborative nature of artists' books in which individuals engaging in their chosen medium and specialism come together in the production of one bookwork. They may include the writer, artist, designer, publisher, exhibitor etc. But any thinking, considering, making, presenting is carried out individually, separated by time, space and place. After completing one part of the bookmaking process the book is placed in the hands of someone else who sprinkles their thoughts and plays their part. There's nothing wrong with this. It's worked since the early twentieth-century but sometimes on that rare occasion for a brief while, individuals find a time, space and place in which to think and create together. And in this instance, collaboration can be and is an immediate and instantaneous exchange. Perrée provides an excellent example of this when he takes his reader to Paris to embark on a brief history of bookmaking, Parisian-style. Here, once upon a time, 'writers and artists found one another, discussed the issues together, worked together or knew one another in other ways'. Perrée calls this 'a mutual process of cross-fertilization'. Now that's something to achieve and keep going - works being made, experienced and discussed all at the same time, in the same space, in the same moment.

Ok, ambitious plans - realistically this is unsustainable as we have jobs, commitments, other places to be but today we tried it. It was nice. Really nice. Maybe there can be other days like this scattered (generously) in amongst our busy schedules.
Today we cross-fertilised for sure.

Ryan holds an awl. Sejal gets ready to type. Becky hangs it on the line.

Our work station.

Instructions for the day:
I'd like us each to make a book and fill it with material we have prepared beforehand or come up with on the day.
I'd like us to exchange our books.
I'd like us each to review the book we take away with us.
I'd like to document the afternoon and the books with photographs.
I'd like to put these images up on my blog with links to your thoughts.
I'd like us to focus on how bookmaking can be very much a collaborative process. This collaborative means of production instantly makes way for fruitful dialogue as we work alongside one another witnessing the gems and disasters of bookmaking, and are able to pose questions to those working alongside us.
I'd like it to be an afternoon that's really quite rare when it comes to the production of artists' books.

You will need paper.
You will need tools for scribing words.
You will need a needle and thread.

Cut, rip, scribe and bind!

Some handy tools.

Ryan makes his book using black gaffer tape.

After awling Ryan binds.

Becky hears and writes. Becky writes what she hears.

Here are the finished books drying on the washing line:

Ryan Ormonde, Y Chromosomes

A beautifully textured bookwork.
30 cm x 8 cm. 17 pages alternate between acetate paper and black gaffer tape. Binding with pink embroidery thread tried in a knot at seven points along the edge of the book. Text word-processed and printed onto acetate paper. Black gaffer tape represents the absent X chromosome. The ribbed underside of the tape leaves very visual markings that come through the acetate and resemble a scientific code, thus echoing the idea of chromosomes and DNA. This can be made out in the image above. The tape brings to the book intricate detail that is both visual and haptical. The layout of the text draws attention to the form of the book, in particular its length. It consists of paper which has been cut into strips and the text adapts to this form resting in narrow columns. The text is visually striking and words such as 'you' and 'and' are repeated and presented in a block column but the columns remain unfinished drawing attention to the number of words. 86 words which Ryan tells me has something to do with the make up of the Y chromosome. The visual quality of the text encourages me to read down as though I am being guided by the length of the book. I find myself reading in long strips slicing through the more conventional left to right read. I read the text longways. Ryan plays with repetition, rhythm and sounds which reverberate throughout each poem, like vibrations unfolding down the column and down the page. I particularly like Ryan's use of capitals, which grow out of words such as 'ecoKNOWmic', 'cNOversatiNO' and 'preJEWdice'. If the words are to represent parts of a gene, then it's like the gene is growing outwards - out of the 'economic' stem 'KNOW' roots outwards - and the way in which they are positioned in the text, as though in dialogue with each other. And Ryan did tell me something about genes networking and conversing with each other. Some of the poems that appear in Y Chromosomes can be found here

Becky Cremin, Baking I

Becky Cremin is a domestic goddess. Fact.
22 cm x 4.5 cm. White rag cloth cover folded around the edge to form a spine. Inside 14 pages of Newsprint paper. The second version of this book measures 19 cm x 4 cm and consists of 14 pages of green Lamali paper. Both versions include handwritten text using pen and ink. The left-hand side of each page is reinforced with a strip of masking tape for added strength when binding. Japanese Stab binding with black embroidery thread. Each version is unique and consists of hand-cut handmade paper, self-bound with a handwritten text. The text comes from a series of sonnets produced by Becky and have also been baked in a oven (see below). Each book is a different sonnet. On each page is scribed a line from the sonnet. The pen and ink bleeds through the light Newsprint and Lamali paper creating smudges and splatters of black ink. You can't help but notice how Becky's choice of materials and method of making acts as a visual aid to the content: 'hand clean skin' - the paper is skin like, 'tears butter grams' - the paper is torn, 'melting spread' - the ink on paper, 'hand over wrist' - the motion of handwriting. The text not only relates to the domesticated act of baking but also the act of handcrafting. Becky also plays with a range of textures clearly marking/recording/performing the scratching of her ink pen on the rough surface of the rag cloth cover.

Sejal Chad, when you hand(L)ed me

The only illustrated book of the day.
15 cm x 10.5 cm. Red cover card for front and back cover. Pink and red card inside on to which is taped, stapled and stitched acetate paper filled with text and sketches in black Biro. Book bound together using a two-staple bind with additional black embroidery stitching along the spine and continues to form border on the front cover. This is quite obviously a self-conscious book, an inside-out book, where all it's processes of making are exposed on each page. The acetate allows for all stitching to be unveiled. It is multi-layered in its use of materials and the way in which the paper is attached on top of one another creating a multi-layered text. You follow the text through the acetate and on to the card for a multi-layered reading. Each page is unique due to the craft processes Sejal employs but it retains coherence through Sejal's style of text and image. This is definitely a book to be hand(l)ed. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the text but I remember that reading it is like the black thread that makes its way from cover to cover. When reading Sejal's text I find myself trying to thread together the text with the conversations, music and happenings that occurred today. Also, the sketched pigs resemble those in Richard Scarry's 'Biggest World Book Ever!'

