Monday, 17 December 2012
Stairs
In my current abode,The bedroom is on the ground floor as is the toilet but the kitchen is upstairs.It hasn't always been this way. Number one house had toilet and kitchen downstairs,bedroom upstairs. The second house I was acquainted with had the bedroom on the third floor,the toilet on the second and the kitchen on the ground. I then went through four house's where the kitchen was on the ground floor but the toilet and bedroom was up the wooden hill. Leading to the last share house I had in Putney SW15, which had bedroom,toilet and kitchen all on one plain. Don't know why I felt the need to write this down, its all of a bit of bollocks really.
Monday, 3 December 2012
Anyone for Sex ,with a 3D printer
In the psycho-porn amusement park of the future, we will be
able to 3D print a compliant partner(s)of our choice, Then instead of being
fired into erotic rhythms of consumerism with hands down your pants, staring
into a screen. We will all have the ultimate sex toy,a full size,fully complaint, maybe even a
self lubricating partner.
Uncomfortable? You will be in this pornopolis of the future.
Until this new time, we will have to let the mesmerizing light box let its stupefying effects wash over us. As humans our eyes are programmed to
look at abrupt changes in our visual field. It’s part of our survival
mechanism,the colourful quick images of a screen are difficult to resist.
Now that in our current life, we have dowsed everything with sex. The new emotions created by more and more and our
devotion to technology,are reaching into our dreams. Big 3D dreams. Fired out of the sphere, by the power of
watching.
Our 21st Century mantra is watch not do, My vision with a 3D
printer will be. Print, do, don’t watch.
Harlee (Circles) Murray
Born 1961
The early discovery of her sexuality meant that school life was never going to be easy. Protestant, working class Glasgow was an unforgiving environment for him.
The early discovery of her sexuality meant that school life was never going to be easy. Protestant, working class Glasgow was an unforgiving environment for him.
Not living up to his parent’s
expectation, Harlee ran away first to Manchester then onto London at 15.
Living in a North London squat he
fell into the emerging Punk Scene where she knew Richard Dudanski a drummer in
the 101ers, who helped him get a job at Rough Trade Records on Kensington Park Road
.
He began to produce fanzines and
gig posters for a host of Rough Trade artist, Spending the next years emerged
in the crucible of Punk and Post Punk, Knowing a who’s who’s (including Dave
Stewart who references Circles on the Eurhythmics first Album in 1981) of the
music scene, Band Performance did not appeal, but attending a Throbbing Gristle
Gig in 1978 his idea of performance changed.
First Came a ‘Punk Nazi’ where
dressed as a Nun he would eat swastika shaped cakes filled with Ribena so that
performance ended with him covered in ‘blood’ . Usually to a stunned audience.
By the early Eighties found her
working at InPhaze records as an assistant which is when Circles began a run of
Performance Art before gigs and the performance had changed to
‘Killer Coney’ where dressed as a
rabbit she would mince 8 dead Rabbits on a small table.
During a tour of Europe in 1984
she was arrested in Austria, but the tour proved fruitful in that Hermann Nitsch saw a performance and asked
Circles to become one of his assistance in his assistant in actions during 1985,Where
she returned to assist until 1988.
He drifted about for 18 months before in 1989 she went on a trip that
ended but didn’t finish in Tibet, Circles has spent the last 23 years in
Buddhist Counties roaming but also
producing. Thangka the painted or embroidered banner
which was hung in a monastery or a family altar and carried by lamas in
ceremonial procession, plus sand mandalas made for destructive ceremonial purposes.
During
a recent trip in Sri Lanka we met circles and convinced him to do her first show in 25
years.
Websites
I have
difficulty in getting the inspiration to post my own website.
Although
possessing the relevant skills to do it myself. I find the idea of posting me
up there, slightly intrusive. Plus its not true to the images, now this sounds wanky
as hell but the theory is based on this.
To stop me
messing with my paintings. I take a picture of them, So I can view them in a different
way, if the image works then I deem the painting to be finished. Trouble is
this image becomes something different, I have noticed how reproduced images, Usually
JPEGs do more justice to the painted work than looking at it with your own
peepholes. In very few cases it lets down all but the truly awesome pictures.
