Hugh & Andi at the LAB

Hugh & Andi, originally uploaded by aesop.

(Hugh Bryden and Andi McGarry)

At the London Artists' Books fair at the ICA this weekend. I had a really good, productive time 9even though I was surrounded by a superabundance of tempting artworks and all the expense that the metropolis can throw to a man with my modest tastes (I even order a cheap curry on a boozy night out)I took a lot of notes and made contact with a number of people whose work I'd like to find out more about. I came up with a couple of ideas whilst there, too, but they await a bit of further thought before I write them up. I was a bit disappointed in my own books. They looked a bit sad and unloved, and not really up to the standard I'd like to reflect. For the moment I'm putting it down to a bit of a flirtation with trying to make commercially-viable work, and a bit of aridity arising from too much computer work. Suffice it to say that at the moment my fingers are mucky with charcoal, and though I'm still a bit timid about feeling that my books are getting better, it felt good.

city of bells

city of bells, originally uploaded by aesop.

getting ready for LAB

I'm going to be at the London Artists' Book fair at the ICA tomorrow. I need to pack, obviously, but more important will be the scene-setting I want to do for myself. I want to use the event as a chance to make a few informal contacts with artists and survey work I think I will want to consider for possible case studies. Since my research is going to be about studio practice, I want to try to sound out how I will talk to artists about this aspect of things. It needs to be somewhat distinct from a regular critical discussion, and closer to something which looks at how ideas are managed and developed, nurtured even, through the enabling form of the book. My hunch, as I've written elsewhere, is that book artists all use books as an heuristic tool to get some conceptual leverage on their ideas. They give access to discrete qualities, particular sorts of media articulation and a full circuit of roles within the creative field. Anyway, I want to find a way to tal to artists about this, in so many words, to find out what it feels like to work on books from their point of view, and to what extent the y feel books are an enabling factor in their work.

It'll also be a chance for me to enjoy other's work and look at some of the best new books available. I've been feeling a need to return to my own work, in terms of quality and intensity, things having been on a bit of a commercial footing of late, and sacrificing something of the obsessive quality that makes the books tick. It'll be good to have this chance to be inspired.

Also, and no small thing, there'll be a chance to have a beer or two with some of my acquaintances from Wexford. I can't get too drunk (are you listening to me, Andrew?) but it'll be fun.

How Art Made the World

Link- How Art Made the World
I just finished watching the first three episodes of this series which was on BBC earlier on this year. I'd wanted to see it for a while because it seemed to tie in with some of the other reading and thinking I've been doing about artwork, intention and intentionality, consciousness, and artists' books. (Phew! It's a big net, and I'm tring to haul it in on my own).

I was delighted to see Vilanor Ramachandran turn up as the
presenter's very first talking head. Ramachandran's theories on the
neurological foundations of art are still a bit scientistic for my
liking when they appear in their 'raw' state, but the sorts of
modifications and elaborations on similar themes which crop up in some
things like Draisma
, Claxton, et al, are a bit more promising, and form a sort of
hovering, unconnected background to my preparations to try and talk to
book artists about what makes them tick and why they do books at all (
my latest addition to the motley family of theories clustering like
flies... is to do with Robert Darnton's essay What is the History of Books where
he talks about the circuit of  readers, producers and distributors that
make up the field of book history's study. It's a model of
interdisciplinary interaction that tries to bring together some of the
many strands of book history. I'm currently  involving it in a
spirited  mashup with Johanna Drucker's notion of the Artists' Book as
the 'quintessential 20thC art form and the bits of Ricoeur I know via
Kearney's book On Stories.)

Anyway, I'm straying rapidly... I enjoyed the show, indulged myself
in a couple of soliloquies on how I would differ from the presenter
about how art enunciates intention and creates and is created by
culture (which is, I say, a thing explicable as much as needs be by
natural sciences when we find suitable models, which allows the
application of bits of the modified Ramachandran-stuff, too.) Virtuous
circles all over the damn place.

I'm sorry, I seem to have triggered an avalanche of brain dandruff,
here. Show was fine. Wanted to find out more about some stuff and
wanted to argue about some.

the frenzied curtain of the possible

Link: Netvibes.

I already use Newsgator and Feedburner to look at feeds away from home and at my own computer, but I'm considering whether i might not switch to netvibes for my rss feeds. It has a lovely interface and no fluff you don't want. Newsgator seems a bit pointedly corporate sometimes. has some nifty modules like gmail notices and galleries running from flickr feeds that are fun. Also from Writely, though i'm not in a position to need Writely at present.