Me, ELLE is one big issue (April '09)

14.5 cm x 9.5 cm. Pink foam board front and back cover. Text on front cover hand stitched in a chain stitch and loose stitch using black cotton thread. Japanese Stab binding with black cotton thread also. Inside 12 pages hand-cut from an old journal. Text typewritten. The text comes from the April '09 edition of ELLE magazine which I bought in March and never got round to reading. I read the magazine yesterday including all PL codes and cosmetic small print. Words were selected, noted and written through to create an alternative narrative for the April issue of ELLE. The text can be found here

Becky also baked homemade cakes with a surprise poem-filled centre.

Above is the poem that was baked in my cupcake. Delicious cakes and evocative poems. Language of a domestic discourse has been cut, blended and literally baked to explore the notion of a female (domestic) goddess - my favourite line: 'She waits in domestic wire blending hours'. Read more about Becky's thoughts on "performing" domesticity here

Below are our thoughts on the day ( kindly transcribed by Becky):

So to end with Perreé. I think, we found each other to have a similar interest - books, childhood and positive thinking. We did spend some of today discussing issues surrounding 'the book' and our books, childhood and positive thinking. And we did work together not on the same book or anything, but together nonetheless. Gush!

ELLE is one big issue (April '09)

2009-05-20T16:51:00.004+01:00

SHE SAYS does lipo really work? I want to be face to face with Jen. I have no regrets. It was the smoothest thing ever. Euphoria lets me live the dream. It feels good. In sixty years age will catch up. I'll be ultra fine. I'll tell stories with sequins SHE SAYS describe yourself in three words. Stay In More. Geeky and on the debating team I stay up all night with Courtney. We're in love. I do make up for bar mitzvahs. Your appearance your pain is low. I stopped feeling guilty. I'm urban and dark SHE SAYS work is tacky. Vera was born to rule. I wear cotton jerseys. Thrown together glamour to a blade runner backdrop. I strum my ukulele. The phoenix insignia is tatooed on her wrist SHE SAYS clothes make you disappear. Hair is comic and cruel. I'm born too late to appreciate real music. It's back to laurel canyon to hand with zappa outside it takes someone with a certain panache to pull off doo wop. I thought the world was lovely. I lost myself in The Goonies and Michael J. Fox. Ripped jeans and silver chains SHE SAYS expressing heartbreak the days of the grumpy detective are over. Vera looks at me and tries it on. It's like slipping on banana peel. A drunken lens of human fragility. The vulgarity of 1980s excess. No liberal guilt. I'm not interested in identity. A blonde afro with black lips. I'm addicted to subject matter SHE SAYS I'm not afraid to make mistakes. My farewell tour never ended. When I have no money to make movies I tap into the nyc electrical system through a lampost SHE SAYS let's play a little. Nappy rash on my face. A bow tie and a sequin encrusted collar. For the club kids it's arm candy it's very now very wow. Hands up to donkey jackets. Hands down to genuine blokes. Get lost. Lose your footing. Air kiss when the adrenaline goes. I'm nervous no one will turn up. Ok ok so people are coming SHE SAYS your work is you. Your big break is yet to come. Breakdowns equal breakthrough. Without fear I live. That's not a tabloid story SHE SAYS this is over. We can't recover. You can't control it. Her comments are carefully considered and deliberately understated. She would say but she isn't going to not now not ever. Mortgage gigs fly by the seat of your pants whoosh by empty podiums. Everything's out of context and misinterpreted. It's hard on the soul SHE SAYS I don't owe anybody anything. There are no sides. There's nothing to go on trial for. Her body defies time and gravity SHE SAYS don't get on this train. It's a ride you can't get off. I'm a realist. It demands respect. Laugh at this unlikely portrait of domestic bliss.

Five [yellow] Poems

2009-03-31T11:42:00.002+01:00

Five [Yellow] Poems

170 x 120 mm

Cover made from black corn fibre. Yellow Lamali flocked paper. Typewritten text. Japanese stab binding in yellow embroidery thread. Poems include: Yellow, Avian Flu, extract from On this day, Spectacle/Surveillance, extract from Rope.

Maybe waxed linen thread would be better as the embroidery thread will weaken over time. But I expect the entire book to eventually disintegrate as the corn fibre will also weaken and fall apart. Due to the mixed combination and thus texture of the Lamali paper, it is particularly difficult to typewrite on to. Although the stamp leaves the impression of a letter, it does not always stain the page. Excitingly, this does mean that holding the page up to the light reveals hidden indents. The typewriter's marks also bleed through to the reverse side of the paper creating tiny buldges - see second to last image.

A Human Approach

2009-02-26T22:48:00.003Z

240 x 120 mm

Concertina book made up of 22 panels.

Red cover boards. Handmade paper. Colour tissue paper to bind each panel.

Typewritten text.

This bookwork began as loose pages of cut-up and collaged text from William Freeman’s novel, The Human Approach To Literature (a book I found last year). Each page was then written through to create the text that now exists in this concertina format. The coloured paper binding draws upon the theme of binding prevalent throughout Freeman's text.

The concertina has no front or back cover. Opening it at one end shows how each poem builds on the one before. Opening it at the other end presents three poems made up entirely of five key words and phrases that appear in each panel. At this point I was looking at Wolfgang Iser and dabbling in theories of reader-response. Particularly Iser's idea that the reader sees these words in a different perspective and is able to recognise the pattern that is being created but also, acknowledge the differences due to the varied contexts the words are used in (The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach).

In the first version of this bookwork I set out to use visual elements to completely change the form of Freeman’s novel and reconfigure the content. However, it lacked unity and compactness which I think version two shows a bit better in relation to both form and content.

Suspect, Location, Time

2009-02-25T19:37:00.008Z

150 x 210 mm
12 pages of embossed card. Black felt binding.
Typewritten text with black pen and ink.

This bookwork was made in response to Foucault's "Panoptican" with the idea of surveillance as a ‘faceless gaze’, positioned and alert everywhere (Discipline and Punish). These ideas relate to city life in the twenty-first century with the growing number of CCTV cameras becoming an expected part of the city landscape. This piece uses the set-up of a detective following and noting the movements of five suspects. The detective is the camera. The five individuals are watched in unison and each offers their response to this alongside the detective's notes. References in the text and map are actual places in and around Baker Street; however, they have been reconfigured to create a new fictional text and site. The map of Baker Street has been drawn in relation to the movements of the suspects in the text and not in accordance with a map of the actual site.

cut and distribute

2009-01-22T19:15:00.008Z

click to enlarge

This Porch

2009-01-03T12:37:00.006Z

So here are the images of 'This Porch'. It's finally a book that brings together the three episodes: Sleeping On Front Porches, Standing On Front Porches and Swinging on Front Porches.