I also note
that as an artist of any type, some sort of posting is required whether it be
it myspace, tumbler ( I take part in that one) Wikipedia or your own site, this
makes it’s easy for the pursuer of information to track you down, this is not
necessarily a bad thing, but once up, it’s up until amended. It’s an all too
easy medium for snap shots of irrelevant drivel. Posting items like this with
no relevance at all to the white noise that clutters up everything.
So for the
moment I would like to sit in on an analog 1979 and consider things. It not that I
am anti-web its part of my work, part of my inspiration, but struggling
with this is still twisting the website idea over in my head.
Monday, 22 October 2012
Extreme Aperture Turbulence
I get asked to paint landscapes more than I care too. So some people must like them.
If any nice Gallery wants a proposal for a show. Read the following.
This is my attempt at painting the Horizon. Using text from night vision binoculars and anal bleaching as the basis of the proposal.
I imagine painfully squinting at the landscape through image enhancing optics. Is what I am trying to achieve.
If any nice Gallery wants a proposal for a show. Read the following.
This is my attempt at painting the Horizon. Using text from night vision binoculars and anal bleaching as the basis of the proposal.
I imagine painfully squinting at the landscape through image enhancing optics. Is what I am trying to achieve.
Extreme Aperture Turbulence
In order to design a reliable inter-outer optical link with memory apparatus. Visual
perceptions of the bleached area need an intense focus. All geographical and
geometrically objects seen will therefore appear as spots, nets, flies or
cobwebs, which move position or 'float'. This in conjunction with flashing
lights “floaters” are almost devoid of events when viewed at the extreme focal length. When also used in
conjunction with readily available peels. These are very effective at reducing
vision however they are met with at least a week of irritation and optic redness,
followed by a pink regrowth on the horizon.
For those under close supervision, it is safe and effective. But the
difference is by viewing through this reduced viewer any element becomes only the
outer zone. We all have the normal detection elements. But the measuring range can there
be reduced while maintaining the sensitivity for small trigonometric
deviations.
These trigonometric tests are therefore a necessity. In conjunction with this test we are able to capture the light flux of a wide wave range while the acid lightens in a safe localised way. More irritation results if the retina is used over a long period of
time and prolonged viewing is to be avoided.
The wave length recorded amounts to those classified as
“invisible” or “painful" to the user. It has been formulated for tropical use and in
preparations it is safer than any Hyper-pigmentation.
Experiments can also be focused on measurement of all visual impacts(optic
turbulence) against successful verification of the tested body. The image sharpness and brightness has a painful distorting effects. Exempt
at the extreme horizon, where image transfer is distorted over the entire
focus field. Even if the unit is used in the active or submerged mode. But the index-of-refraction
from optic turbulence require local anaesthesia and the recovery is up to 2 years.
Robust viewing in the presence of strong background light. Has resulted in the implementation of a test phase. All
prototypes can therefore be developed and tested easily, optical conclusion can
be achieved within 6 months. The final design can be seen in the picture above
which was able to meet all trial two objectives as a shadow of the silhouette.
Monday, 1 October 2012
The Abandoned Cupboard
In a third floor room, in a house built in 1867. Is a glass fronted black cupboard, filled with the abandoned, dusty attempts of a 12 year old boy to build his world. For 30 years has not really been touched.
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Creative Collaborations
Ghost Nets: Creative Collaborations is an exhibition of artworks produced as part of the innovative Ghost Nets Australia program. This initiative, now in its ninth year, is a coordinated effort by the Indigenous communities of coastal northern Australia to retrieve ghost nets and other debris from the sea.
This was truly the best thing I have seen all year, Its at the Cairns Regional Gallery. Sculpture made from discarded fishing nets, Shitty Photos as it was my phone and I suffer phone phobia when using it.The two metre gecko was awesome.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Pornlamist
My measure to counter those young men, who have been convinced to
blow themselves up,in a strange, synapses blocking attempt at gaining non-body paradise.