You could also gear it up to display del.icio.us tag feeds and so on, and presumably stuff from remember the milk and so on.

Note to self-I need to set it up so that my Yahoo calendar reminders get forwarded to both my website inbox "my email address', AND my Gmail account, so that they show up here. Wonder if I can forward with a filter on my website mail?

Tiercel Movie

Tiercel Movie (The link takes ages but does work if you've got Quicktime)

This has been kicking around for some time. I finally got around to putting on some kind of soundtrack music. I've found that  iPhoto's  pre-packaged web exports seem to do the best job of delivering a file of anything like acceptable size, despite my tinkering with various compression regimes/framerates/palettes/screen sizes. The only problem with this solution (which gives a filesize of about 9mB with identical-seeming quality to my next-best effort at 24mB), is that it outputs to the wrong screen size ( a 4:3 ratio, as opposed to my eccentric choice based on the size of the book pages the film was based on) Anyone know what settings I should use, or what ones have been used in iMovie's settings? Is there something inherent in the aspect ratio I've gone for that defeats the compression algorithms somehow?

Anyway, here, at last, is the Tiercel film on the web. It looks a lot better from here but I thought a 400mB QT was asking a bit much of my reader.

finger puppets

finger puppets, originally uploaded by aesop.

finger puppets

finger puppets, originally uploaded by aesop.

These here characters are part of my contribution to A-Mart, the art supermarket at Ale and Porter in Bradford-On_Avon. The opening will be at 6.30 on Friday, and there'll be lots of stuff there from dozens of artists, including ceramics in the shape of 'tupperware' type plastic containers, t-shirts and stuff by Mark Pawson, and artists books by me and Melanie ward, amongst others, all set amidst the engagingly bizarre cerise colour scheme dreamed u for the occasion. I was quite keen on the sock puppets which will be available, though there's also a range of pinhole camera-related stuff that looks good, too.

I was over there yesterday, having gotten a lift from Linda Clark, whose driving opened up a new chapter with this inter-town run, hooray. As always, everyone was very welcoming and sympathetic about my sore back. I'm in the wars again now, having managed to introduce a fragment of prawn cracker into the surroundings of my left eyeball, which swelled up a good deal. Sarah's liberal application of ice in a selection of rubber gloves kindly supplied by viki seem to have done the trick and staved off a monocular future for a while, though I'm typing wit the affected eye still closed and a bit itchy-runny, but well within acceptable norms. ( I can see fine through it if anyone's worried, though it still feels a bit crumby). Spoiled a game of scrabble that was shaping up to be enjoyably awful.

unrelated incidents

I.F., originally uploaded by aesop.

for illustration friday

Tai Chi

Attended a class in Tai Chi at the Southville Centre last night. I'd been a bit cagey about starting it, since the taster class I'd attended was run by the regional head instructor rather than the actual teacher. I needn't have worried, as it was great. really worth the while. I think I'll enjoy it, but I have to find the money, which is a bit tight right at the moment. I'll find a way, though.

I've spent most of the day today putting together material for Ale & Porter's AMart exhibition. Since I've done a small range of finger puppet toys for them, it amounts to mounting and cutting out these. I hope this show will prove a bit more fruitful than the artists' books fairs have been of late!

Remember remember

I was over in Compton Martin on Nov 5th to have hot Chestnut soup, smoke and fireworks. Horrendous bus journey, but worth it for the panoramic view of dozens of different folks' firework shows going off all at once.

Jonathan Caouette | Tarnation

Link: Jonathan Caouette | Filmmaker - Tarnation. Saw J. Caouette's film today... first of my new screenselect dvds

Worthwhile. Lots of edited together bits and pieces, great narrative vision and atmosphere, and a story worth telling. I'd wanted to see this at the cinema but never found the time. Vibrant, intense, alive, and tough too. I'm very much blessed with a supportive and easygoing family and background, but J.C.'s story is a lot grittier. It sparkles a bit more too, though. The schtick about this film is that it was put together on iFilm. That's great, and perhaps it explains the editing style, which is, I think, the most skilful aspect of the film, along with the narrative conceptualisation- of course, they're really part of the same whole- but the editing is very far in the forefront, very much the area of control whereas camera, lighting and the available material aren't really part of an intended effect, though they do produce a particular aesthetic. It did make me wonder about doing likewise, though I haven't made a film since a lighthearted 90-second effort about losing stuff called Personal Effects, which up and died after its first rejection. Cauoette is clearly made of more determined stuff. Excellent and unique.