David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


27 June 2013

The Prince, the People & the Polls

       
LOGOS : The Speaking into Being of the World

HA HA :  from that same bag of grasping wind and gas, disruptive other sounds - burps, farts, laughter

LOGOS/HA HA : the imperfect Word, the broken Promise

bLOGOS/HA HA : a heap of such



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LOGOS/HA HA
[I give you my word / that I will break my word)

            
.    .    .    .


FRIDAY, 22 MARCH 2013


Statement from Spokesperson for the Hon Kevin Rudd MP  

Mr Rudd has said consistently over the last 12 months that he would not challenge for the Labor leadership and that he would contest the next election as a local member of Parliament at the next election. That position has not changed. 

Furthermore, Mr Rudd wishes to make 100 per cent clear to all members of the parliamentary Labor Party, including his own supporters, that there are no circumstances
under which he will return to the Labor Party leadership in the future.

Posted by Kevin Rudd at 10:22    : posted at kevinruddmp

.    .    .    .

      
Today, after challenging and defeating Julia Gillard

"The truth is, if we're all being perfectly honest..."

  
- Kevin Rudd

      
.    .    .    .
              

At 9.15pm Julia Gillard makes her speech-in-defeat to the media.

After this we switch to SBS for the final episode of Borgen.

It opens with a quote from Machiavelli...
       

...then moves to a TV news report about the latest polls.


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 LOGOS/HA HA
   
      

26 June 2013

semioLOGOS/HA HA

    
Yesterday morning, we turned on the office radio to hear excited discussion about the merits or otherwise of a photo in the Australian Women's Weekly that pictures Julia Gillard knitting. Orgy of the semiologists (continued)...
     

     
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 LOGOS/HA HA
   
           
A favorite John Cage anecdote came to mind. We read it aloud, replacing Jean Erdman with Julia Gillard :
"Alan Watts gave a party that started in the afternoon, New Year’s Eve, and lasted through the night and the following day. Except for about four hours which we spent napping we were never without food or drink. Alan Watts lived near Millbrook. His cooking was not only excellent but elaborate. There was, for instance, I forget just when, a meat pie in the shape of a large loaf of bread. Truffles ran through the meat, which had been wrapped first in crepes and then in the crust, in which had been inscribed in Sanskrit “Om.” Joseph Campbell, Jean Erdman, Mrs. Coomaraswamy, and I were the guests. Jean Erdman spent most of the time knitting. Alan Watts, Mrs. Coomaraswamy, and Joseph Campbell conversed brilliantly about the Orient, its mythologies, its arts, and its philosophies. Joseph Campbell was concerned at that time about the illustration of his Zimmer book, Philosophies of India. He was anxious to find a picture which would include certain and several symbols, and though he had searched his own library and several public ones, he was still looking for the right picture.

I said, “Why don’t you use the one in Jean Erdman’s knitting book?” Joseph Campbell laughed because he knew I hadn’t even seen the picture.

Mrs. Coomaraswamy said, “Let me look at it.” Jean Erdman stopped knitting and gave her the book. Mrs. Coomaraswamy began interpreting the picture, which was of a girl in a sweater standing in a landscape. Everything, it turned out, referred precisely to the subjects with which Joseph Campbell was concerned, including the number in the upper right-hand corner."

John Cage,
Indeterminacy
      
        
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LOGOS/HA HA


      

25 June 2013

Scene for a seminar

      
"So, you want to make something of yourself?"
     



 The artist Thomas Bede, as described by the Law.
 Sydney, 22 November 1928.


      
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 LOGOS/HA HA


      

23 June 2013

WSJ Rebus

      
The editors of West Space Journal, knowing our interest in the rebus, commissioned the one below for their Issue #1.

To see the underlying text click here
then click on the ? icon.
     

click image to enlarge
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LOGOS/HA HA


      

21 June 2013

Just launched : West Space Journal

   
The opening editorial :

An ongoing, never ending editorial...

Welcome to Issue One of the West Space Journal. As mentioned in our About page, this is an experiment. This online space is intended to ebb and flow after its initial release, as content is added and expanded, and we’ve designed the structure of the site to be completely transformed at each quarterly issue.