Is a new US Strategic policy at keep them in their bodies.
Is a new US Strategic policy at keep them in their bodies.
It’s based on ideas from the past, it’s really quite simple,
it’s a sort of secret weapon, but it’s not.
With both Al Qaeda and the Taliban having strange
medieval ideas we need to distribute social information, promoting social change in the tactile form of
a glossy magazine. These ideas, like those instigated during the late 1960s,
throughout the ‘Western World’. Should
always include the promotion of what is good and great about America. Freedom of
speech. We can then win those ‘Hearts and Minds’.
During ‘Operation
Linbacker II’ 18-29 Dec 1972, The USAAF flew 741 missions and dropped 15,237
tons (13822.80 tonnes) of destructive ordnance with their B-52 Bombers, on North
Vietnam. This nearly brought North Vietnam to its knees, which obviously did
nobody any good in the long run.
Bringing anybody to their knees just makes them angry,
Getting them into a positions of their choice, is another matter altogether.
Using the ideas readily available from Sargent ‘Oddball’ in the 1970 film 'Kelly's
Heroes', My idea is in the best proto-Hippie tradition of how to fight a battle and
not get killed.
‘We’ve got our own
ammunition, it’s filled with paint. When we fire it, it makes pretty picture,
scares the hell out of people’.
We all know those with narrow views of the world, believe
testosterone should be harnessed in some explosive way to wipe out the first
amendment. I propose using testosterone for the purpose of explosive subversion
with pretty pictures.
A USAAF B-52 now has payload of 70,000 pounds(31,5000kg),instead of packing them with bombs, packing them with Playboy Magazine or Hustler Magazine
(for the more Orthodox) is the weapon we need to power us to peace.
The average Playboy magazine weighs 2 pound (0.9 kg) it can be rounded up to 1kg for a special Al Qaeda edition.
That means,each B-52 Playboy deployment would release 31,500 Playboy playmates per sortie, with the same sortie ratio as in ‘Operation
Linebacker II’ that means nearly 23.3 Million Playboys deployed over any
11 day period, Combating any local small minded ideas.
I guarantee that the men of the region will have
something better to do with their hands than make bombs. When they chance upon randomly distribute glossy magazines plus nobody gets killed. We might even begin to see America, as
Paradise again. As there are some very interesting articles in Playboy.
Friday, 13 July 2012
My Dads Garage
I have a thing for work spaces, be it a garage or a studio, Must be something
to do with growing up around garages with Dad as a mechanic . Having a man space now
myself,means I always compare the tool storage/creative activity area I have now. With one that I grew up with. My Dads garage has been used
for many things since we moved house in 1978 ,Dismantled Cars, Racing
Car Storage and my attempt at building a replica Apollo Rocket (that
worked) But now the aesthetic of the space has me just standing in it
every time I visit the UK. Admiring the high alter of storage, where
stuff is stored and latent tools await the future . Until as always my
Mum asks me what I am doing in the garage.
Friday, 29 June 2012
Waiting for my future
My British Childhood is vaguely religious,
with strange days spent in the Village Hall, Schools days spent in
assemblies wearing Daps. Or haunted rainy days spent indoors watching the dreamy world of TV. Full of, weird French animation with obscure jazz soundtracks,The Clangers,experiments in garden sheds and Spike Milligan’s Q There was even some more bonkers stuff.
At worst it was slightly creepy and malevolent
with certain menace lurking behind next doors curtains. At best it’s
very English,with a cultural strain leading from David Bowie to
Radiohead, Dr Who to Banksy.
Its a Strange late 1960’s hangover, post hippy, with slightly folked up sensibility and a Punk can do attitude.It seeped into my subconscious, Leading to an amateurish adulthood of Bad Science,Dark Humor and World War Two sensibilities.
Although if the main strain of Television I watched
while growing up was correct (as it should be) the vision of that brave
new world by now should be here, I would be living in a sexy spandex suit
provided by the welfare state on Vulcan,eating food pills and having
sex in zero-G with all manner of pleasure droids in a distinctly English way.