It measures 140 x 140 mm. Consists of 15 individual concertinas made up of 4 panels each bound together with Japanese stab binding. The paper is Newsprint 48 gsm which is great to work with when using the typewriter as each marking kisses the paper just enough to leave an indent on the page without stamping all the way through.

With regards to bookmaking, I'm not happy with the following -

The last two stitches of binding on the back cover are not in line.

I should have invested in an awl or maybe just a push pin to make neater holes to feed the thread through as the binding can sometimes be seen creeping out of the spine.

I think I should have prepared cover boards instead of using Newsprint paper for the front and back covers- the stitching and embroidery has resulted in some curling and messy holes.

Plus, there is a spelling mistake.

Episode One: Sleeping On Front Porches (Revised)

2009-01-02T23:32:00.001Z

I pull in at 2.30
From Gate 6
Seat 37 D
Passenger baggage must not contain radioactive material.

Up Route 116. South Mandelle Hall.
Back to school. Ring the bell. Walking blues.
Past Lower Lake nothing stirs
Except lampost flicker outside Village Commons.

12.00 An art museum lunch
'Hetch Hetchy Canyon' stimulates inquisitive looking
Lie on Skinner Green with The Bostonians set to Playlist one.
Next week we’ll talk injustice in Taxi!

We will stand in the place of American revolutionaries
But do nothing. Instead "Where you guys heading?"
Repeated by sandy boys with the promise
That one day out in the rain we’ll see change.

Minuteman Express. Amherst Bookshop
To be [re] born in Dickinson's doorway.
Hold hands with an Amherstian girl talk of lacklustre education
And friends that we hardly know.

1.30 and Em is in Northampton
Ice-cream with a Rock n' Roll twist. Fools fall in love over american pie
Outside the winters are cold and the summers are over. Soon.
So today and always I carry my clear plastic umbrella.

To the greenhouse for a slice of your soil,
To the Bookmill for a taste of your choco-beer,
To Skinner Mountain for a picnic on a cliff face,
To Hangers for a short skirt, sticky chicken and chardonnay.

Yours is the first face that I saw.
Back to hers – dozy lighting misty drinks
My mac slowly endures intoxication.
Walk with me Suzy Lee.

11.20 Lit up snowmen mark your door.
We're here to live and swing on front porches
I don't know you
But people we like

Show and tell your liquid beats froth out
The basement notes casual contradiction:
Seeing everything
But noticing nothing.

I change in the back of your truck
And end up asleep on your porch.

Episode Two: Standing On Front Porches (Revised)

2008-12-30T21:25:00.003Z

A Monday of apologises for a lost suitcase
But it’s o.k. I have a 5 ml lip balm.
10.30 unwrite these pages, jot new words
To stuff into back pockets.

Stand -
Script text
Set score
Stamp view down.

Breakfast in Amherst. In Newport by 4.45
We dine at Christie's
Converse with an economic waiter.
He offers two tickets

Dilemma -
What do we do?
Resolved -
What can we do?

9.45 Two New Yorkers take us down Ocean Drive
Mom says "No talkin' to strangers"
We talk, share thoughts on city-life, its 'no stare policy'
Yet gesticulation in abundance.

Piling loo in the back bin fag seat,
Generating fag steam loo bin heat,
Bin pulsating to the fag back loo beat.
Two cities converse side by side.

11.00 at Marble House
Gawping and gorging
Of too much of too much.
Take the Coastal Walk

It gives me time to think, to think of Suzy Lee.
I'm told missing her is unhealthy
More unhealthy than cheese on pasta, cheese on toast, cheese on cheese?
Tonight we eat out on the porch of a stranger.

Tomorrow to The Armory -
To antiques and fine art
To stare into the eyes of someone I could love for a while (at least).
We catch the 2.30 out

You call me anti-social. I'm listening to what Joey says Danny says -
It's crucial to understanding an emotional life on the road.
The 5.00 to Copley
Where our map stops unfolding.

I change behind the gas station
And end up asleep on your lap.

Episode 3: Swinging On Front Porches

2008-12-29T13:36:00.008Z

O the bells of Quincy 1825
The artisans, the peddlers and their carts
That keep the red brick alive.

It's Friday the 21st and I get George Moore
So every day I head to the library to check in and say
Isabella, I think you're architecturally astounding -
I could watch you go up, extend, lie still forever.
We'd rest on the common and stain my white shoes red.

Today you take advantage -

Instil in me mass consumption.
You tell me that this is the modern world!
Your pants swing from the garage door
Decorated in red ribbon and green clover.

10.18 Breakfast at Bartley's
Take off your shoes. Sit on our rugs!
Tell us in advance what is yet to come.

There will be sound checks at 5.02
But we're still in the yard eating leftover fruit.
I picture her chunky bracelets
And trace her movements in and out
Of all houses wherein men have lived.

8.30 The lizard lounge. I'm glad we came
It's Sunday and it's the 1990s
The district is busy. We roll up our jeans.

Tonight they take over the cemetery
Recreate the battle of O' Normal
Bellmen shiver at the sight of bright orbs of light,
Guests quiver at the sound of rocking chairs,
Yet there are no rocking chairs in this hotel

On Copp's Hill -
Would you do things differently?
Course not, but think most probably.

3.15 And we swing in time
Books stuffed into side-streets
Books stacked into neat peaks

Scratch in this moment –
Say something cliché: the willow strokes the surface and parts the lake
And Duck, Duck, Goose - Duck glides right on through
Or just scar the skin with needles and pins.

Books spill into your suitcase.

I change direction out of a taxi
And end up asleep in Seat 19 C.

