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.


07 December 2009

ShiLOGOS/HA HA : regarding The Shilo Project

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All roads lead to everywhere
travel agent's magnet on bLOGOS/HA HA beer fridge

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First Principles :

The sleeve of The Beatles' so called white album (1968) is not blank, it's white, and embossed with the title : THE BEATLES. White image, white text.

There's a detailed presentation about THE BEATLES. album sleeve at beatlesagain.com The album's working title was A Doll's House and a colourful sleeve was prepared to illustrate this idea. Perhaps this is why Peter Atkins has embossed his Shilo album sleeve THE BEATLES.



Ditto :

The Neil Diamond Shilo sleeve (1970) is not blank.


Whence cometh this imaginary lack view? In French, white and blank both are un blanc. Perhaps that's it? Ceci n'est pas un blanc.


Does the conceptual origin of the blank Australia project(ion) perhaps still locally sustain this abject view : blankness?

Terra Nullius; the empty interior; Picnic At Hanging Rock

Climbers Disappear On Mount Blank


From white to blank to black and back : the Slave Guitars of the Art Cult (1981) break-through album Only Blank Minds.



Just as THE BEATLES. (1968) became known as The White Album so also with Only Blank Minds. The black-on-black of its Black Square (in Slave Guitar) spinning across the black square of the sleeve has it now often referred to as this band's black album. Sometimes it is known as the blank album since, after-Cage, there were no tracks listed, no spiral scratched, no identifiable Music given. Anti-Music historians like to write it as the bla_k album, to indicate it's multivalent and/but ultimately unfixed character.

At the opening of The Shilo Project exhibition

Chris McAuliffe read an extract from the new edition of Vincent Van Gogh's letters, from an 1884 letter to his brother Theo.
You don't know how paralysing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter, you can't do anything. The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerises some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves.

Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares - and who has broken the spell of 'you can't'.

Vincent wrote most of these letters in Dutch; one third in French; just ten in English. We note this in relation to the earlier comments about white/blank blanc/blanc con-fusion and more generally in puzzling about that curious Western spectre the terrorising void, the imaginary malevolent physical psychological exhaustively empty space ] where no-one can hear you scream [ as you struggle to bridge the one dot (I) to an other (I/not I)
Full Stop .

blank :
early 13c., from O.Fr. blanc "white, shining," from Frankish *blank "white, gleaming," of W.Gmc. origin (cf. O.E. blanca "white horse"), from P.Gmc. *blangkaz, from PIE *bhleg- "to shine" (see bleach). Originally "colorless," meaning "having empty spaces" evolved c.1400. Sense of "void of expression" (a blank look) is from 1553. The noun in the sense of "empty space" (in a document, etc.) is from c.1570.
- Online Etymology Dictionary

not blank
:
The Diamond View

interconnected, interdependent ...

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05 December 2009

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A day in Melbourne yesterday to catch up on some exhibitions. Stephen Bram (downstairs) and Stieg Persson (upstairs) a great pairing at Anna Schwartz Gallery. Fellow former student of RMIT Media Arts, Sam Smith's grand Synthetics at Arc One Gallery. John Warwicker's FLOATING WORLD: UKIYO-E at The Narrows. The West Space Fun_raiser (7 of the 8 bLotters had already sold) then off to The Shilo Project big she-bang at the Ian Potter Museum.

Between West Space and the Potter, in the last light of day, one street photo. Traditional.

2009.12.04_Skeletons embrace_Melb street_400w

This morning, in an image heap from E of the O, this classic set-up: home territory of LOGOS/HA HA. Thoughts of Las Meninas and the interpretive diagrams of scholars. Starting with

YOU ARE HERE
2009.12.05_Man and woman look at skeleton-mirror_400w
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03 December 2009

West Space Fun_raiser

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The annual West Space Fun_raiser exhibition opens tonight (Benefactors Preview) then continues until 12 December.

Our bLOGOS/HA HA artist-in-residence has contributed to this
an edition of eight Mirror of the World blottings.

1. From the bL blotter heap, select and stamp FIAPCE onto nine 1920s/30s two colour Locust Street "ENVY" prints

RICH GIRL DOG CAR poor boy dog wheels
POKE TONGUE thumb nose
...
PASS WEST pass east
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LOOK AT look at.


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2. stamp the knowing Title once more upon the edgeless Mirror of the World
3. blot this onto verso of the envious regard
4. edition (A/P and 8/8), sign(P.T.) and date (-2009-)
5. price ($100 ea) with thanks to Anna Schwartz Gallery


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West Space

Level 1, 15 - 19 Anthony Street, Melbourne, Vic, 3000, Australia
Exhibition hours: Wed-Fri 12-6pm, Sat 12-5pm
61 3 9328 8712
email : info@westspace.org.au This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
web : http://www.westspace.org.au/

02 December 2009

Songs of Soap ~ now with Pedestaline™

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We recently showed images of three new book covers, including that of Art and Text - Nadine Monem, editor.