When NASA’s Apollo space missions took off for the
Moon in 1969, the world was already gripped by science fiction, Not
Science tomorrow but Science in 40 years,(where I am now) this white
hot vision of the future,fueled Film, TV and books of all types to
promote an imaginative vision of the future, whether utopian or
dystopian.
By my teenage years,I lamented that I missed out
on the swinging sixties,its visions of urban utopias,its teenage
revolutionaries, its sex,drugs, and rock and roll.
But hell I grew up in the seventies and men with
pointy sticks, flair trousers and side burns were telling me about how
good the late nineties were going to be and not only in science
programmes.I was going to be laid in the future and it was only a short teleport away.
My formative decades watching the box promised so much more
than today’s 24/7 TV with their 64 rubbish channels, You actually have
to be a certain age to remember waiting patiently for the next
programme. Waiting for your future entertainment. In
between programmes the TV displayed a disappearing clock to keep you
occupied or a test card, which could hypnotically transfix me,on our then new 24inch colour
television.
By 1978 I was lapping up a diet of The Tomorrow
People, The Prisoner, Blake 7,Thunderbirds,UFO,Dr Who,Space 1999 and
Tomorrows World.
My dedication to that tube had a world that included
Glowing Alien births, Strange Parallel Universes, Funky Guitar Solos,
Groovy Jazz, Perspex Oracles, Exploding Extra Terrestrials, Rigid
Hairstyles, Spray on Catsuits (for Man and Women), Holidays in Space,
Cars lower than my knee, Rigid Plastic Bras,Strange God
like people and Stranger Daemens,Intergalactic power storms and nude
kick ass geeky girls all on one electric box in the corner flashing
a psychedelic red alert.
This personal and sexual liberation of
my technological utopian future, always seemed to be just around the
corner when I was 12 , so I mourn it from my porn fatigued present,my
adolescent imagination of a post millennium. before all of our pornatopia imagery existed.
My unusual whiff of childhood is now no more than a myth.Knowing that I could never have lived through it, makes it a more of a myth.even with the all cliché Tee-Shirts I see about Jet-packs.
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Metung Victoria
So, for my
Birthday we went to Metung, Victoria, a small village on Gippsland Lakes just a
four hour jaunt from St Kilda.
In my steel and
plastic eurobox, In Australia, the drive to any destination down the sinews of tarmac. Are always punctuated by enormous safety signs, ‘7 Fatal Accident,17
Serious Accidents this year don’t be Next ‘and ’Speeding is the
Biggest Killer’ These seem to me, to be less about stifling the dickhead
in people and more about wrapping us up in a nice sheepskin jacket.
Putting your
body into a contraption and travelling at more than 40kmh, means you could
suffer a catastrophic accident and die. If you were a pioneer pilot flying a plane during the 1930s,
there would be no way of ‘closing your eyes to revive’.
VICroads fear
is. We cannot be trusted on these trips. But sooner or later the meditative
effect of foot on throttle and hands on wheel will be replaced by our own
autonomous vehicles. These self-driving carriages will be able to drive you to
your destination of choice, using technology orbiting the globe,Powered by
electricity supplied by their own solar cells backed up with wireless energy
transfer (park your car in a designated spot and recharge) while you play 3D
backgammon on the back seat, with no fear of an accident.
All those nasty random elements of your journey will have been taken into consideration by a scientist at MIT. It will also come with the mind numbing effect, of no delight at a new discovery, for there will be none.
All those nasty random elements of your journey will have been taken into consideration by a scientist at MIT. It will also come with the mind numbing effect, of no delight at a new discovery, for there will be none.
The journey to
Metung seemed to be a trip though ideas now lost and looking for meaning
especially as they don't make any economic sense Telephone kiosks, Churches,
and Power Stations. My Birthday to me is always about journeys, Especially as
its a NASA anniversary of the first man mission to Skylab. Space flight was
something that punctuated my formative years. It fired my imagination when I
was five, as it does now. I always seem to be thinking of being fired off, away
from our sphere and moving about in weightless three dimensions on some fantastic voyage.
