Untitled doesn't really mean...

...what it used to mean any more

Collisions: Julie Clarke + Mark McDean (23.11.2011)

GATC: Julie Clarke 2011 ~ Vintage doily with lace trimming, circular insert covered with acrylic paint and fake gold leaf. Kewpie doll bound and attached to doily with black upholstery cotton.

My response is an intuitive one based on the fact that in Mark's last artwork he was not only creating a momento mori but was also making reference to his grandmother. I thought that I would approach this notion of remembering my mortality as a return to childhood ~ an embrace of death and life. The lace doily is an object that featured prominently in my grandmother's house where I lived for a few years. These delicate, circular objects, worked with nimble fingers graced the top of her sideboard as well as the highly polished dining table. So,  the doily for me, inherently points to nurturing as well as decoration. However, here I am using the doily as representing intricate patterns in our lives ~ objects around us or biological connections, hence the reference to GATC ~ Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine (nucleotides that make up our DNA). The Kewpie (or Cupie) doll named after the naked cupid is considered a symbol of love and desire, and I recall them being attached to a long wooden stick and sold at the Royal Melbourne Show; much to the delight of small girls who would covet them. More importantly in terms of the work, is the fact that I see nature and nurture, as well as highly constructed codes as impacting on the naked child.

We Need to Talk about Kevin: short film review by Julie Clarke

Poster: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2576724480/tt1242460

After seeing We Need to Talk about Kevin (Lynn Ramsay, 2011) this afternoon, the words on my lips were ones I'd often heard when I was a child: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child. And, although I don't believe in hitting children, I do believe that they should be disciplined so that they can learn appropriate behavior. We Need to Talk about Kevin is a psychological thriller about the relationship between Eva (Tilda Swinton) and her son Kevin (Ezra Miller), but it is also about both parent's complicity in forming the child into the young, psychopathic adult, who is selfish, manipulative, ruthless and feels absolutely no guilt for his inappropriate and destructive behavior. At the beginning of the film I felt sorry for the young Kevin because I thought he was demonstrating characteristics of autism, which just didn't suit the middle-class Eva living in her beautiful house in the country.  Indeed Eva's husband feels that she is way too hard on the child, who he readily forgives. But later I realized that Kevin was not slow, but was cleverly manipulating his mother and even so, I became unsympathetic to her since she appeared too weak to counter his attempts to control her. From the onset the director uses different time frames, flash backs and interesting montage to create the notion that Eva is unfit for mothering or of coping with her insecurities and anxieties.  In her frustration and inability to change Kevin's behavior she throws him against a wall, breaking his arm.  And, in another scene she recounts that, prior to Kevin's birth she was happy. Indeed, we are lead to believe in so many ways that Eva is not only complicit in Kevin's behavior, but may well be the cause of it, for so often throughout the film visual clues provide a correlation between them.  In a scene at the beginning of the film Eva dunks her face into water in the bathroom basin. Since the camera is placed below the basin so that we may clearly see her, we are surprised that her face suddenly morphs into that of her child. This correlation between Kevin and his mother is evident in the scene in which Kevin is being visited by his mother in jail. He sits silently in front of her and systematically bites the top of each finger-nail and places each small, white nail on the table in front of him. A subsequent scene demonstrates that Eva has purchased a dozen broken eggs, simply so that she can escape quickly from  a person she does not want to see in the supermarket and is later shown eating  her cooked scrambled eggs and placing pieces of white egg-shell onto the table in front of her. Throughout the film there is an illusion to blood - blood ties and blood rites. The first few frames of the film contain an aerial shot of a vast crowd of people indulging in an orgy of squashed tomatoes. It is a reference to the festival of La Tomatina in Buñol in the Valencia region of Spain, in which about 150,000 tomatoes are thrown.and there is complete abandonment to the moment. The scene and entwined bodies within in represents unbridled passion, which is demonstrated more fully by the conclusion of the film in which Kevin is responsible for a bloody school massacre. The ruddy colored squashed tomatoes on naked flesh is continued throughout the film as stain: the smeared red paint on Eva's house, car and face and eventually on the  blood smeared bodies.  Tilda Swinton and the young Ezra Miller are absolutely convincing and brilliant in this film, which asks us to consider whether the kind of evil that can produce a murderer is innate or whether a of lack of compassion for human life is one that is learned.  Eva is shown to be ambivalent about Kevin's birth and mothering in general and yet she is shown at times to be loving and concerned with the welfare of her children.  I feel that audiences will be torn in their conclusions about nature, nurture and the roots of evil and may be left for days debating who in fact is responsible for such dire events.  I saw this film at the Rivoli Cinema in Camberwell, with complements of Experimenta Media Arts who provided me with the ticket.

