Dream-Key Zodiac / Pandora's Ark @ Near-Future Fictions

Douglas Park presents his story 'Dream-Key Zodiac / Pandora's Ark' at at Virtual Futures' Near-Future Fictions on the theme of Fit for the Future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X86jT8VoRs&fbclid=IwAR0FKVxH8lcvqB5rtFMFttvISL0pSrtFoYFpJHsc3SipI1CpYczZ4FA_KLA

Michael Dans – When the Water Clouded Over

 Textes : Jean-Michel Botquin et Douglas Park.

23x34 cm, 96 pages couleurs
Couverture cartonnée + embossage + jaquette en couleurs
Fr/En/Nl
décembre 2018

Jan. 2018
Antwerp
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10215562477429918&set=pcb.10215562478789952&type=3&theater
http://www.editionsducaid.com/produit/michael-dans-when-the-water-clouded-over/?fbclid=IwAR0XzxKVMjyd3Sn2D_x8WIFJf9VYWSae4b-yCpX3y222upxPxuAGtYpIyJs

HOUR: Bergen International Performance Festival 2020

 

Performance art and one day seminar at Kunstgarasjen
Friday 28 February: 17.45
24 hours group collective performance
28 February: 18.00 continue to 18.00 on 29 February
One day seminar
Sunday 1 March: 14.00 - 17.30

HOUR is a performance art, collective encounter which 24 artists from Norway, Nordic and international countries migrate, interact within and share time, space and materials over a 24 hour period follow by one day seminar. HOUR is curated by Pavana Reid for Performance Art Bergen. .

On Friday 28th February at 18.00, artists enter the shared space, one by one, on the hour, every hour and remain in the space for the 24 hour period. The artists perform together and will end the performance collectively at 18.00 on Saturday 29th February.

Among the audiences, students from Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen (KMD) will take part in a writing workshop “Witness” Experiential Writing: text as a means to document performance which organised by Eleanor Clare and Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen.

On Sunday1st March at 14.00, the seminar begins with About Real Time and Constructed Time a lecture performance by Kurt Johannessen. Follow by Reflection a panel discussion which Sylvie Ferrè, Øyvind Kvalnes, Douglas Park, Eleanor Clare, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen and Kurt Johannessen will share their experience with the 24 participants and audiences of the performance HOUR. The seminar will finish with short presentations by the students.

HOUR BIPF 2020 is supported by:
Performance Art Bergen, Nordic Culture Fund, City of Bergen, Arts Council Norway, Kunstgarasjen, Hordaland County, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen (KMD) and H. Westfal-Larsen og Hustru Anne Westfall-Larsen´s Almennyttigefond.

The Artists, official observers, witnesses from KMD, audience and organisers straight after the 24 hour long performance was completed!

https://www.facebook.com/PerformanceArtBergen/photos/a.213094938800456/2682085718568020/?type=3&theater

Entirely overwhelmed by overwhelming entirety.

Sightseeing bystander.
Serving on supervisory jury congregation fanbase squad.
Forecast and horoscope Delphic oracle consulted for reference.
Give or take joining forces with frontline voyeurism and some self-service consideration and ascertainment thrown in for good measure.
Hopefully, headed towards gradual arrival at estimate diagnoses verdict findings score.

The otherwise solitary, separate and even enclosed and discreet or actually private, hidden and secret; brought altogether and rendered into actual spectator, contact, competitive and blood sport, game, playtime and teamwork.

Pas certains petite accrochage et / ou salon vivante.
Mais quelque grande surprise, challenge and revelation, for creators, organization and audience alike.
Not HOUR, but full-blown DAY, WEEKEND, LiFETiME and ETERNiTY.

Associations came to mind.
Allan Kaprow — Happenings pioneer and inventor of that term — declared time to be a process, substance, medium and artform.
Wolf Vostell once used some sugar, bowl and spoon to demonstrate differences he identified between Allan Kaprow & other’s Happenings, George Maciunas’ Fluxus events and Wolf Vostell’s own Decollage.
Photographic-artist, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s time-lapse exposure etudes of movies on cinema screen, housebuilding and demolition, sea tides, archaeology and other durational procedures.

At the time, were any creators influenced by other’s presence, activity and input, then how, in which ways, causing what?

Suppose there could’ve been split–difference, common law-of-averages, missing link and hybrid cross-between some, much, most or all of HOUR’s highlights and general procedure.

I found myself trying to imagine being in the HOUR performer’s position.
Expectation, planning, accident, opportunism.
Respect, cooperation, ignoring, avoidance, challenge, testing, competitiveness, opposition.

I was rereminded about and unforgot something I once noticed (and doubtless others did too).
Perhaps encouraged and at least seemingly spontaneous outbursts of togetherness, support and rivalry amongst participants in historical (or legendary!) events:
Gustav Metzger’s 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium;
the 1968 Azioni Povera fair at Amalfi;
1969’s conceptualism and arte povera group shows, When Attitudes Become Form and Op Losse Schroeven;
Fluxshoe 1972-’73 regional UK touring survey show and festival.

Raphael “Ralph” Montanez Ortiz who was the “opening act” for Gustav Metzger’s 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium said he considered it to be some “Art Olympics” in which he was gonna “win gold”.