On the first
morning at Metung, during breakfast it was reinforced again while I read ‘The
Age’. It dawned on me that this tiny outpost had been set up by people who
were so far away from where they started out, it was the equivalent of going to
the moon. The paper had an article on Neil Armstrong, the first person to step
on the moon, making him probably the world’s most famous explorer.
I marvelled at
our now lost ability to travel anywhere and risk all. Here was a man who flew
78 combat missions in the Korean War, who between 1960 and 1962 managed to
travel at 6420kmh (Mach 5.74) and get to an altitude of 63,000 metres while
testing the envelope of the X-15 rocket plane.
Here was also a man who allowed himself to be strapped iton a rocket with two others in 1969, so he could stand on an object that orbits our home.Traveling over 500,000 km to get there and get back. Basically,in a tin foil box no bigger than my car.
From the place of my birth I have travelled the 18000km to and from Australia many times. Always in the comfort of big, electronically controlled airplane. Those that initially travelled to Metung not only travelled the 311km from Melbourne, overland or by sea, but probably came from all corners of the globe. These people took part in some heroic voyage, so they could build a better safer life. These voyages could and did result in people dying in the pursuit of this idea.
Here was also a man who allowed himself to be strapped iton a rocket with two others in 1969, so he could stand on an object that orbits our home.Traveling over 500,000 km to get there and get back. Basically,in a tin foil box no bigger than my car.
From the place of my birth I have travelled the 18000km to and from Australia many times. Always in the comfort of big, electronically controlled airplane. Those that initially travelled to Metung not only travelled the 311km from Melbourne, overland or by sea, but probably came from all corners of the globe. These people took part in some heroic voyage, so they could build a better safer life. These voyages could and did result in people dying in the pursuit of this idea.
Regretting that
I didn’t use the toilet while in the cafe, I glanced at a tourist information
board about a boat slipway being used during the 1930s for flying boat
refueling. The board showed a weather washed picture of a flying boat.
Not really
paying attention, due to the bladder pressure,I was off on an imagined history
of RAAF Catalina’s and Qantas Empress flying boats using the lakes at Metung as
base during World War Two. While the Catalina’s looked for Japanese Subs,like
the one that sunk the ‘SS Iron Crown’ off Gabo Island in 1942 the
Empress’s transported General MacArthur up the coast, what transpires was
totally different so I should have read the board and had a pee at the cafe.
Australia
suffers from a treacherous coastline, With Victoria being singled out, due to
the higher traffic history between Sydney and Melbourne. The ‘SS Christina
Fraser’,was a collier built in 1925 of 717 tons; Owned by R. W. Miller
& Co.She left Newcastle NSW Thursday 22nd June 1933, on her
maiden interstate voyage bound for Geelong Victoria , she was last
sighted battling a strong gale about six miles south of Gabo Island, by
the steamer ‘SS Koranui’ at 1.50 a.m. on the morning of Saturday 24th
June 1933.
Her late arrival
started an airborne search, that wouldn’t surprise anybody today but which at
the time had every aviator showing bravery as they flew up against a Victorian
Winter. Showing fortitude, proficiency, and self-reliance these men were
pioneers of search and rescue. Their planes made of wood and canvas, their
windows of cellophane (if they had any) and sometimes their transport had their
ability to stay aloft compromised.
On Wednesday
June 28th the ships agent chartered a Saro Cutty Sark for an air
search. A small twin engine flying boat it was piloted by a Mr G. Jenkins, and
left Essendon airport for Gippsland, using Sale for an overnight stop after its
initial search. While searching again on the Thursday 29th the
little Saro with two observers aboard, was forced to make an emergency landing
in the wintery sea, due to engine trouble, caused by a cracked fuel pipe. Luck
was with them, as they alighted on the sea near a Norwegian tanker the‘SS
Varanger’ who plucked the crew and plane from the water.
Friday 30th
June the search was intensified by the owners of the collier.Engaging the
services of the Hart Aircraft Company's triple engine Fokker F.VIIa-3m Trimotor,piloted
by Mr J. Turner, it too left Essendon looking for the missing collier.
