what to do: November 2009

Friday, November 27, 2009

on my mind

Hejduk. Vladivostok, 1989

Turrell. Afrum-Proto, 1996

Eliasson. Mirror door (visitor), 2008

negative radio

Dunne & Raby, Faraday Chair, 1998
(thanks to Duncan)

"Faraday Chair: As electronic products escape their cases and leak into the space surrounding them, it might become necessary for people to seek shelter in specially constructed non-radio spaces or negative radios. To shield our homes would be a luxury only the rich could afford. The Faraday Chair provides shelter from electromagnetic fields invading our homes. It is a utilitarian shelter of minimum dimensions and comfort, it might even be a retreat, a new place to dream, away from the constant bombardment of telecomunication and electronic radiation."

One part of their Hertzian Tales, 1994-97

Thursday, November 26, 2009

the maybe

Cornelia Parker/ Tilda Swinton, The Maybe, 1995
(thanks to E.Jae)

and I also I found:

Cornelia Parker, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991
(follow link to see other installation views/ different lighting/ close-ups/ pics of the explosion...)

These were very appreciatively found and duplicated from this blog, The Opposite of Tomato.
The (anonymous) blogger wrote this nice passage to describe the experience of the piece:

Cornelia Parker has long been an artist I much admire, from the time I first encountered her iconic work 'Cold Dark Matter: an Exploded View', a typical garden shed & its contents blown apart at the artist's request by the British Army & then reconfigured in a gallery setting, the pieces of charred wood & objects hung on wires from the ceiling around a central, single light bulb: experiencing the work at Tate Modern was wonderful, as one is both simultaneously able to walk around the arrangement, the physical object, the not-quite-still-life, & yet be enveloped within it, with dramatic shadows of the suspended objects being cast on the surrounding walls & also the distinctive smell of the charred matter lingering in the atmosphere. - TV's Mr. Snooker, North Wales, UK

Very cool. After initially feeling strange and strangely depressed after rehab today I'm getting more optimistic about this. The rulez- I move forward intuitively, I keep mum, and try to figure it out later. This will come full circle eventually, and it will probably be faster if I stop getting in the way. One good sign is that funny convergences, however incidental and innocently irrelevant, are once again cropping up in my "research" (just plain search?) and things are feeling beautifully fortuitous.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

smell of old books

From the Telegraph:
"The smell of old books analysed by scientists

Old books smell like grass, with a tang of acidity and a hint of vanilla, according to scientists who have discovered a way to tell the condition of an works by their odour."

link to article

snuff

I went to the AGO last weekend to check out the miniatures in the Thomson Collection. The entire collection was beautiful but I absolutely adored the two walls of Chinese snuff bottles. I wish I`d had my camera on me to sneak a photo or two- next time. They were displayed on two facing walls, their cases backlit by glowing white light. Each bottle sat on it`s own little frosted plexiglass pedestal, and all together they were arranged like a flock of birds.

And of course I like the snuff to nose connection.

Of the bottles below, only the ones 2nd from the right in the 1st and 2nd row are from the Thomson collection. The rest were taken from the website of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society. Not a joke. It`s right here at www.snuffbottle.org