http://www.sydbarrett.net/Front%20Pages/art.htm
So, Syd (or Roger) Barrett's customised bicycles are for sale today.
Two customised bicycles belonging to the late SYD BARRETT are to be auctioned off in Cambridge, England. Barrett, who founded legendary rockers PINK FLOYD in the 1960s, died last month (JUL06) at the age of 60. The musician quit the music industry in 1972 and lived a reclusive life until his death. The bicycles on auction are two that Barrett hand-painted himself and rode every day. Paintings and furniture made by Barrett as well as his writing, art materials will also be up for auction. A spokesperson says, "The auction will consist of items left by Syd in his Cambridge house."24/08/2006 17:20 contactmusic.com
I wonder, if his visual contribution to society was as well recognised as his musical contribution, would he have self-destructed in such a spectacular way.
I reckon I could cope with MY art becoming famous. Indifference is horrible and often causes you to not recognise yourself, as you try to change to meet the tastes of others. I don't know if people who do not "indulge" in creative activities really understand this.
I really liked Syd's solo albums and his paintings. I customise my car. I wonder if he had ideas spilling out of his head and landing on any surface (mundane or professional) the way I do? I wonder what would have happened to him had he been on the medication I'm on?
Its hard to distinguish between unwanted thoughts/feelings/sensations and wanted ones. I'm glad I stayed away from Acid. I think it would have been a nightmare. Luckily I recognised early on that the mind/brain/soul(?) is a highly sensitive organ and any outside forces acting on it are bound to have some effect and a lot of the time this effect is totally unpredictable. OK, so there's the excitement, there's the risk, but if you spend enough time teetering on the edge of the void one day you are just going to fall in. And when you do, there's no way out.
Autumn is icumen in. The air is borderline wintry. I wont miss the summer - far too hot, too sticky the heat in this country, the grass went brown and its hard to nurture any energy both in the garden and in my own self. Its been raining pretty much daily for the last month, on and off, springlike showers mostly. Its given me a new sense of life. Not necessarily optimism, not exactly hope (which is like picking ideas up with slippery fingers without washing them first), just a willingness to engage with growing things. The show finishing has also added to this perspective. I am very much into creating in a collaboration now, whether it be with nature or other artists. Nature itself is an artist. We bought a shredder the other day and I am buying lots of plants on e-bay (in a frenzy of spending!) , and I plan where to put them in the garden - but that's really just supplying Nature with a palette and raw materials. She can then decide what thrives and what withers and dies. Ideas are like that. At the moment I don't want to paint because it doesn't seen real. Also I guess there is an element of shrugging ones shoulders after a week of effort rewarded by indifference. A break while I commune with nature will give me a bit of space and a bit of a jolt I think. Also its probably good for me too look at other artists instead of bashing away at my own stuff before I go back to college. Its Back To School fever everywhere but I still have a month. But that's not very long. I'm going to have to start focusing again soon. My partner is working a bit more locally now and the atmosphere in the house has changed somewhat for him being around more often, and I know if I treat the whole house as a studio its not going to go down well - so I'm ambivalent about going back to college. It'd be nice to be hands-on making things again, but I'll miss the privilidge of the peace and the privacy of home...
Syd was Roger at home and Roger was Syd outside. Home and Outside are polar opposites?
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Micronight and Macroverse
I was awake til gone 2am last night, just looking at foriegn film sites.
Its amazing how the night is always a universe in itself, either you surf a virtual reality or your mind just makes one up. To me, dreams and the internet are very similar. They are non-linear in nature, yet one path may lead unexpectedly into another. You may re-awake old memories - for example, I happened to be led to a site about a film called Salo - I am sure this is a film that I stumbled across years ago when I happened to have the TV on late at night when I couldn't sleep. Stills from the film suddenly gave me a sense of great Deja Vu, and a feeling of homecoming. I'd had stills and scenes in my mind from a foriegn film that I desperatley tried to track down as it has left such an impact on my psyche and now it looked like I had found the answer completely by accident because I was looking at another film reference. Now, isn't it strange how the mind does this, I think the power of the subconscious is amazing, because it must've picked up cues and clues along the way, been led by attraction and fascination.
There has been a lot in the news about dreams lately. One person on Wikipedia even goes as far as to suggest that we remember 3d films as memories because the mind does not think of them as merely an image but as of reality because our eyes pick up things stereoscopically. Yet how does that explain visions that are as much a part of our experience than anything that has actually happened to us. I still remember the feelings of recoil and pain on viewing the mass rape scene in the Baby of Macon, and the utter revulsion and sympathy of the multimorph creature at the end of The Thing. Just celluloid or video images, and yet they play out in the mind as if they were recollections of real events. It is so strange how sometimes a film can give a child nightmares, like some kind of PTSD, and yet it is a story. However, the growing neurons in the mind can distinguish between a story and an event, surely. Or can they? Do the memories of a story perisist more than the memories of an event?