2008-11-10T23:47:00.008Z

I’m waking. I am awake. I’ve sown the seeds. I reap the harvest of daily disease. Three souls leave this room tonight. I’m waking to mornings of bitter coffee (I’ll just drop two sugars) bitter disease. Thoughts of bitterness and disease that clamp clasp and close the soul tight – tight like the rope, the ropes that pull our college flags high above our cities. Cities infected with fear and concern limp and weak like bloody mucus seeping through the table top. I’ll tell you again, life’s taught me the importance of selective memory taught me that remembering to forget is on my list of things-to-do like laundry. What about the prescriptive drugs that sit on the tip of my tongue, in or out uncertainty? I hate indecision. Powerlessness is everywhere in parlours, in bank houses and now on park benches. Listen. I’m waking. Yes I'm awake to latch-key kids and their one-minute heroes. Here goes, throw yourself into school corridors and witness incomplete workbooks, lonesome desks, absent flipcharts – minds forging their way through what’s not on the curriculum. Wake up! Three souls leave this room tonight. Why fear pain – that strain to stretch the rope that will divide your world from mine. Fine. Ok. If it’s rope and the soul you speak of
Rope, to get rid of soul

To get rid of soul, rope

Rid of rope to get soul

Get soul rid of rope to

Rope, rid of soul to get

Soul, to get rid of rope
To get rid of rope, soul

Rid of soul to get rope

Get rope rid of soul to
Soul, rid of rope to get
Ok Ok If it’s this we speak of tie me to my soul with rope. How can I? It left two hours ago along with the hopeless. Why to wander the streets of New York alone piss-fights jello ellis island city cops and fists. It’s probably on its way now from taxi to backalley. Three souls leave this room tonight. Yeah mine left early.

2008-11-06T21:54:00.006Z

Antonio Gramsci
imprisoned in 1927
Antonio Gramsci and hegemony.
Hegemony
social power and domination
Gramsci's innovative perception
that
power can be maintained without force
that
if
the consent of the dominated
can be obtained
through education
through kinds of cultural labour
power can be maintained without force.
"civil society"
"political society"
correspond to the function of
hegemony.
The intellectuals
the dominant group
exercise the function of
hegemony.
Consent given by the masses
to the general direction
imposed
on
social life
by the dominant group.
Discipline
constituted
for the whole of society
in anticipation of
crisis
power can be maintained without force.

2008-11-06T17:01:00.002Z

Handmade and Bound

The Affordable London Book-Art and Zine Fair

saturday 8th november

12 - 6 pm

st. aloysius social club

phoenix rd, london nw1

(nearest tube: euston)

free entry

for further info: www.handmadeandbound.com

2008-11-01T11:04:00.005Z

The next Openned night takes place on Tuesday 18th November
at 7.15pm
at The Foundry, 86 Great Eastern Street London EC2A 3JL Old Street tube (exit3 ).
Readers: Harry Gilonis, Chris Goode, Luke Roberts, me (Karen Sandhu), plus another extract from the video interview with Allen Fisher
Admission free.
http://openned.com/

2008-10-27T20:54:00.002Z

2008-10-27T20:48:00.001Z

2008-10-27T20:18:00.009Z

103 x 147 mm

Bound using a double hand stitch.

Cover - beige card, pen and ink and lettraset.

Images - printed on translucent paper, pen and ink and lettraset. Text - typewritten.

The conversations I've been writing up on this blog are the result of a procedural process used to write-through J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Ernest Hemingway's The Nick Adams Stories and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The conversations map out an alternative journey, narrative and dialogue that occurs when the characters, Holden, Nick and Tom, meet on the page.

The conversations currently exist in the above format - a journal. There are 10 copies which have been individually handmade, therefore although the text remains the same, each copy varies due to the markings and mistakes made by the materials used.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 10)

2008-10-11T02:26:00.001+01:00

It is still pretty early. I'm not sure what time it was, but
the Kansas City train stops at a siding
and two boys fly on and on towards the village.
This night club: The Lavender Room
is in the ruts -
Every stump stares up in its path.
I think of maybe hanging up on my parents
cos they lurch out of sight
as aroused watch-dogs give wings to their feet.
As a matter of fact, I'm the only
one touching the ground
I can't stand it much longer -
She still has nice, pretty little ears
(spectators of the ball agree)
and at last, breast to breast
you'd like her. I mean if you
manage to get any dope
your pulses will s l o w d o w n.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 9)

2008-10-10T04:17:00.001+01:00

The first thing I did when I got off at Penn Station
was to open the door of Henry's lunchroom.
At half past nine that night
I woke her up, but the trouble was
I didn't know what the trouble was
It was nearly daylight and we hear the clock strike ten.
Sally Hayes is on her Christmas vacation
but she spends it talking to George
so I stare up into the dark. Everything is dismally still
besides, I was never crazy about talking to old Mrs Hayes -
What the hell do you put it on the card for?!
Old beams begin to crack mysteriously
I get my bags and walk over to that tunnel
It's five o' clock
time for the tiresome chirping of crickets
then I say, 'Hey, do you mind turning around
I have to eat'.
Our days are numbered.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 8)

2008-10-09T11:03:00.003+01:00

It was too late to call up for a cab or anything, so
Nick stood up. He was alright.
Tom dogged hither and thither
He smacked my lip right on my teeth, and it was pretty sore
He felt of his knee; his pants torn -
Juvenile superstition meant that he shoved
snow in my hand and washed my face with it
then washed his hand carefully in cold water
hardly distinguishable.
I usually read about these dumb stories -
I will know them again. Apparently it's fine way to act
with not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat
I just didn't feel like it. I just sort of sat
'Come here, kid, I got something for you' then Wham!
This seemed to render the pervading silence
and I was sitting
and he - the son of a crutting brakeman
sat long with his elbows on his knees.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 7)

2008-10-08T01:53:00.004+01:00

A tiny bit of light came through the shower curtains
and he saw me come in the door
Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book.
He had alot of white stuff on his face
and held a glass in his hand.
The air was utterly dead.
Where's the light? I couldn't find the light.
He drew that beer and cut it off
away off
blood and all.
What's yours?
Lazy wing; no other living thing
you're bleeding, for chrissake!
A bowl of pickled pig's feet
to pass the dreary time.
I said 'listen, I gotta get up and go -'
Tom held the wooden scissors in his hand.
He released the tick and pulled me.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 6)

2008-09-27T01:11:00.003+01:00

Some things are hard to remember:
The Petoskey road runs straight uphill
and Monday mornings find Tom Sawyer miserable.
I don't just fool around,
disappear into the woods,
go into captivity.
The corridor is all lino
with berry bushes and beech saplings
that make me sick, so I can stay home from school.
I didn't even bother to answer him
I pack in the buckets
He detects colicky symptoms.
He hangs it up on a hanger
outside the cottage by the lake
One of his upper teeth is loose
He is always stroking his stomache
around the house -
It hurts.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 5)