Our first issue is broadly focused on the internet — the protocols and infrastructure that this journal exists on. What is the internet (currently)? How are artists and curators using it? Are we anticipating social change via new forms of connection, or playing a self-mythologising game of cultural catch-up? How does internet access converge with and cloud our offline perspectives? What are the tensions between the presented narratives and pragmatics of the online platform? We think that, globally, we’re at a type of breakpoint where many of these questions might have new answers, somewhere within the spectrum between Evgeny Morozov’s charge that “the internet” we believe in doesn’t exist (and won’t save us), and Ethan Zuckerman’s research into a digital cosmopolitanism that we’re yet to embrace.

Happy exploring!
    
click here for West Space Journal
click image to enlarge  

with apologies to Albert Tucker and his Explorers   

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LOGOS/HA HA
  
   
    

20 June 2013

Take a chair (apart)


and/or

Re.(gard) a thing and/or its parts 
      
after Van Gogh's (Van Gogh's) Chair, 1888

after Picasso's Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912

comes this buster meta-re-de-composition,
for auction today at Sotheby's London :
Fernand Léger's Composition a la chaise (c. 1930)
          

     
after which, after WW2, Corporation America's  
The Office Chair, 1961
       


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LOGOS/HA HA

then, hereabouts, Theatre of the Actors of Regard performance en passant at the National Gallery of Victoria, 1975 :
          

 T.A.R. after Hugh Ramsay Jeanne, 1901  
         
     
now, upon a chair and/or its parts ...
     
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LOGOS/HA HA


     

18 June 2013

Headline

           
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Matthew 6:34
    


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LOGOS/HA HA


      

15 June 2013

Mix Tape 1980s : Appropriation, Subculture, Critical Style

              
The Ian Potter Centre : National Gallery of Victoria 
until 1 September


online promo (detail) featuring Mike Brown's Manifestations 1982  
         
        
Split the diff :

1. NGV media release here
2. Robert Nelson /
'The Age' review here
3. Christopher Allen /
'The Australian' review here
     
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LOGOS/HA HA

      

.  .  .  .
      


This is for the headsets loving the mix,
My people in the front, all covered in spit ...
      
The Nosebleed Section
Hilltop Hoods

Your correspondent was asked to compile a 1980s avant-garde and experimental music mixtape for this exhibition. The selection made is a personal one, a Melbourne one :
   
David Chesworth album cover : Tyndall / Brophy
       
David Chesworth
Who’s Asking?
        
Stelarc
AMPLIFIED BODY, LASER EYES & THIRD HAND
Sounds- Brainwaves, heartbeat, bloodflow, muscles and motor mechanism of the Third Hand. First performed at the Maki Gallery, Tokyo 2 March, 1986 Performance began when the body was switched on, and ended when the body was switched off. Sound Coordinator- K. Tazaki with medical equipment from Nihon Kohden.

Warren Burt
Samples II for orchestra (Ravel homage) (That which is neither a deconstruction nor an appropriation, neither bricollage nor post-modern)(1987)

House of Journalists
(Tony Clark as the narrator)
Il Palazzo
from William Furlong's AUDIO ARTS cassette :
ANTI-MUSIC : A SAMPLER

Ad Hoc
( James Clayden, Chris Knowles and David Wadelton  )
Blue From Beyond The Sea (excerpt)
from Artefacts Of Australian Experimental Music Volume II 1974–1983 : 
Shame File Music ‎– SHAM056

Red Megaphone
(John Nixon)
Untitled

Chris Mann, Warren Burt, Astra Choir
Artificial Languages Part 2.

SLAVE GUITARS 
formerly SLAVE GUITARS OF THE ART CULT
6

Olivier Messiaen
visited Melbourne in 1988 and notated the lyrebird for :
L'Oiseau-lyre et la Ville-Fiancée (The lyre bird and the bridal city)
from Éclairs sur l'au-delà… (lluminations of the Beyond…) 
1987-1991.
Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Porcelijn

Primitive Calculators
I Can't Stop It
    
      
         
We'll rip off our tops
and jump around in the front row.