Its amazing how the night is always a universe in itself, either you surf a virtual reality or your mind just makes one up. To me, dreams and the internet are very similar. They are non-linear in nature, yet one path may lead unexpectedly into another. You may re-awake old memories - for example, I happened to be led to a site about a film called Salo - I am sure this is a film that I stumbled across years ago when I happened to have the TV on late at night when I couldn't sleep. Stills from the film suddenly gave me a sense of great Deja Vu, and a feeling of homecoming. I'd had stills and scenes in my mind from a foriegn film that I desperatley tried to track down as it has left such an impact on my psyche and now it looked like I had found the answer completely by accident because I was looking at another film reference. Now, isn't it strange how the mind does this, I think the power of the subconscious is amazing, because it must've picked up cues and clues along the way, been led by attraction and fascination.
There has been a lot in the news about dreams lately. One person on Wikipedia even goes as far as to suggest that we remember 3d films as memories because the mind does not think of them as merely an image but as of reality because our eyes pick up things stereoscopically. Yet how does that explain visions that are as much a part of our experience than anything that has actually happened to us. I still remember the feelings of recoil and pain on viewing the mass rape scene in the Baby of Macon, and the utter revulsion and sympathy of the multimorph creature at the end of The Thing. Just celluloid or video images, and yet they play out in the mind as if they were recollections of real events. It is so strange how sometimes a film can give a child nightmares, like some kind of PTSD, and yet it is a story. However, the growing neurons in the mind can distinguish between a story and an event, surely. Or can they? Do the memories of a story perisist more than the memories of an event?
Friday, August 11, 2006
Equus and The Sparrow Factory
I dont know how I got to browsing for Equus but I've been absorbed for hours. I seem to recall seeing the film (probably on BBC2 in those days) as a kid and being rather bored and unimpressed by it, maybe because it involved adults shouting at each other and I got enough of that at home.. but now I daresay I could see the film and really get it. I think I'd rather read the play though, because what comes direct from the author is perhaps more authentic and has the lifeblood coursing through the story without it ending in the grandiose musculature of fleshing out that the theatre or cinema forms for our weak 2oth/21st century imagination.
What I think would stand out for me is the idea that you have to be normal and passionless in society, and that people who would deem to be caring and looking after you would remove the love of your life. I cant myself figure out what is normal and what people want from me.
Funny how people say "everybody is different" and then go on to impose what is important to them as vital for other people. Take eating breakfast for example. How is it that it is supposed to be good for ones metabolism, when one person can skip breakfasts and lose weight and the other person, with an identical lifestyle in terms of exercise and age, has to eat first thing?
The other interesting thing is, visually, the props of the stage sets for this play. I wonder if the set designers and costume designers of the recent stage adaptation of the Lion King looked at the way horses were portrayed in productions of Equus. The heads and the stilts look the same!
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I have been working very closely with sparrows. Not literally, but I watch them a lot. They are always in the garden and their presence amuses and comforts me. Their antics probably are purposeful in terms of survival: mating, eating, fighting, that sort of thing; but to me they look like they are playing, that their flitting from tree to tree and diving off fences and rooftiles is just for the fun of it. Then I hear them like giggling imps, looking down at us. I wonder if fun is just as important to survival as those other behavours I have listed. We could learn a lot from our little Passer Domesticus.
What I think would stand out for me is the idea that you have to be normal and passionless in society, and that people who would deem to be caring and looking after you would remove the love of your life. I cant myself figure out what is normal and what people want from me.
Funny how people say "everybody is different" and then go on to impose what is important to them as vital for other people. Take eating breakfast for example. How is it that it is supposed to be good for ones metabolism, when one person can skip breakfasts and lose weight and the other person, with an identical lifestyle in terms of exercise and age, has to eat first thing?
The other interesting thing is, visually, the props of the stage sets for this play. I wonder if the set designers and costume designers of the recent stage adaptation of the Lion King looked at the way horses were portrayed in productions of Equus. The heads and the stilts look the same!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I have been working very closely with sparrows. Not literally, but I watch them a lot. They are always in the garden and their presence amuses and comforts me. Their antics probably are purposeful in terms of survival: mating, eating, fighting, that sort of thing; but to me they look like they are playing, that their flitting from tree to tree and diving off fences and rooftiles is just for the fun of it. Then I hear them like giggling imps, looking down at us. I wonder if fun is just as important to survival as those other behavours I have listed. We could learn a lot from our little Passer Domesticus.
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