2008-09-26T21:47:00.005+01:00

We always have the same meal on Saturday nights -
On one Fourth of July
about half past ten
you should've seen the steaks.
The guests came on horses, jumped down into the road
with their parents -
It was nice.
Nine of them
far away from the open window and seductive outside.
I didn't have a date or anything, so I and this friend
looked out from the back seat to watch
the wife and other unnecessaries.
We watch Ackley in his room, sqeezing his pimples,
his pants look mighty -
the only palace in the town (and the most hospitable!)
He is back behind the shower curtains
before I seen a thing.
The new notable from a distance.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 4)

2008-09-25T20:18:00.003+01:00

I didn't have anything special to do,
Dick Boulton came from the Indian camp,
The sun rose upon a tranquil world.
I have this nervous habit -
it flops over his shoulders
with scriptural quotations.
You remember I said before
of the lake shore
where Tom girded up his loins -
he looks good when he finishes fixing himself up.
And if nothing were done about it
part of the Sermon on the Mount
would see his picture in the Year Book.
Into the lake to make a new boom
for his mind is traversing
frequently.
Nick's father always
finds his way through the fog.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 3)

2008-09-24T15:03:00.002+01:00

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life!
At the lake shore there is another rowboat drawn up
Tom presents himself before Aunt Polly
I live in the Ossenburger Memorial
George is sitting in the stern of the camp rowboat
in the balmy summer air, the restful quiet
where family is buried for about five bucks.
Quite a way ahead of us
she is asleep
the locomotive.
Another boat moves farther ahead in the mist,
her power again in this intrepid way.
We should always pray to God - talk to him and all -
not just when we're sick.
It's all done by him -
What a swell guy he is
for pulling the boat way up the beach.
Aunt Polly places small trust in such evidence.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 2)

2008-09-23T14:30:00.005+01:00

They each have their own room and all -
Nick is undressing in the tent
Saturday morning has come
I mean he is all stooped over
because undressing reminds him of the night before.
There is cheer in his face
some other guys and I
tell him that if any emergency comes up
he should go beyond the village
and buy a blanket.
He should take the oars of the boat in the dark
and arrive on the side-walk with a bucket of white-wash.
It gets on your nerves sometimes -
to hear the oars
to see thirty yards of broad fence nine feet high!
We guess he was probably born
quietly between the blankets in the dark.
He repeated the operation the night before.

Holden, Nick and Tom (conversation 1)

2008-09-22T23:29:00.015+01:00

If you really want to hear about it
I don't want to hear it
No answer.
If I told anything
about the water rising
about the room
around last Christmas just before
the bay, listen again -
how it could have stretched on for
two hundred miles like
his shoulders, broad.
If I get hold of you, I'll
let anybody look.
Did anybody tell them
to breath to punctuate the punches with?
You've probably seen the ads anyway.
Are they good ones?
Go open the door and see.

2008-09-07T22:01:00.002+01:00

8 AM and the government finally awakes to the worries of working people: telephones ringing unanswered, wallabies roaming Kent, cosmic rays leading to cloud formation, gardens lacking box hedges and the idea of voting only when sober. This calls for radical change. We must enlist British spies a cross between Bond and Hood to partake in textual vandalism, to crowd source and data mash, to identify unknown people on photo-sharing websites. Steinberg believes the revolution is in its infancy but we'll create potholes, broken street lights, rubbish and graffiti then plead for quick fixes @ FixMyStreet.com We've arrived at the dead end of bureaucracy we'll produce another sick comedy starring redneck hockey loving mothers who canoe across the arctic (only to get trapped in ice). Again. Let's take our covered wagons and head West to ignore policies of nasty hysteria, scour the country for libertarian babes keeping armoured vests close to our chests. The PM wants a second chance to give us lessons in happiness to shrug off set-backs and banish pessimistic thoughts. Immunise us all, us all against in depth analysis, size-optimisation and Russian jets. Today art means a few old fish and a restaurant dish of detritus and size-optimisation means putting fewer Pringles in a can. Russia's been negotiating with an impostor but we've been taught how to act positively in seemingly negative situations. The time has come to hand the free world over to strangers, the time has come to create pigs with humanised hearts, the time has come for Republicans to favour women. A philosophical revolution is underway as we anticipate the Nietzschen Ubermensch but all Superman costumes are missing - we're now lost - the doppelgangers continue to leak sensitive info in return for financial benefit and Parisians are soon to be horrified when Paris becomes London's double. The world is a dosh pit with a 50p bonus. We all want cult status like Jackie O and Warhol, we all want to source out US bribes, we all want to spawn new cities then another and another avoid signing off with P.S. It's vulgar! It's too late - forget law forget journalism - scientists have isolated the love rat gene divorce lawyers and female columnists are out of work, however the door will remain open not only for immigration but for slaves to the free market for farmers sowing the seeds of later unhappiness - teach us about happiness! We'll get through a tremendous number of women look back, become o so nostalgic and list all of our bad choices - collisions with beauty queens that echo showers of neutrons where only for a day we see the world differently. Eventually we'll give up the idea that women will only vote for women but we'll never give up our control-freak tendencies even though we yearn a crowd-sourcing democracy. We'll continue West with wagons and Russian jets looking for some cult status for our own doppelgangers, the strangers that lead us there.

2008-09-05T10:57:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I was on the Central Line and overheard two tourists wondering why people on the tube never talk to each other.
Today I was back on the Central Line and for the very first time somebody spoke to me.
The man shouted "Either you move down or I move!"

2008-08-30T23:57:00.001+01:00

The moth continues to visit my lamplight
despite adverse conditions
Why come inside?
Outside is lit
and is the place to be
tonight.

2008-08-12T23:05:00.003+01:00

"Lights out!"
But there are still things to do -
You see, she'd spent the entire day doing things she didn't need to
Like the writing of lists, and
Like writing lists.
Now as the light fades she decides it's time to do
What she didn't do
But should do
"Lights out!"
I think not.
The glaring headlights,
The flickering streetlights,
Means that she just does what she needs to.
Just.
To tick off things to do
That she should do
But didn't do
Until she had to.