The worn picture
on the tourist board depicted what was one of two RAAF Supermarine
Southampton’s (I think it did,I needed a pee).The Southampton was an open
cockpit wooden hulled twin engine, biplane flying boat, weighing 4300Kg with a
crew of five. It made its first flight in 1925 and was used for coastal
reconnaissance.The pilots of this machine would have stepped into an open
cockpit coping with winter weather while two snarling 450hp Napier Lion V
motors assaulted their ears five feet behind them. The RAAF Southampton’s
operated out of Point Cook VIC. Searching the sea for the missing ship since
Thursday 29th but had spent the evenings at Metung.
The RAAF plane
was now flying with six men included a wireless operator and three observers
with powerful binoculars,the flying boat would cover a 1000-miiles over a
section of the Tasman Sea each day.
Adding to the
search on Saturday July 1 1933 was the famous ‘Southern Cross’, Fokker
F.VIIa-3m Trimotor. This left from Mascot Airport Sydney piloted by Sir Charles
Kingsford-Smith, with a wireless operator and an observer; it along with the
other two aircraft flew down past Eden NSW over the area looking for the ‘Christina
Fraser’.
By Monday 3 July 1933 all hope was beginning to be lost, as no sign of crew or identifiable wreckage had been found. Still the big flying boats spent three & half hours looking.On July 3rd a radio message from the master of the liner ‘SS Westralia’ stated that at 7.30 am. an object 10 feet long was seen protruding 3 feet out of the water 15 miles west of Gabo Island. The RAAF flying boat flew over the position given but a long search failed to reveal from tho air any sign of wreckage.
By Monday 3 July 1933 all hope was beginning to be lost, as no sign of crew or identifiable wreckage had been found. Still the big flying boats spent three & half hours looking.On July 3rd a radio message from the master of the liner ‘SS Westralia’ stated that at 7.30 am. an object 10 feet long was seen protruding 3 feet out of the water 15 miles west of Gabo Island. The RAAF flying boat flew over the position given but a long search failed to reveal from tho air any sign of wreckage.
The search was
called off on Tuesday 4th July when it was finally concluding the ship had
founded in heavy winter weather with the loss of all on board. Neither she nor
‘SS Koranui’ the vessel that last sighted her was fitted with
radio apparatus. So no Mayday was ever sent or heard.
Aug 4th
1933 In Sydney an open verdict was recorded by the Commonwealth Marine Court,
which investigated the loss of the missing collier The Court, in announcing its
decision, ex- pressed the opinion that all seagoing vessels on the Australian
coast should be fitted with wireless apparatus (Radio), The Australian
Navigation Law was changed in late 1935 to accommodate this.
The names of
persons on board the vessel at the time of her disappearance were:.John Walsh
Queen, Master; Chas.Wm. Frost, First mate; Arthur W. Lucey, Second mate;Daniel
Palmer, Bosun: Charles. A. Gale, A.B.William England, A. B;Albert Seager A. B.
Paul Kuraimes, A. B;John Stafford Huntley, O.S.; Frank Walker, first engineer:
Robert D. McPherson, second engineer; James Birrell, third engineer; William H.
Olsen, fireman; William Bassett, fireman; Joseph Rogers,fireman;Charles
James,cook and steward; Ernest Collerson,and a boy.
The search for
the missing ship highlighted the remoteness of Gippsland in the 1933. Let alone
when it was first settled in the 1840s, the roads or tracks to this part of the
state , suffered from heavy rain especially in winter and the topography was
hilly.
Born in 1821
Captain Alfred Darby kept a journal of his time afloat. Starting as an ordinary
seaman, he rose to the rank of Captain,. His first attempt at a master was on a
schooner ‘Mumford’ assuming command in the capital of The Philippines,
Manilla.During Oct 1844, he sailed with a cargo of sugar and cigars bound for
Hobart, Tasmania.Unfortunately the ship lost a mast in a typhoon on the way.
The newspapers announcing his arrival two months later Dec 29th.