The Nosebleed Section
Hilltop Hoods
           
 ART CULT tee shirt as seen in the front row
               

You know, I looked around, 
the faces I'd know,
I fell in love with the people
in the front row.

People In The Front Row
Melanie Safka
as sampled by Hilltop Hoods
    

above: as seen at Mix Tapes 1980s                          
click image to enlarge  

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LOGOS/HA HA
       
     

12 June 2013

I CAME, I SAW...

           
Another Successful Performance
by
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
at
West Space Fundraiser
       

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 LOGOS/HA HA


      

11 June 2013

2013 West Space Funraiser

      
Opens tonight at 6

West Space
Level 1, 225 Bourke Street
Melbourne, Vic, 3000
    

Participating artists include :
Adam J Cullen | Akira Akira | Alasdair McLuckie | Amanda Marburg | Anastasia Klose | Andrew Hazewinkel | Andy Hutson | Anna Finlayson | Ben Sheppard | Betra Fraval | Bridie Lunney | Brie Trenerry | Camilla Tadich | Charles O'Loughlin | Charlie Sofo | Christian Capurro | Christopher Dolman | Christopher Koller | Christopher Scutio | Claire Lambe | Craig Burgess | Dan Moynihan | Dane Lovett | Daniel Price | Daniel von Sturmer | Darren Sylvester | David van Royen | Dell Stewart | Dom Redfern | Drew Pettifer | Emily Ferretti | Fleur Summers | Glenn Walls | Gosia Wlodarczak | Grant Nimmo | Greatest Hits | Helen Johnson | Ian Haig | Ieuan Weinman | Irene Hanenbergh | Isobel Knowles | Jacqueline Felstead | Jake Walker | Jan Murray | Jason Maling | Jennifer Mills | Jeremy Bakker | Jessie Bullivant | John Meade | John Nixon | Jon Campbell | Jonas Ropponen | Jordan Marani | Josh Petherick | Julian Smith | Justin Andrews | Justine Khamara | Kain Picken | Kate Daw | Kate Matthews | Kathy Temin | Kay Abude | Kez Hughes | Kiera Brew Kurec | Kieran Boland | Kieran Stewart | Kiron Robinson | Kirra Jamison | Kit Wise | Laith McGregor | Lane Cormick | Lisa Radford | Lou Hubbard | Louisa Burfadeci | Lyndal Walker | Madeline Kidd | Martine Corompt | Masato Takasaka | Max Creasey | Meredith Turnbull | Mia Salsjo | Michael Ciavarella | Michael Graeve | Minna Gilligan | Nat Thomas | Natalie Ryan | Nathan Gray | Nick Selenitsch | Nick Waddell | Oscar Perry | Patrick Pound | Peter Tyndall | Pip Ryan | Raafat Ishak | Renee Cosgrave | Richard Giblett | Richard Lewer | Rohan Schwartz | Ross Coulter | Rowan Mcnaught | Ry Haskings | Sally Smart | Sam George | Sam Songailo | Sangeeta Sandrasegar | Sarah CrowEST | Sarah Stubbs | Scott Mitchell | Sean Peoples | Sharon Billinge | Sharon Goodwin | Sherry McLane Alejos | Simon MacEwan | Simon Zoric | Siri Hayes | Skye Kennewell | Sophia Hewson | Spiros Panigirakis | Stephen Giblett | Stuart Ringholt | Sue Dodd | Susan Jacobs | Tai Snaith | Taree Mackenzie | Tim Hillier | Toby Pola | Tom Nicholson | Tony Garifalakis | Torie Nimmervoll | Trevelyan Clay | Tully Moore | Valentina Palonen | Veronica Kent | Viv Miller | Vivian Cooper Smith | +more
Participating things include :

 postcard edition of 10                        click image to enlarge  
         
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LOGOS/HA HA


      

09 June 2013

NEVER


This ripper from The Gestian Poet.
      


Same for the Crowd Selfie!