霊気

I've been awake and up since 4.36am this morning, I do make a habit of this. However, this has occurred over the past few days because of the steroid I'm taking to counteract the bee toxin in my body. I've only one more tablet to take and I should be on the mend. It's been raining in Melbourne and a little stronger over the past half an hour. I have my front door open and can hear falling rain and distant bird sounds all mixed together in one glorious symphony. It sounds beautiful and feels a lot like the Reiki (霊気, meaning  mysterious atmosphere and developed in 1922 by Japanese Buddhist Mikao Usui) session I had yesterday at the Usui Reiki Centre in Camberwell. Having hands-on healing from a complete stranger was interesting and rewarding. I felt heat generating from the back of my neck into my shoulders and I saw in my mind's eye a large, smooth, black lake. There were no people or animals in the scene, just a sense of calm and serenity. The ambiance was that of night, however it held a sense of magic. I've just undertaken a little research, which suggests that a lake is is not only a symbol of a mirror because of the water's reflective surface, but a point of transition between life, death and transformation. I also kept silently hearing the word 'John' and when I asked the Reiki person who laid her hands on my shoulder's who John was, she told me that he began the centre in 1991. At the end of the session I felt an urge to find something in the room. I was drawn to a tiny photo on a table, it turned out to be an image of John and his deceased wife. This was an extremely strange and interesting experience for me. I'll never really understand all this psychic stuff, though acknowledge it exists and that sometimes I appear to tap into it.The rain is still falling. I'm feeling peaceful and looking forward to the day, which, I imagine will be quiet.

Riddles, mysteries, enigmas

I was living in a share house in suburban Melbourne more than thirty years ago when the brother of one of my housemates was shot through the leg by police.

There had been a burglary, a chase on foot through dark suburban streets and a deserted railway yard. Shots were fired, my housemates brother fell, and I recall a first thought that it was literally a shot in the dark that he was lucky to survive.

I knew the victim only slightly but remember the sudden, immense, shock and pain felt by his sister, and shared amongst us all, in the moments after the news came. And the struggle to make sense of the event, to bring reason to the aftermath of an inherently unreasonable situation.

The inquest into the death of knife-wielding fifteen year old Tyler Jordan Cassidy in Northcote on December 11 2008 during a confrontation with four police officers recounted the shock and bewilderment felt by many in the broader community after that dreadful event. During the inquest various rational explanations were offered, including a suicide by police hypothesis. That was discounted by the coroner, who found that the unfortunate teenager was probably incapable of forming the necessary intent to die at the hands of police. "He was so overwhelmed by his emotions that it is not appropriate to conclude he was acting voluntarily", Judge Jennifer Coate found.

Judge Coate also exonerated the police involved in the shooting, but clearly they have been profoundly affected by the unfortunate teenager's death. "One day my daughters are going to ask me if I ever used a gun, and I don't know how I'm going to answer them", one anguished officer told the inquest.

Judge Coate said "(Tyler) was desperate that night...perhaps seeking some distraction from the inner despair he was in for reasons, sadly, we can now never know."

We try to make some sense of that terrible night, but never can. Not really. All we can do is endure, somehow, try to transcend the shock and pain and be human, which means sometimes life offers mysteries, riddles and enigmas we can never quite solve, no matter how great the desire to.

Friday...