After other duties and other ships,Darby captained the 'City of Hobart'a three masted steam ship for five years between 1860-1865,a hundred years before Armstrong flew the X-15,this ship was battling its own climatic envelope as it battled across the Tasman Sea between Melbourne and Dunedin with mail and general cargo.The Newspapers of the time would list his coming and goings in the miscellaneous shipping adverts.
The newspapers announcing his arrival two months later Dec 29th.
After other duties and other ships,Darby captained the 'City of Hobart'a three masted steam ship for five years between 1860-1865,a hundred years before Armstrong flew the X-15,this ship was battling its own climatic envelope as it battled across the Tasman Sea between Melbourne and Dunedin with mail and general cargo.The Newspapers of the time would list his coming and goings in the miscellaneous shipping adverts.
My winter
Birthday weather was reported as
May 25th
2012
‘A deep low pressure system over Bass Strait south of Wilsons Promontory will move steadily south-eastward’s past the east coast of Tasmania tonight then away across the south Tasman Sea during the weekend. Damaging winds averaging 50 to 70 km/h with peak gusts around 100 km/h are forecast for mainly coastal areas of the West and South Gippsland and East Gippsland forecast districts. The severe weather warning for parts of the Central forecast district has been cancelled, but the situation will continue to be monitored and further warnings will be issued if necessary.’
It’s easier for
me to check this (took two minutes on the web) but Captain Darby and a host of
other ships would pitch themselves against weather that was not predicted, only
expected time and again. The trip took about 11 days. In 1864 alone, Darby
travelled this route ten times.
In 1865 he took
charge of a coastal Paddle Steamer the ‘Charles Edwards’.
The
Launceston Examiner of June
4 1867 reported that:
‘The Charles Edward has been In the Gippsland lake trade for some time. She is 129 feet long, 20 feet beam, and 8 feet deep; 141 tone, 60 horse power, and steams 10 knots.She has accommodation for eight ladies and twelve gentlemen in the cabin,and about forty in the steerage’
This Paddle
steamer plied its trade along the Victorian coast to the lakes with Captain
Darby until the late 1860s, when Darby would have been in his early 50s. On our
wanders at the back on Metung we saw a sculpture of the ‘Charles Edwards’.
http://www.wrecksite.eu/img/wrecks/ss_charles_edward_31.jpg
The four hour trip through Melbourne suburb’s to a cute holiday destination and back, is now punctuated with signs telling me to go careful. I can read of travels in the recent past where nobody could stop the ride because they wanted to get off. But my immediate future now, always seems planned out by committee.
http://www.wrecksite.eu/img/wrecks/ss_charles_edward_31.jpg
The four hour trip through Melbourne suburb’s to a cute holiday destination and back, is now punctuated with signs telling me to go careful. I can read of travels in the recent past where nobody could stop the ride because they wanted to get off. But my immediate future now, always seems planned out by committee.
It started to
rain on the way home which the wiper blades of my car dealt with efficiently.
Maybe we are all getting a bit soft.
Monday, 4 June 2012
The Pyre
Artists reference their lives all the time, Maybe
it’s a desire to return to the past or getting trapped by an organising
principle.
Being the manager of my own life and not wanting to let the inner Artist out without a purpose. I had an Art Pyre at the weekend.
After being ill for 8 months, turning 44 and now having to wear glasses for the first time in my life, a burning seemed appropriate.
Metaphorically my scribbles seem to take up more space than they should. But the catalyst was talking to a UK street artist who had just sold $50,000 of work.
Being the manager of my own life and not wanting to let the inner Artist out without a purpose. I had an Art Pyre at the weekend.
After being ill for 8 months, turning 44 and now having to wear glasses for the first time in my life, a burning seemed appropriate.
Metaphorically my scribbles seem to take up more space than they should. But the catalyst was talking to a UK street artist who had just sold $50,000 of work.
I had also noticed in Melbourne a candlelight vidual for a
‘Banksy’ It turned out that some people believed that a Chapel Street
wall painted by somebody from Bristol in the UK to be of some supposed
Australian cultural merit.
