transience video (6:08) the other bank text, 2017
after years spent walking through the fields
getting down to the river
and walking along the same bank
(over the bridge
and left)
i once found my way to the other bank
but have since forgotten how
to access it
so i walk on
wondering what the other bank holds
following my feet
which is fine because
truth be told
( it is )
i really like walking
if i could walk 500 miles
then i could walk 500 more
i’d be the man to walk 5000…
anyway
john cage’s dad was an inventor
who used to say how
he got most of his work done in his sleep
i don’t sleep very much so that statement for me’s a bit
redundant
( ha )
but i do walk a lot
and i think with my feet so this suits me just fine
and i’m walking now so i’m thinking about
dying
toenails
the best way to make plantain frittas
nirvana
how the world might be a better place if it weren’t for
erectile dysfunction
dogs dream in
septum piercings
and how to explain it
i don’t think the sentimental’s ever looked so psychedelic
i create something unashamedly autobiographical
and that is how it looks
i bet it makes the prospect of being me seem quite appealing doesn’t it?
that piece
(not this piece
the other one)
is a film about a period of change in my life
a period where multiple large changes were occurring around me
family
friends
girlfriend
simultaneously
but most of all it’s a film about change
how change is
the inevitability of it
fluid flow
untouchable by human hands
try how they might
( note:
upcoming
my hand clutching a pane of glass; bending / reflecting the light as if it were some metaphor for the lens
as if the artist
( me )
was trying to
implement
influence
change with their creative act )
which you can’t
no way
you cannot change the world with the creative act
but you can create things which
in turn
can greatly alter perspective
and alteration of perspective can change the world more than tectonic shift
i wonder what you’ll see when you look at it
i wonder what i’ll see when i look back on it tomorrow
this
( current )
viewpoint 1
from my future standing in viewpoint 2
will i be up high?
looking down
and how much will i be able to make out with
( what i’m assuming will be ) a mountain of accumulated clutter gathered at the 1.5
i wonder what the grass will look like
green ( ? )
er( ? )
or otherwise
( psychedelic? )
because the grass is always greener over the way
actually no
grass is never greener anywhere
if you want to make grass green
bend down
pick up a stem
and position its back to the sun
hold it high
and observe how it practically glows
green
also have fun recovering from a temporary self induced blindness
( idiot )
grass is never greener
grass is just
green
i’m rambling
been carried off by my own two feet
i fear this is fast not becoming a ( coherent ) piece of ‘art’
work
but a shaggy dog story
without the shaggy dog
a plot
beginning
middle
end
just words
and lots of
abstract symbols
sign posts pointing to sweet fuckall
arcane shit
we’ve got onto bad words now
and to think that all i was trying to do was give you an insight into a piece of art i’d made
( not this piece
the other one )
i heard of a guy once
who spoke in figure of eights
figures of eight ( elliptical like )
a lecturer at UCL who talked on post structuralism
incomprehensibly
but it would be after one of these
sustained logical impasses
that
when you
sitting top left of the C1 riding on through Kentish Town
sacrificing you seat to a lady with a ‘baby on board’ as she boards the bus
head puzzling over a thousand and one things
like dinner
hairstyles
existential philosophy
purgartory
the effect that viagra might have on
ten tons of bird
song from the end of
pizza
nothing in particular
that you gleam something
that through the sum total of his words
you understand
something
and now i bet you think this piece will have a similar effect
but it won’t
i’m sorry
it’s nothing special
i’m not even a real artist
if i was i would’ve gotten one of them
old school slide projectors
motor whirring ambience
slowly ratcheting its way round
all flickering and dusty
dirty in its own authenticity.
my text blown up big from the acetate
or glass
hand scrawled in a fine tipped sharpie
and magnified along with some neighboring dust
which is now the godzilla of the dust world
the real thing
but i’m not
your’e essentially reading
a power point presentation ( because this was initially going to be a piece of work presented on microsoft powerpoint )
and something has been sorely missed
land marks
a fence post
cartography
a rotted style
my meditation log
the cornfield where i sat one time at sunset
listening to Sigur Rós
carried off by my own two feet
riding on birdsong
and the sunset is coming now
and it seems
liminal
which is good because liminal’s one of my all time favourite words
“through the limit”
limin
its unspecificity blooms intrigue
my art has often been described as liminal
generally in place of
“a bit dreamy” or
weird
wouldn’t another word
“hypnopompic” or something
be more a valid fit?
also
more syllables
look better
on paper
i’m not sure why i’m complaining
as i’ve already said
i quite like liminal
a word that almost
doesn’t need to be said
a nothing word
pointless
( almost )
advocating a change of state
simply
without thinking to specify the from what to
what
i would quite like to try being a liquid
walk from solid to liquid form
but of course
liquids don’t walk
i’d drip into my own footprints
and pool and
( i’ve never had the opportunity to pool before )
i’d drip
i’d pool and
i’d settle
and in the end i’d
half evaporate into the sunset
and half sink down to the water table
where i’d seep
laterally
into the river
turn off the almighty.
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i feel so sorry for the people who find god
or even
after one of those once in a lifetime jaunts to goa
or somewhere
succeed in finding themselves
every time i go walking i get lost
every time i go for a walk i lose myself
which makes every walk home home a profound rediscovery
and it’s the best feeling to find how the person you’ve found is different from the one you lost
everytime
smiling at the 1.5
following my feet
riding the bird song
to
wherever to
and thinking how
it’s funny now that
after years spent walking through the fields
getting down to the river
and walking along the same bank
(over the bridge
and left)
i had once found my way to the other bank
but had since forgotten how
to access it
over and over
until today
when i simply
turned left
before the bridge
and it was right there
it’s quite like the other bank
( this bank )
but i like it more now that i’m
here