2008-08-10T02:37:00.003+01:00

8.09 pm
They sit and meet at the same table - the one to the far right (I mean left) in the corner of the diner.
They've smoked silk-cuts for twenty years.
Twenty year smoke lounges comfortably in the fabric of these stools.
Twenty year smoke wanders freely in the air that surrounds
An atmosphere heavy with recycled bottles, music and conversation.
Yes, conversation.

9.33 pm
They order another round. Same drinks they've drunk for twenty years.
I hear them. I hear you.
They talk about their history whilst we talk about our history and outside history is being made.
Outside, it is dark but busy with people entering and leaving shop fronts with neon lights and florescent tubes.
Inside, it is dark but busy with people entering and leaving voices which illuminate the space around me, you, us, them.
Voices that speak of premature policy, credit card junkies, the tragedy of Tokyo Rose and cake.
Pictures, ideas, calenders and memories that speak when I speak to you and I.
Speak.

10.45 pm
I walk past their table.
He puts on his coat, pays the bill and takes one last look around. She exits to the bathroom.
The clinking of glasses and muttering of voices.
Track two plays and we let The Chiffons take our soul.
I return, she returns and they leave to go outside amongst neon lights.
We're inside talking about them.
Inside, I’m talking about you.
Talk.

11.20 pm
They leave their mark behind. Their circular imprints.
Elbow wearage, greasy stains, spilt liquid, floating ash.
Ready for the next crowd.

01.09 am
I pull the stool aside and see her imprint.

2008-07-22T10:55:00.001+01:00

SCENE 3

Man wearing a mask enters.

Man.

You affix, anchor, attach rope to me.
You're the Nietzschen 'Superman' -
Creator of New Values.
So you batten, bind, bolt, buckle,
Button, chain, clamp me,
Rope to clasp, cling, close me.
You're the solution -
Fix, grip, hitch, hook
To a problem -
Knot, join, lace, lash.
You're the Nietzschen 'Ubermensch'.
It means you strap, tack, tape, tie me.
So you batten, bind, bolt, buckle me,
Button, chain, clamp me,
Rope to clasp, cling, close me.

Exit.

2008-07-21T08:28:00.000+01:00

SCENE 2

Man enters. In his hand he holds the rope.

Man.

Cut a piece of stout cord.
Twist it in your hands.
Pull it tight.
This is a piece of rope.
Today I am this rope.

Fasten and secure
What needs to be fastened.
But remember to secure.
This is a piece of rope.
Today I am this rope.

Enclose.
Mark off boundaries to abide by:
No Entry - No Exit
This is a piece of rope.
Today I am this rope.

Because
To rope, to grope
To tighten the rope
That ties
Means I am.

Because
To rope, to grip
To pull the rope
That binds
Means I am.

Because
To rope means to grope
To tighten, to tie, to grip, to pull, to bind.

Rope you with this rope!

I am.

Exit.

2008-07-20T18:20:00.003+01:00

SCENE 1

Chorus.

to rope
to grope
to stroke
to tighten
the rope
that ties
and binds

to obey
to handle
to yield
to grasp
to impress
to abridge
to test

to hide
to abort
to disclose
to abscond
from the rope
that ties
and binds

Exit.

2008-07-05T11:54:00.004+01:00

Laughing
about the forks in our road
is only fun
when we're eating
drinking
and listening
to Doo Wop

Episode 2: Standing On Front Porches

2008-06-13T21:11:00.007+01:00

Sunday 16th and BA apologises for forgetting my suitcase
But I'm not fretting! I have five millilitres of lip balm and Katie's closet.
10.30 am and they wave "Don't leave" and we wave "Don't want to"
All we want to do is stand on this porch,
Collect another point of view -
You'd bring the books
I'd bring the music
They'd visit us on rainy days.

Breakfast in Amherst then in Newport by 4.45
We dine at Christie's
Converse with an economic waiter,
He offers us two tickets
Dilemma -
What do we do?
Resolved by playlist no.1:
What can we do?

Monday 17th 9.45 am and two New Yorkers take us down to Ocean Drive
Mom says "No talkin' to strangers"
We talk, share thoughts on city-life with its 'no stare policy'
Yet gesticulation in abundance.
Piling in the back seat / loo, bin, fag
Generating steam heat / fag, loo, bin
Pulsating to the back beat / bin, fag, loo
Two cities converse side by side.

11 am Newport mansions: Kingscote, Marble House,
Real french furniture, real silver trinkets -
A consumption of too much of too much.
It's lunchtime and we're on the Coastal Walk
It gives me time to think, to think of Suzy Lee.
I'm told missing her is unhealthy
More unhealthy than cheese on pasta, cheese on toast, cheese on cheese?
Tonight we eat out - Pizza on the porch of a stranger.

Tomorrow to The Armory -
To antiques and fine art
To stare into the eyes of someone I could love for a while (at least).
We catch the 2.30 bus to Providence
You call me anti-social but I'm listening to what Joey says Danny says -
It's crucial to the understanding of an emotional life on the road.
The 5 pm to Copley
Where our map stops unfolding.

I change in the corner of a service station
And end up asleep on your lap.

Episode 1: Sleeping On Front Porches

2008-05-18T03:44:00.002+01:00

I pull in at 2.30 AM
From Gate 6
Seat 37D
Where passenger baggage must not contain radioactive material.
Up Route 116 to South Mandelle Hall,
Back to school. Ring the bell. Walking blues.
Past Lower Lake where nothing stirs
Except for lampost flicker outside Village Commons.

12.00 Meet Katie for lunch outside Art Museum
Where Hetch Hetchy Canyon 'stimulates inquisitive looking'.
Then we lie on Skinner Green with The Bostonians, lip balm and playlist no.1.
Next week we will compare immigration, healthcare, politicians in "Taxi!"
Repeated by sandy-haired boys.
We will stand in the place of American revolutionaries
But do nothing. Instead "Where you guys heading?" and the promise
One day we'll be out in the rain and suddenly everything'll change.

Minuteman Express. Amherst Bookshop
To be [re] born in Dickinson's doorway.
We hold hands with an Amherstian girl talking of lacklustre education
And friends that we hardly know.
Thursday 13th 1.30 PM Meet Sarah and Emily in Northampton
Ice-cream with a Rock n' Roll twist as fools fall in love over american pie
Outside the winters are too cold and the summers are over too soon
So today and always I will carry my clear plastic umbrella.

