those idiorhythms

Cheers Tim - nice to hear from you again, and glad you seem happy, with things planned for 2006. Good luck with those; hope excitement ensues. The biggest part of being an artist, to my mind, is getting organised; channelling artworks and ideas in such a way as to be useable, distributable, exhibitable, performable. Great if one has a good, worthwhile concept/idea which has merit and stamina enough to be a lengthy, ongoing concern. That's how layers of meaning are added and how sophistication is achieved, in my experience. Any day, one wakes up with this or that idea - hopefully! But it's making that idea into some kind of object which is the real challenge, I believe. What I take from your rubric, 'Cementimental' - in conflating, what seems to be, cement and sentimental - is a notion, in the first instance, of permanence, concrete, and, in the second, in referencing something perhaps ironically (the untouchable, tainted sentimentalism!) is something stray, dadaistic, comedic. Am I close? I detect in these a kind of black comedy - my favourite hybrid, a concept with real legs, too. I'm drawn to these things personally: Paul McCarthy, Chris Morris, Gilbert and George. These types influence my music-making more than musicians; and I think music is a little short on the kind of depth of concept one finds readily in art and the theories and commentaries which surround it. Maybe too much of music is concerned with practicalities, technique. Musicians, I feel - and look at the evidence! - don't seem to do as much reading around the subject as artists; music is supposed to be more about intuition, feel, process. Whilst I want to retain and hone these elements 100%, I like to deepen what I do as a musician by exposing myself to ideas from elsewhere in the arts, social theory, philosophy, history, politics, et al. Why not? It's all information. For me, it is surrealism which lends itself perfectly to this melting pot ethos; especially surrealism inflected with humour, and more especially black humour. Gallows humour, I prefer to think of it; that ups the ante, in mocking a life and death situation, something apocalyptic, laughing as the nuke falls on my fucking head! I'll dance on my own grave! Morris' 'Jam' has that; 'The World of Gilbert and George' film, too; as does McCarthy's disgusting scat-inflected performances, using ketchup, chocolate! These are perfectly sane and appropriate reactions, given the insanity and cruelty of the supposed straight world, don't you think?! The Dadaists knew that, and nothing has changed: they are still killing one another, still exploiting the weak, vulnerable, and stupid. There still is a world war, and art is my neutral Switzerland! So, let's form a good army! Let's piss the mainstreamites off with our unwillingness to be weak, venal, and immoral. In that sense, this whole message could be rephrased, abridged as 'I like peripheral stuff, you like peripheral stuff, let's share that a bit as part of our 2006 and make something happen which wouldn't have happened otherwise'. That's the cement of the object itself, and the sentimentality and romanticism of being mad enough to want to make art in the first place. Viva! Have a lovely Christmas, Tim. Keep in touch. Best wishes, Anthony----- Original Message ----- From: "tim*" <*@yahoo.co.uk>To: "Anthony Donovan" <a.donovan7@ntlworld.com>Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 11:41 PMSubject: Re: mail art AND circuitbending!> Hi!>>> out the interpolating scheme you used in your reply!> haha, oopps! :) Did it come out as you posted on the> blog? Coz that;s more mangled than it looked at this> end! :) There should be some returns hopefulllyyy in> this message!?>>> perhaps more exactly, one of Burroughs' cut-ups. I'm> Hehe, thanks... Yeah I like replying this way, saves> me having to conceptualise the whole message I'm> replying to! :) Which is probably not a good thing> really.>>> McCarthy is in your general>> art orbit. If not, cheek him out.> Yeah, will take a look... vaguely aware of his> stuff...>>> at http://murmurists.blogspot.com though. There are> Nice! I'll post commments some time!!>> Got the track you emailed, thanks, good stuff!!>>> there in the world. So, that is the plan: to hook up>> with like-minded others>> in this part of England; get something going. I'm> YEah, sounds good! I need to get on with this kind of> stuff here in London too... somewhat disconnected from> things at the moment..>>> more about what you and your group get up to. Gigs?>> Exhibitions? I harbour> Yeah, we have gigs, but very sporadically!... need to> orchestrate lots more sooon!!! Harbinger Sound here in> the capitol are doing some noise gigs in the coming> year... there's gonna be an all day noise fest in Feb> tho the bill is full so I won't be playing then... but> have been in touch with them + hopefully may be able> to get in on other things they organise... No> exhibitions yet but reaally should! There's plenty of> opportunity to exibit things in various places in> london, I need to apply myself basically... actually> create somehting to exhibit would help too! :) I've> got numerous vague notions for installations... but> nothing fully formed or high-concept. I shouldn't> allow this to stop me really; i like the idea of> exibitions/installations as cluttered as my site,> jumble sale style art... loads of junk piled up in the> gallery!>> I once dreamed that I was at a mail art exhibition,> can't remmeber much but one artwork was a snooker> table with a huge heap of 2p coins on it...>>> pooling of resources! - a>> kind of peripheralists' black economy. Give the> Definitely!! Hopefullly we can collaborate in some> capacityy!>> One of my new year resolutions will be to add some> semblence of an online store to the cementimental> site, to sell/trade CDs but also make art-object> merchendice, odd homemade junk stuffff... been meaning> to get/make small screen printing setup to make more> fancy CD artwork and print nonsense on garments!>> Anywayy, thanks again for getting in touch, always> cool to communicate with like-minded folks!!>> I'll be away from the internet from tomoorow, so if I> don't email again before, have a great christmas and> new yeaR!>> Tim Drage - tim@spiteyourface.com> Animator, Noisician, Surrealist>> Spite Your Face Productions - animation> http://www.spiteyourface.com>> Cementimental - noise + music> http://www.cementimental.com>>>> ___________________________________________________________> NEW Yahoo! 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