Art and Text_400

Those with the requisite visual literacy recognise this as a reference to and reworking of Andy Warhol's 1964 reworking of Brillo soap pad packaging. Brillo > Art and Text - with a new New!



Here is a NEW IMPROVED version, from the late 70s.

1978-79_VISION-New Improved_400w

The same again as someone looks at a Brillo heap
NEW IMPROVED
now with Pedestaline™



Here's the young artist (1964) who poses with his double product.


And here a younger (1880s) artist who poses with his New York soap product ( "1776" ) of art and text.

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01 December 2009

The Message

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Over the last month or so the Australian Federal Opposition,
aka The Coalition (of the Liberal Party and the National Party minority), under the influence of their substantial component of Climate Change Deniers & Sceptics, have been tearing themselves apart. This is how senior political commentator Michelle Grattan described the situation in yesterday's THE AGE (Melbourne):

Liberals floundering in chaos

The Liberal Party is a madhouse. Malcolm Turnbull amazed even the Turnbull sceptics by his wild performance yesterday.

Turnbull unleashed appeared to many Liberals Turnbull unhinged, as he vented his considerable capacity for wrath against Senate leader Nick Minchin, now cast as the devil by his leader but quite popular in party ranks.

Turnbull would have better stayed in bed, rather than appear with Laurie Oakes. His support went further backwards.

The party is now set on installing Joe Hockey whether he likes it or not.

The formula is that once there is a spill motion, a ''challenge'' - which Hockey says he won't make - is not really a ''challenge''. Hockey seems ready to don this fig leaf, to everyone's relief.

The chaos appears headed to a fix that involves Hockey for leader, Peter Dutton for deputy, Tony Abbott for shadow treasurer...

( full article here )
All commentators warned that today's leadership spill result was unpredictable. Which is indeed how it turned out, with all best bets arse about and Tony Abbott elected leader. Here's how another senior political AGE journalist, Tony Wright, described Abbott several days ago :

Ascetic warrior ready for battle

Tony Abbott, long known as the Mad Monk, transmogrified into a vision of the Grim Reaper as he swung through Malcolm Turnbull's office yesterday afternoon.

Those who have met him on a rugby field or a boxing ring know there is much of the ascetic warrior in the Abbott.

Malcolm Turnbull is a physically solid fellow, too, and no wilting flower. He would prove it within hours with a fighting performance of a news conference, declaring himself still the leader of the Liberal Party and vowing that his party would deliver on its emissions trading deal with the Rudd Government, whomever may try to deny him.

But he was outnumbered when the Grim Reaper strode into his bunker mid-afternoon. Abbott was accompanied by another of the austere in the utterly fractured Liberal congregation: Senator Nick Minchin, Liberal leader in the Senate and veteran of a hundred factional stoushes and Liberal crises.

They were on a mission. They were about to try to nail their leader to a cross they were convinced he had built for himself.

Abbott learned a bit about missions during his time in the seminary as a young man, and he was a champion debater, but he can use his fists when his blood is up.

( full article here )


"The argument on climate change is absolute crap. However the politics of this are tough for us. Eighty per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger."

Tony Abbott, Sept 2009

quoted in Pyrenees Advocate, October 2009




Unrelated, also this morning the bL History of the Message archive received three hundred-year-old readymademessage telegraph postcards. Here's one of them.


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28 November 2009

Look-ing @ Paint-ed(s)

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From the Art & Photography section of Readings' Summer Reading Guide, three book covers.






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27 November 2009

See No Boundaries

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If seeing boundaries is a definition of impaired vision ...

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26 November 2009

Blot On Black

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Following on from A Troubled See, from the bLOGOS/HA HA blotter collection comes BLOT OUT BLINDNESS!


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Of these several hundred blotters, most are white to cream, then yellow, pink, green or blue. A light ground for a dark blot.

Only two provide a black blotter. Understandably, the Dependable Photostat Service of the Commercial Reproducing Company (1933 - Phone 6428: Detroit, Michigan) is proud of its rich blacks. Black on black. The other is the verso of BLOT OUT BLINDNESS!

When this you troubled see ...


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24 November 2009

The Good Oil

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For reasons best known to themselves, the Advertising Dept at bLOGOS/HA HA has been pestering Editorial to share with you this weather-beaten old JPEG. Joseph's Oil : Antidote for A Troubled See.

2009_Trade Card_A TROUBLED SEE
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21 November 2009

> review > Re-view > dis-regard >

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Re-attribution Pick of the Week (below) is from the review section of today's Weekend Australian.

The name of the recommended exhibition, from which Peter Henry Emerson's Gathering Water Lilies (1885) is visually re-attributed ? Re-view


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