To the greenhouse for a slice of your soil,
To the Bookmill for a taste of your choco beer,
To Skinner Mountain for a picnic on a cliff face,
To Hangers for a concoction of short skirts, sticky chickens and chardonnays.
Yours is the first face that I saw.
Back to hers, to dozy lightening, to misty drinks
Where my mac slowly endures intoxication.
Walk with me Suzy Lee.

Saturday 15th 11.20 PM lit up snowmen mark out your door
We're here to live and swing on front porches
I don't know you
But parties we like
Show and tell, free beer and music frothing out of basements.
Playlist no.1 notes contradiction:
Getting by just fine here on minimum wage
But being here too long, it's time to move.

I change in the back of your truck
And end up asleep on your porch.

What's it going to be then, eh?

2008-04-10T20:02:00.001+01:00

Winter Horrorshow. Alex there sat
"Is that
Georgie?" Our is newspapers. Give
Three O
Being evening
that have everybody neither
else heighth -

2008-03-15T18:59:00.001Z

To be or not to be,
A commodity.

A commodity to be,
Not to be an oddity.

Be a commodity,
Be not an oddity.

Ode to the Pink Paper Book

2008-02-28T17:24:00.005Z

You lie next to my Pocket Penguin Thesaurus
Real Homes tells you it's called being "shabby chic"
I remember the shabbiness of your chic
with your expert tips on getting the job done.

I want to get the job done too
I want property projects that pay
I want to add value to your home
the shelf
the Pocket
Penguin
Thesaurus
green.

But stained skin,
frailty,
pirouettes,
and a thimble
prevents me from being the
shabby
to your
chic.

the 25th: On this day...

2008-01-25T20:43:00.000Z

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the 24th: On this day...

2008-01-24T16:54:00.000Z

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the 23rd: On this day...

2008-01-23T11:21:00.000Z

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the 22nd: On this day...

2008-01-22T09:40:00.000Z

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the 21st: On this day...

2008-01-21T02:05:00.000Z

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the 20th: On this day...

2008-01-20T19:57:00.000Z

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the 19th: On this day...

2008-01-19T20:03:00.001Z

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This series of journal entries are a re-working of the news headlines from one day (7/1/08) inspired by Bernadette Mayer's use of 'daily occasions'[1]. The headlines spread over the course of seven days in diary form consisting of 10 lines each for visual and performance purposes.

Performance requires seven speakers each taking one page.

Speakers must label themselves 1 to 7.

Speaker 1 begins (all speakers are free to read at any pace and tone).

When she/he reaches line 5 on the page Speaker 2 begins to read her/his page and on reaching the fifth line Speaker 3 begins and so on until Speaker 7 - every fifth line introducing a new speaker.

Once each speaker has read to the end of their page they are free to select any phrases, words, letters, numbers, sounds, phonemes and allophones on their sheet. All seven voices gradually overlap with snippets from the day's events.

Performance ends when speakers feel they are tired of repeating. Each voice gradually dying out.

Like a journal, this piece marks the day's events both on the page and in performance.

*My Poetic Practice class came up with really interesting ideas for developing this piece further (cheers everyone):

1) inviting audience participation - free to contribute a word or sentence recalling any news they encountered that day

2) giving the audience a slip of paper which reads: On this day.... They fill in the blank (thanks Anna:) This would be collected prior/during performance by the speakers and read out alongside their own performance sheet

3) inform people of a box which will be left someplace for 24hrs in which they can deposit any news they have encountered that day (thanks Becky:) Collect, document and perform*

[1] Mayer's work Memory is a journal recording the month of July 1971. It consists of thirty-six pictures shot every day based on her notes and writings of this month.

Today's News: 11/01/08 (an alternative reading)

2008-01-11T23:00:00.002Z

ON THIS DAY you suffer from Hippopotomonstroesesquppedaliophobia
All students have become AVON ladies
to earn some extra ca$h
meanwhile
transvestite factory workers want
their leading roles.
He's on his mid-life gap year and sporting a new blonde hairdo.
"Afraid of crossing the road Sir? Ahh yes. Im afraid it's a case of agyrophobia."

ON THIS DAY throwing sweets to children is just too perilous
How tragic!
She has forgotten to brush her teeth
and now has a moustache.
The public loves to hate the actress
who plays porn star* in new type-cast role.
Drag routines cry out: 'enforcing charity will only kill kindness!'
"Afraid of bathing Madam? Ahh yes. Im afraid it's a case of ablutophobia."

ON THIS DAY scientists uncover a new language: Dolphin-Speak
Whilst Alsatians
show upstanding heterosexual respectability
the Brit police
must
learn alien languages to help celebrities
suffering from bipolar disorder - go figure!
"Afraaid of the number 8 Miss? Ahh yes. Im afraid it's a case of zemmiphobia."

ON THIS DAY take the laidback Antipodean approach
He's depressed
with the outcome of his last movie
(not his fault)
He a recluse. Let her keep her moustache!
He's eating his way to obesity. Let her forget to brush her teeth!
"Afraid of a tearful leader young Master? Ahh yes. Im afraid there is a name for it.
You'll have to refer to USwebsite.com"

ON THIS DAY max temp. 10 degrees C

The Inmates Of The Green

2008-01-06T15:28:00.000Z

A poem in the style of Charles Olson mapping an area in London.

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"Sienna's Wearing Alexander McQueen" - Part I

2007-12-14T11:49:00.000Z

This two-part poem is based on the poetic style of Frank O'Hara. It is a reworking of celebrity/fashion magazine Grazia in celebration of reaching Issue 100 - '100 special issues with Toni in Lloyd Klein and Drew in Dior!'

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"Sienna's Wearing Alexander McQueen" - Part II

2007-12-14T11:42:00.000Z

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2007-11-20T16:50:00.000Z

A mesostic poem in the style of John Cage

the underground

2007-11-03T15:11:00.002Z

One evening on a tube journey home I caught sight of a poster which read: "This is a dull poster but you're still reading it" I couldn't help but smile - A commuter spends so much of his/her time mindlessly absorbing images and words advertising insurance policies or ba.com (to name but a few) - it's unavoidable. It doesn't matter how "dull" they are the fact is that when we catch a glimpse we naturally read on.