We are bombarded every day with news stories or catastrophic world events that calls us to engage or somehow become involved in, even if that involvement is simply to support another person's cause and yet it is difficult, for as I look around at my friends and relatives I see that each of us is struggling in some way with personal or health issues and these are more urgent and more demanding of our attention and concern than the experiences of strangers. No wonder we want to turn off the television, radio and internet and just retreat into our own space where we can find some beauty. I, myself find solace in my mornings in which I hear  the sounds of different birds as they call to each other and I almost forgot how angry I was at the police over the Tyler Cassidy killing, but was happy to hear a few days ago that the Judge concluded that Tyler did not commit 'suicide by cop', contrary to the arguments put forth, and that police officers who shot Tyler dead 'acted within the limitations of their training'. More and more I'm avoiding the news of the day, not so much as putting my head in the sand, but rather, filtering my experience of the horrors that surround us. However, we can't totally avoid things that become out of our control. Yesterday my pleasant swim in a local pool ended in me having to quickly find a doctor to look at my right hand, stung by some insect, it was almost twice its  usual size with fiery red inflammation. Peace and calm turned quickly into a flurry of activity, as I rushed from the pool to the doctor and from the doctor to the chemist, eventually swallowing a pill and placing a cold compress on my hand, which I could not form into a fist. As I write this my friendly Magpies have arrived to eat their morning bread, the East Rosella's are chirping their glorious sounds and other birds are calling softly to each other. The sunshine is filtering through my windows. Later, I'll be visiting the doctor again, although the steroid and anti-histamine I took yesterday has worked beautifully and my hand is, as it was. Has anything major happened in the world today? I have no idea ~ I know only that last night's dishes are still in the sink waiting to be washed!

Collisions: Mark McDean + Julie Clarke (18.11.2011)

A preservation of beauty: Mark McDean 2011

For Mark, the word 'preservation' in his artwork  'A Preservation of Beauty' (and I quote) reminds me of the Fowlers Vacola jars my grandma used to have. To preserve fruit was a feminine domestic ritual. I was always inspired by the way the fruits were organised (stacked) in the jar and became a colorful display. This piece is imbued with history, security and some kind of innate beauty. The 'exhibiting' of natural objects within a gilt frame adds an archival layer.
McDean's latest artwork  is, in my view, an exquisite mechanism that speaks to the Victorian era's embrace of death and their overt expression of grief and sorrow. At each end of this totemic chain is a  lock ~ at the top there is a small, brass bolt with key that when opened will disengage from the connection, and at the bottom, an oval frame, which contains and protects a length of half-amber, half-golden hair as memento mori (remembrance of death). The overall construct of lock & key, key chain, clasp, oval string of pearls and oval frame/locket is homage to mourning jewelry worn by both sexes in the Victorian era and engages with the distinct binaries: masculine/feminine, open and closed, interior and exterior,  form and function, utilitarian/aesthetic, empty/full & life and death. It is a sturdy construct with only one link in the chain that has the potential to be broken and that element is the string of 23 pearls. These pearls reference both Mark's early piece in this project on 7 July and my response on 30 July this year. The real pleasure of this artwork for me is that it is akin to rosary or worry beads that may be held for prayer or meditation and the fact that whilst holding it, the sense of the tactile comes through; important in this virtual age in which absence is prefaced over the immediacy of physical presence and the closeness of touching. A pearl necklace in such close proximity to a lock of hair has sexual overtures as well as allusions to familial intimacy. Significant too, is Mark's use of metal, which in Feng Shui philosophy has always been associated with protection. However, the preciousness we associate with the monetary value of metals is figured here as an esteem associated with life and necessity to protect its fragile and passing beauty.

LINGUA: Cyber-poem by Julie Clarke 1999

 

In 1999 I worked closely with Komninos Zervos and the State Library of Victoria to create an interactive cyber-poem, four of the frames are above. When you enter my site you click on the words, which should lead to text, sensuously move the cursor over the words until you find another click-able word, which should also lead to another poem. I created the text over the cover of an old Photo Album., which I colored.  The words - Lingua, Mirabula, Machina, Desire, Body, speak of language, the mirror and my take on our relationship to technological screens. I've been looking for this site for a number of years now and thought that the work was lost. Happy to report that it has been archived through Pandora at the National Library of Australia.

