Richard Crow
Late Summer 1997, DP and I are taking part in the shoot for
Mark Aerial Waller’s Glow boys in
Hoxton (we sort of meet in the canteen scene but this is not the first time I
have seen DP, maybe it’s the first time we spoke, I doubt it somehow, DP will
of course remember other occasions I’m sure) we share some obscure quips, and some grub I don’t remember what, pies or
chips, I remark that he looks like
Jack Nance (it’s a veiled compliment of sorts)/Douglas has a speaking role I’m
just an extra, eating and drinking Mark E. Smith is the Caterer, he hands out
the chips, we all get on really well (fuckin’ hell this is the man who sang
Bingo master’s break out) later on at the Electricity Showroom Rut Blees
Luxemburg takes one too many pics of Mark E. Smith/lots of banter/and a lot to
recount/
Oct/Nov 1998 DP invites me to contribute to his curated show
for the Attache Gallery “Grapeshot Bullseye Harvest” ‘a database of meaning around
a distinct centre’ (“to contribute no more than one A6/6 BY 4.25 inches. (I
believe it was DP who gave me the canvas?) I respond with one of my ‘brown
period’ paintings (1996-98) DP writes lovingly “Richard Crow/Institution of
Rot. Artwork resembles some forensic relic and the title could be a line from a
hymn or prayer – “Who in spirit of a new disease always shall travel on” Object
trouvé/arte matiere relief with accompanying recitable text from The Patient by Austrian schizophrenic
writer, Ernst Herbeck (Alexander)-hence title. A fractured unorthodox mirror
(token of private misfortune possibly identity crisis – and yet even
empowerment), defectively shines and reflects amidst a brown debris
swamp,(Abject pathetitude, waste and decay-soil or manure garden/farm
nourishment – healing medicine – fuel- phoenix out of the ashes-dormant
regenerative energy storage). It was around this time that DP started calling
me “Richard Creep” after I’d mentioned it to him, a name christened by David
Cunningham (Flying Lizards) in reference undoubtedly perhaps to my veiled
erotic interest in the artist/film maker Karen Mirza (no.w.here). In fact I
believe that the cracked mirror in the work was found at the RCA where said
artist was studying.The work ‘The Patient’ then is perhaps a touchstone then to
our ‘serial collaboration’…
23 August 2004 DP enters the Institution of Rot for the
first time as a (self) recording artist, as a medical voice/the voice as an
instrument. He’d responded enthusiastically to my phone call or email or text message. I had been invited to
contribute to the CD/book Soundworks – For Those That Have Ears (Art Trail
Publications, Cork, 2005) I had seen DP recitinghis texts at Club Esther (and
elsewhere) and I was particularly taken with “Human Shield” at Club Esther and
imagined that this piece would work well with a unshielded piezocontact mic on
the throat and a background rumbling of low frequencies… I wanted it for my
research on (Imaginary) Hospital Radio, as I recall the recording of the text
was done in just one take, with the
contact mic directly injected into the recording device, here the DP voice both
embodies and dis-embodies the lines (learned by rote?) “slotted insertion,
underlay mask implant”