It is this idea of the speed at which an image or message can be delievered to masses of people on a daily basis which I have tried to recreate in my own work. This piece began as a poem jotted onto a scrap of paper on the tube. However, I have combined this work with a type of visual textuality using the digital processes of Photoshop. Each image forms the basis of my digital experiments which combine one line from my poem with a digitally enhanced background. The overall form of each image has been set up to resemble posters you find on the tube. Each image can be viewed singularly as the each possess there own individual style, or in relation to the others as the words of the poem unite the pages to create a complete piece:

Page 1.

Word combinations such as '4mins', 'steps on to the platform' and 'mind the gap' recall the dialogue and singage of a daily commute. These words coupled with the iconic image of the tube map instantly establish the context of my poem and the tube experience I am attempting to recreate. I have distorted the colour of the tube lines and the overall clarity of the tube map, in an attempt to draw the reader's attention more so to the text which overlays the image. The reader absorbs both image and writing with neither element ignored but seen as an accompaniment to each other - the basis of an effective poster pehaps?
Ideas for improvement: Erasing station names and in their place filling in words from my original poem.

Page 2.

This simplistic but bold couloring and style of font was employed to give this 'poster' a "retro" quality. I took inspiration from the work of Jean Roelke who in her work Hammerheads stays within the confines of a black and white text with simplistic diagrams to create an overall striking image. I too used limited colours - black, white, red - and relied on the contrast between them, which I believe, draws the reader's attention to the white lettering standing out against the black shadows.

Click below to see Jean Roelke's Hammerheads: http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/work/current/roelke_01.html

Page 3.

Here, I wished to create a cartoon element by cutting cartoon figures out of one image and combining them with the black and white photograph. The text has a glossy fininsh in keeping with this cartoon-like quality. I used this technique of layering images from multiple sources to create a finish similar to that of artist Scott Helmes, who uses digital software to combine contrasting images to create collage.

Click below to see Scott Helmes's Bones VIII:

http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/work/current/helmes_01.html

Adults Should Not Fantasize

2007-11-01T18:33:00.000Z

Inspired by a visit to the Tate where I encountered Jackson Pollack's "action Paintings" and André Breton's surrealism, which is preoccupied with Marxist and Freudian psychoanalytic theories.

2007-10-26T02:05:00.000+01:00

Location: Tate Modern, London
Exhibition: Poetry and Dream
Date: 22/07/07

Surrealism and the work of Jannis Kounellis and Giorgio de Chirico. Both employed techniques such as free association, chance, biomorphic form and bizarre symbolism. In the 1960s, Kounellis was active in the Italian Arte Povera group focusing on breaking with tradition. They used new materials and processes, for example, architecture and in particular theatrical settings.

Other surrealists:
Andre Breton - the idea of the 'revolution of the mind' drawing upon Marxism. In 1924 Breton wrote First Manifesto of Surrealism stemming from Freud's Uncanny.

Jackson Pollack - uses poetic metaphor to represent human condition, for example, a sculpture of a bed stand signifies 'protection'.

Hermann Nitsch - Poured Painting (1938) a performance piece. Performance occuring on the canvas and during the making as paint was poured on to the canvas to express aggressive sexual and moral issues.

Also that day...

...an exhibition Global Cities. Takes inspiration from the effect of architecture and urbanism on the contemporary world. Focuses on the ever-changing social, cultural and economic forces that give shape to a city. Some of the talented artists and architects include: Nigel Coates, Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher, Nils Norman, Fritz Haeg, Richard Wentworth. Connections can be drawn between the concept of mapping major cities and the poetry of Charles Olson. Like Olson's techniques of mapping this exhibition also displayed facts and figures being merged with maps and images all in the same place. In his Maximus Poems Olson combines a poetical narrative with statistics and figures relating to his hometown.

Ideas include three-dimensional shapes and structures such as using sugar cubes to build a miniature Tate Modern. The sugar cubes draw upon the area's history as before the Tate was constructed, the site was home to a sugar factory. Therefore, materials relating to area being mapped.

Nigel Coates Mixtacity (2007)

Nils Norman Bus shelter 2015 (2007)

2007-10-25T18:19:00.000+01:00

Daughters wrapped in pervsome ribbons.

Read a bloody book every now and again -

from the potentially deadly British school

libraries with blood boiling killer rave drugs.

COVER YOUR PAPERY NECKS!

The Social Democratic Party is a myth of the near future - This is America!

And the European Union is an infectious disease - it could mutate into a

straight - haired blonde wearing bright red lipstick.

I tasted the HN51 bird flu virus covered in watermelon sugar - looking nice

and well groomed as Thatcher's willingness was transmitted from person

to person - her frizzy hair?

Chicks are supposed to be hot!

Female ambition - SHOCK HORROR - is a global pandemic!

So don't beat around the commercial bush you stunning Californian Senator.

TOPS OFF - whistles - crowd noise - it's what the people want - a fucking brilliant but pigeonholed pop group. Prog fans have been slaughtered and found washed up in a harbour - They're no risk to consumers!

You and me are mourning the death of the 1980s

so let's hold up the glowsticks and fluoro fibres and sound the rave horns!

Forget the dental assistants, secretaries and baby-holding dubiousness -

samples from the infected.

They are a one-way trap to the sexual scrap-heap.

I need a Rolling Stone - twenty six years old - a gurning, novelty rave act

with sharp lines - possibly hectoring and bitter.

A disgusting old hag like her

is found amongst the turkeys and a fast-rusting vagina - tests show that this

is a dangerous form of avian flu. But I want to put this all in a pot to make something new -

a curly, bare-faced brunette with ideas of collage and pastiche...

No lack of originality here! Let us not sell out. Let us see skin which is thinner and more wrinkle prone than men's.

CALL UPON THE CITIES OF THE RED KNIGHT and a statement from the EU commission.

GO nuts BUT go NUTS politely.

Female nudes over fifty rave spontaneity and chaos and have broken the marble ceiling.

LDN in 30

2007-10-25T17:57:00.000+01:00

Dance tangle - free. Ready spring - form.
Dash. Move. Transfer. King's Cross.
Dangle free. Rapidly fold.
Dare.
Press. Advance. Enjoy.
Darkness thick. Growing paramount.
Darn!
Skirting. Simmering. Underground.
Damsel. Running. Until Westminster.
Danger.
Night. Wireless. Dissolve.
Dank Paddington. Recognise ground.
Dandelion. Garden. Blissful. Cake.

Dart - Open. Now stand.

Darling. Home. Perfect. 30 mins.