LINGUA: CYBER-POEM BY JULIE CLARKE 1999

Drive - short film review by Julie Clarke

Drive poster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_%282011_film%29

Sometimes silence just happens. Sometimes silence is necessary and sometimes silence, the kind of silence associated with a lack of spoken words has a way of gripping you by the throat and not letting go. The silent space that exists for much of the time between the two primary protagonists ~ the Driver (Ryan Gosling) and Irene (Carey Mulligan) his female neighbor  in the film Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) is like that, however it is not just a device used by the director as a way of offering repose between the ethereal electronic score composed by Cliff Martinez; the song lyrics of which afford a particular ambiance, or the sounds generated by high-speed car chases, here, silence is full of depth of feeling and meaning between the couple who, at least on the surface are strong, silent types who acquiesce to each other. And, it is this quiet intensity they share through looks and gesture that is mesmerizing to the point that we think we see a sexual attraction, but understand that within the confines of the narrative the  glances they exchange are seductive and sensual rather than anything else. Indeed, at no point in this film  punctuated throughout by strong, graphic violence is there a hint of a sexual act. However, that doesn't mean there is no passion, there is, for passion that cannot or will not be displayed through sexuality is displayed in this film through bloody, horrific encounters. Did I say there was no sexuality? Well, yes, but there is a scene of voluptuous naked women in a dressing room at a nightclub, but the sexuality virtually stops there.  Described as a crime drama about a Hollywood stunt driver who has a contract put out on him after a heist goes wrong, the narrative is certainly more than this, and for me the most significant aspect, other than the absolutely superb acting on the part of the protagonists is the fact that love, a particular kind of love, one that has more to do with ethics, responsibility and caring, rather than the sexual act is highlighted at the beginning of the film in the way that the Driver interacts with Benicio (Kaden Leos), Irene's young son and later when he becomes involved in attempting to protect her and her son as well as her recently released from jail husband who is severely bashed by thugs who he owes money to. This film has got to be considered a contemporary masterpiece in that it manages to beautifully balance calm and chaos, silence and sound, love and bloody slaughter. I would highly recommend this film.

a post industrial post

captain of industry

Arachnids + a glitch in the works

http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/glitch/
Autonomous Phosphorous Rendering Engine by Ernest Glitch

http://technabob.com/blog/2011/11/02/spider-robot/

This morning was taken on a merry chase by a face book  friend, Simon Park (biologist from UK) who posted an intriguing image of an Autonomous Phosphorous Rendering Engine on his site, apparently invented in the mid 18th Century by the savant Ernest Glitch to move about agricultural land, harvesting animals for the phosphorus in their bones. Can you imagine this large contraption lumbering along with its metallic mandibles and serrated teeth ready to devour some poor unsuspecting creature? I thought the drawing of the machine rather interesting since its form was similar to hexapods being designed within contemporary robotics, particularly The Muscle Machine, six-legged walking robot that Stelarc performed with in the past decade, the prototype micro-robot designed by our own Steven Middleton for Stelarc, or, more recently, the spider robot developed by the Fraunhofer Institute.

http://juliejoyclarke.blogspot.com/2010/01/steven-middleton-prototype-robot.html 

Unfortunately I could not find anything substantial about Ernest Glitch and I suspect that rather than being an inventor he is the imaginative concoction of some mad scientist/artist/writer who writes a blog under the title of Lateral Science. Still, following up on all of this has been a delightful way to spent some of my morning. All I can say is I totally understand why some people are arachnophobic!.

Screen shot of 50,000 views on counter

I've just returned home after having a lovely 30 minute swim at the Kew Recreational Centre. I dutifully undertook walking in the water exercises as instructed by my physiotherapist, but I mostly just swam. All the building works have finished at the Rec Centre and now there is a little coffee shop (inside) with some ice-creams and sandwiches for sale. However, I didn't eat there, I had lunch at a bakery and then checked out two op-shops and sat on a seat in the shade of a tree outside the local Mission Church. Thanks to Steve, who was up and on the computer in the wee hours of the morning we have this lovely screen shot of the blog with counter recording 50,000 page views. It's ever so cute!