Every work created with a street artist seems to reference a screen printed 'Warhol’, he did it first.It’s really like trying to be the ‘Sex Pistols’ why bother.(yes I know its stencil Art, but the same principle applies)
While in London earlier this year I saw a ‘Grayson
Perry’ installation. His new works alongside objects made by unknown
men and women from the British Museum’s collection.
It wasn’t perfect screen prints or past ups but people having a decent stab at craft. Coming up with incredible beautiful but wonky objects.
It wasn’t perfect screen prints or past ups but people having a decent stab at craft. Coming up with incredible beautiful but wonky objects.
Street and Non Street artists go through the same process it’s just that Graffiti art is just a bit me too at the moment, Makes me want to burn all my stuff. Oh I just did.....
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
The Portable Fist Pump
In my fluoro
shirted locality. There are at this moment, seven apartment buildings scratching
into the sky. The array of equipment brought in, by the builders to pull these erections skywards. Looks like a
small war effort surrounded by traffic cones.
With the
influx of workers comes the ever-present HSE requirements, Flags , Go and Slow
signs, Whistles and the portaloo. The ability to port a toilet into any area is
a relative new thing. But they arrive stacked on trucks, craned into position
for use. Virtually self-cleaning they are able to store the expressed liquids
in their self-contained polycarbonate shell.
Toilets,
potable and public, have
a history back to the mid 18thCentury the first modern, with a flush (in a
Victorian sense) public lavatory, was opened in London during 1852, Constructed
for the ‘The City of London Corporation’ by contractors George Jennings
of Brighton. They were usually underground. Jennings calling them ‘Halting
Stations.' charging 1d, a go.
Initial
Public use of these ‘Halting Stations' was difficult. As it was a topic which nobody
mentioned. But by 1895 Jennings had his underground public conveniences in many
British and Empire towns. With the modernisation of the late Victorian and
Edwardian periods saw the construction of free public conveniences above ground
plus a reform campaign also campaigned for facilities for women, as the early Toilets were
primarily for men.
Now in
the 21st Century a Public convenience is available in shopping
centres, public buildings, pubs and clubs, and motorway services areas. In Australia we have
National Public Toilet Map this shows the location of more than 14,000 public
and private toilet facilities across Australia for Public use
.
These small public spaces are in fact used for all manner of shenagins .We all
know this as condoms, are usually sold in toilets.
Couples, and in fact as many as will fit in, have been engaged in the primary sexual activity of mankind
in a small spaces, since we walked upright.
In Canada recently a couple was arrested for public
lewdness in a pay toilet, but successfully argued that as it was a pay toilet ,
the couple were basically in a form of
hotel accommodation. Gay code for a public toilets in the UK during 1960s was a
cottage, to go cottaging was to have anonymous sex in a cubical, It could involve
all manor of signals and/or glory or Judas holes drilled in walls to view or
perform acts .
In the present we have people using a phone to film themselves
or others polishing the purple bishop in a cubical, Posting this on Websites to
advertising services for those who want to get jiggy in small space. As we now don’t
live in the era ‘self-polluted sin and
all its frightful consequences’ (Dr. Balthazar Bekker) what I propose is
the pay mobile ejaculation space.
A 2003 study in Australia found
that men who ejaculated most (more than five times a week) in their 20s, 30s
and 40s had about a third less instances prostate cancer. Research
undertaken in Japan shows that men take 35 seconds to use a urinal, while women
take a minimum of 60 seconds to use a loo. But the average time for intercourse
is between 7 and 10 minutes. So there is a health benefit and a revenue earning
potential in all this latent sexual energy.
In that suburb of mine, before work and at lunchtime. It’s
a busy time for the ladies who operate outside as chippies, sparkies and
plumbers seek some crotch attention before another shift starts.
Over 40
years after France's May 1968 revolution spawned the slogan "pleasure without obstruction,",
Local authorities should now be looking into ways of making small public spaces
more available.
In
these times of austerity and cut backs, They could install automatic self-cleaning web friendly pay
spaces, We could then all hire The Portable
Fist Pump. In a small movable room that can store bodily fluids, We could communicate,
defecate and fornicate all at the same
time. when nature called.
The WTO declared, 19
November, as World Toilet Day.
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