      


One hundred years ago : Crowd Selfie at the Capture of the Monument by Two Suffragettes

         

    

Photograph: Crowd Selfie at the Scene of the Capture of the Monument by Two Suffragettes

        
Producer : Central News

Date : 1913

Crowds gathered to witness the capture of the Monument by two suffragettes. At 10 o'clock on 18 April 1913, the suffragettes Miss Spark and Mrs Shaw climbed the 345 steps to the top of the Monument. They managed to distract the attendants and trap them in their office. The two women then attached the Women's Social and Political Union purple, white and green flag to the great pole carrying the City of London flag, and tied a banner that read 'Death or Victory' to the railings. Finally they released hundreds of handbills promoting the Votes for Women campaign that fluttered into the street below. It took some time before the police broke down the barricade, removing the women and the W.S.P.U. insignia, and freeing the attendants from their office.

While all this was happening, the happy throng spotted a Crowd Selfie Photographer setting-up high above them. They responded with the chant NEVER NEVER NEVER (a reference to the century later dictum NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR SELFIES). No charges were brought against any of those responsible for this publicity stunt : the suffragettes, the Selfie Crowd, the photographer.

Below : Selfie as popular London street poster, overprinted with NEVER NEVER NEVER (Frame font).


 Crowd Selfie : Museum of London  

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06 June 2013

The Outsider

          
Our favorite blacksmith is John Madigan. 


A few days ago The Weekend Australian wrote of Senator John Madigan :  

He is the "most outside of outsiders" in federal politics but come September, the DLP's John Madigan might find himself at the centre of the action 
JOHN MADIGAN FORGES THE HEAVY METTLE OF DLP
Stuart Rintoul / The Australian
1 June 2013
A photo in that article shows Madigan at his forge, not far from our own office.
photo : John Nowakowski 


John set up here as a blacksmith when still a boy.
       
In the late 1970s, one of our staff commissioned him to make a branding iron in the manner of the early hunters and hearders of the Canvas Animal.


 
Above and below, John prepares two equal-length iron lines of inter-dependence for the ideogram brand.
      

   
The parts are then heated soft in the forge, ready to smite and shape together.
   

    
The result...
    


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LOGOS/HA HA


      

03 June 2013

The facts are the facts and the facts are these ] Albanese meta-mix (

         
For our sins, bLOGOS/HA HA sometimes watches Question Time of the Australian Federal Parliament. 

Below is an edited detail of an exchange that tickled our fancy last week during the 28 May 2013 House of Representatives Question Time.


The SPEAKER: The member for Kooyong will resume his seat. There are other forms of the House in which to raise that concern. The Prime Minister has the call and will be heard in silence.

Ms GILLARD: The facts are the facts and the facts are these : ...

Opposition members interjecting —
           
Ms GILLARD: ..................... — for those who are yelling, and I know the facts do not suit you but these are the facts — ..................... They are the facts. The Leader of the Opposition should stop misrepresenting them and this despicable — (Time expired)
                
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Leader of the Opposition) (14:11): Madam Speaker, I have a second supplementary. I refer to ......................

Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:12):
The Leader of the Opposition may be startled to learn that .......................  Nothing the Leader of the Opposition can say or do, nothing he can shout, no spectre that he an raise of fear in our community changes those facts and I direct the Leader of the Opposition's attention to them.

The SPEAKER: Is the Leader of the Opposition seeking to table a document?
          
Mr ABBOTT: Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table the speech yesterday from the member for Holt describing these matters as .............................
          
The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Leader of the House, is leave granted to table the document?
           
Mr Albanese: I seek your clarification, Speaker.

Opposition members interjecting —
           
The SPEAKER: Order! As I said gratuitous advice is wearing very thin. The Leader of the House has the call.
              
Mr Albanese: I seek your advice, Speaker, over whether it is possible even to table Hansard in Hansard.
             
The SPEAKER: Leave is not granted.     

         *Read the full Hansard record of this on pages 21-22  HERE      



 FIAPCE                            National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 
          

FIAPCE : The facts are the facts and the facts are these :


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