Cause for celebration: 50,000 views

By the end of the day this blog will most likely have recorded 50,000 page views, which is cause for celebration of some kind. There will be no flashing lights to record the moment, only the little counter on the right hand side of the page that will quietly click over, so, in lieu of any bells and whistles, I would like to thank Steve Middleton who has made a major contribution to the blog over the past year and to Lauren Howe and Mark McDean who have contributed some thoughtful, but limited posts during that time. I've personally made hundreds of blog posts and only recently slowed down due to the fact that I've returned to Face Book after a years absence and have spent more time making art rather than making words. Also, it's not like me I know, but I've been struggling with a little depression of late and when I'm depressed everything is thrown out the window and I find it difficult doing anything or seeing anyone. A loud clap of thunder and loud rain during the night woke me up with a start and consequently I slept in late this morning, and sleeping in, I find, is never good for my psychology. Still, the sun is up and it looks like it's going to be a nice day, thanks to our readers, thanks to those who make comments, the blog would be little without you!

Bananas and aging

I was thinking the other day after having a banana for the first time in about three months, that when I was a child bananas tasted totally different.  However, I remember making that remark about bananas about thirty years ago and wondered  even back then, if it WAS something to do with aging. Was it simply that life didn't taste as sweet, that some things had lots their edge, that the flavor had gone? As I grow older I ask myself: Do I expect too much from life (& bananas), do I expect too much from myself (I've always expected a lot), am I aware of my own limitations? I'm already experiencing symptoms of aging, which alert me not to  what I can no longer physically do, but to the consequences of  what I do. Thankfully I haven't got involved in those strange lists that some people make as they get older about what they have or haven't achieved in their lives ~ I had no grand plans and yet am happy with what I have accomplished so far. Having never been physically beautiful or slim, thankfully I don't have to maintain any illusions about myself in that aspect. I periodically have a clean out of things I own ~ assessing what is and isn't important to keep and rarely hide my feelings in my dealings with others ~ so no hidden repression to sort out. Am I holding onto some secret that should be revealed.? Am I angry with someone from the past?  Nope! So, I'm asking myself, what was this blog post about? I suppose it is my way of working through day to day issues of aging and somehow rationalizing the person I believe myself to be ~ my internal self and the external manifestation of that self ~ since they are different. Somewhere along the way those two selves will merge and I will begin to accept the aging process. In the meantime I've discovered the only truly sweet bananas that taste like those of my childhood are not those with a firm, perfect light yellow exterior, but ones with a slightly brown and blemished skin.

Australia as nuclear waste dump + nuclear power?

This blog post is primarily for my son, since last night we were discussing Australia's possible future with nuclear energy. I was surprised to discover during my research that not only is there still a debate, post the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as to whether Australia should develop nuclear energy and nuclear power stations, but that parts of Australia are being considered as a nuclear waste dump. Here is just some of the information I've gleaned from the Internet this morning. Make of it what you will.

Nuclear waste dump in NT.

Liberal Party (2007) That Federal Council believes that Australia should expand its current nuclear industry to incorporate the entire uranium fuel cycle, the expansion of uranium mining to be combined with nuclear power generation and worldwide nuclear waste storage in the geotechnically stable and remote areas that Australia has to offer. (See full article here)

So potentially Australia can sell unprocessed uranium, be paid to store the waste from existing nuclear reactors, reprocess the waste and sell it, take back the resulting waste a second time, and eventually sell that waste product again ~ this quote is from CEDA, see article here

And, back in December 2009 quote from Tony Abbott:

I am not a theological opponent of nuclear power. I am quite happy to have the debate about the nuclear option. And I note that there are lots of people in the Labor Party like Martin Ferguson who are on the record as saying that it is something that Australian should consider. I don't think it is anything we should rush into.

However, in March 2011 he said:

We have no policy to introduce nuclear power in this country. See article here

What were John Howard government plans. Click here

Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax prompts call for a debate on nuclear power. See Australian article here

NOTE: The 'think tank' that they are referring to is a report from CEDA- Committee for Economic Development of Australia (see also second quote at the beginning of this blog). See membership list of CEDA.

Life is sweet!

Tightrope Walker. Acrylic paint on canvas. Julie Clarke 2011

Devolution. Acrylic paint on canvas. Julie Clarke 2011

I've been up since 4am, most probably because I had way too much sleep over a weekend, in which I was struggling yet again, with the symptoms of vertigo. I went out briefly on Saturday morning but became so anxious in the shopping centre that I had to return home quickly. Vertigo does make it almost impossible for me to do anything outdoors, especially if that means (and it generally does) that I have to cross roads and move through crowds of people all moving in different directions.Vertigo is such a debilitating condition and makes for a very lonely life. I'm finding it more and more difficult trying to find something positive about this experience, which is the way that I generally approach life's challenges. Staying at home did mean that I had the opportunity to begin two new paintings. But just bending down to trace shadows onto a canvas was uncomfortable, but I did it just the same. I'm sure some of my readers on Face Book would have already seen these images, but for those who haven't I place them here for your comments and perusal.

The first one ~ Tightrope Walker (after Nietzsche's Zarathustra) is a comment on the way I feel whilst walking with vertigo, although in this image the walker has a outstretched beam to hold onto for balance, whereas I have no such prosthesis to aid me. The precariousness of life is exaggerated when we think that perhaps we all walk some kind of tightrope; making decisions all the while about going forwards or retreating backwards after we  have arrived at the middle point, which of course, is always the most dangerous point to be, since there is the same distance in going forwards or backwards to a place of safety. 

The second painting  Devolution relates to the same condition, but here, Nietzsche's 'going down' is interpreted as the sudden impulse to let go of human (self-consciousness) to become other than man—animal or machine, in order to become. I see in the shadows of this image not so much a return to inhuman forms but a recognition of the inhuman inherent in life.

I've just made crepes for breakfast, probably not the best choice, but I went to bed last night after watching most of Julie and Julia and must have been a little inspired. I read the book a few years back, it was given to me by my friend Shaun because my name was formerly Julie Powell and I too owned both of Julia Child's cook books on Mastering the Art of French Cooking and had dabbled in many of Julia's recipes ~ I vaguely remember the rolling and folding involved in making several dozen croissants and inviting friends for breakfast many moons ago . Although I shared the same name with the protagonist in the film I was surely not as dedicated.

So, I've just finished eating the first crepe lavished in a good old Australian favorite ~ Golden Syrup and now I'm going back out into the kitchen to place more butter and batter in the pan. Life is sweet ~ I guess you just need to discover where to find it!

Eastern Rosella

Photo of Eastern Rosella (one of a pair) that has been feeding in my garden over the past few days. Apparently they are quite rare, so I feel honored to have been able to capture it in its usual mode of being. Just wanted to share this with all of our readers.

Collisions: Julie Clarke + Mark McDean (03.11.2011)

'She cries' - hand-carved cup with acrylic paint & pink texta: Julie Clarke 2011

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a bit of a flâneur and rag picker. Dumpster trucks and hard rubbish left on footpaths, has always held a certain interest since they might contain valuable objects or materials to inspire art or poetry. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. However, it is the potential of the object to be transformed that is most absorbing. On 25 October, 2011 I found a discarded hand-carved, wooden mug with face (most probably a vintage New Zealand artifact) and immediately thought of some of Mark’s works in the Collisions project that relate to identity and masks, but I was also aware of the ethnographic and physiognomic details of the cup, which serve to produce a sense of otherness to the object. My response (using the found object) is less to Mark’s actual artwork and more to the photograph of the performative aspects of him wearing it, since the sash could be read as referring to  competitive behavior and warrior culture. Because the garment forms an X over his solar plexus - a site of emotion, I regard it as topography ~ X marks the spot; a kind of somatic mapping of the spatial and temporal aspects of his body. I’ve painted the cup black and white to correspond with Mark’s black object over his white t/shirt and being mindful of the fact that it was the French poet, Charles Baudelaire who theorized the notion of the flâneur, I’ve written on the cup words from Baudelaire’s poem Le Masque/The Mask (1861) to demonstrate my psychological and physical state at the moment of altering the cup. The text reads:

She cries, you fool, because she has lived!

And because she lives! But what she deplores

Above all else, and what makes her tremble down to her knees,

Is that tomorrow, alas!, she must continue to live!

Tomorrow, and the next day, and always! -- like us!

Charles Baudelaire’s The Mask/Le Masque, 1861

joy for ever

...Its lovliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing...

John Keats (Enymion,1818)