Did, might or will HOUR affect any survivor, during then, from that and now, since, later?
Open-ended, flexible, happilyforeveraftermore, conclusive, definite, finalized, whatever else.

Practical joke.
Physical humour.
Total art comedy.
Veriteville.

A regret about HOUR.
If only ensuing crime scene forensic evidence clue votive offerings were kept staying behind, whether explained or left as mystery.
Sown and planted, for growth, blossoming, crop, harvest, multiplication, spread, breakout, evolution and general afterlife.

A wish.
Attempt to imagine, make and use or even be a “Time-Mirror”.
No mere gauge or monitor of time.
But instead truly active generation, supply and control of time — and all that time is, does and causes — then what can happen within time.

HOUR forcibly dredged up some case-study specimens from my own track-record.

Norway, performance art, limitation and setbacks, potential and advantage.

In 2010, Artistspace in London commissioned me to write for their Unfeasibility Study group exhibition.
Unfeasibility Study concerned likelihood of progress, effectiveness, consequence or use-value to art, culture and whatever else.
At 1st, I came up with 2 (or rather, 1 & a 1/2!) “manifestos” for their website.
The most overgrown of them, Returning Back Again to the Crime-Scene, Only with a Vengeance this Time Around, For more of the Same or Different addressed cultural practitioners, output, organizations, venues and events becoming rife and epidemic — then, if anything better or some improvement could be necessary, possible, done or happening.
Whilst the briefest, Mission-Impossible Quota Score says just about the same — only a fraction as long.
Also, for the Unfeasibility Study’s catalog, I “defined” chosen works by 14 accepted submission entrants, what else they did otherwise and in general.
Unfeasibility Study’s selection was from an open-call, aimed at emergent artists, recent postgraduates and promising students — in particular, if they dealt with the problematics and context to their work, practice, medium and discipline — by itself and regarding external conditions.
None of them were people, artists or work I self-consciously knew.
Not dissimilar to other undertakings.
Beforehand, I’d written about multiple artists, sometimes at short-notice and occasionally hitherto unknown people.
Only this was far more demanding.
I’d never done more than 1 of those at once.
Until then.
This had to be written within a single weekend, alongside other things, only armed with some background gained from contact and research — reinforced by or backing up me doing my utmost and pushing myself.
Unfeasibility Study included Mimi Norrgren, UK based, expatriate Norwegian, performance artist.
At Unfeasibility Study’s launch event, Mimi Norrgren walked inside a cloth covered and wooden framework — through the outdoors courtyard.
Heres my “definition” of Mimi Norrgren’s exhibited artwork in Unfeasibility Study catalog.

Mimi Norrgren: In Bird, a documented 2-hour long body-art action (or “zerreisprobe” / endurance-test), Mimi Norrgren is shown with a blank canvas as interface protection between herself — and a real-live rhea (member of the ostrich family), whose advances she fends off from herself, while still feeling their full brunt.
Bird, provokes pondering human concerns of constant vulnerability and desperate need for survival — but also the craving and desire for experience, risk-taking and even danger. Even in this day and age, gender-politics enter the equation, given the author (and heroine or star) is female and young.
Furthermore, only a single still photograph of just 1 scene from Bird is in Unfeasibility Study; no moving image footage, audio or relics.
However, being in black and white as well as fact theres limited material to “go on” serve as reminders that much earlier post and cold war era performance and other work is only “known” from vintage records or even 2nd-hand “reality”.
Additionally, the past / present / future status of live-art is called into question, with cases argued for-and-against.

+ Just some of my connection to performance art (and Scandinavia).

1 of my recidivistic serial collaborators in crime is Richard Crow.
An important part of Richard Crow’s life and work was his early to mid 1990’s Institution of Rot event venue, at his North London domestic and working space, where he inhabited from between the early 1980’s until 2009.
Richard Crow’s ventures include Institution of Rot appraisals.
Live events.
Such as the 2009 eviction and departure ceremony, festivities, mourning, “wake” or “exorcism”, A Demised Premise.
A readymade housing and property term.
Then, 2013’s A Rotten Corpus, “séance” or “invocation” for the Institution of Rot, at Goldsmiths College, London.
Both involving me.
Another resurrected phoenix arisen from the Institution of Rot’s ashes was Richard Crow’s A Demised Premise dossier and black museum, published in the Dokument, Dispositiv, Deskription, Diskurs, number of OEI anthology, Stockholm, 2011.
1 page is an image of me performing, with my own summed-up impressions and aspects of the Institution of Rot; but ideally both halves should be prelude and sequel, at opposite extreme ends of A Demised Premise.
I sometimes recite this and other works by me, with Crow’s found material, when we perform, record or are filmed.
Earlier, it was released as audio track (with quoted extracts on sleeve) on Richard Crow & Institution of Rot’s 2009 A Demised Premise cd and cassette.

Disembodied, free and loose, but injured and sickly voices gasp their very last breath; remains compress, adhere, fuse, solidify and fossilize; leftovers, resurrecting into cadavers and wreckage which never quite die out; instead, they stumble, falter, slow down and halt during course of duty as active bodies and live places, not at standstill.

Substance-fatigue claims derelict bodies and dead places; afflicted victims fracture, shatter, crumble and dissolve, until evaporated away; all fumes and sand survived by burns, rust, debris, stains, mold, shadows and clouds lurking behind afterwards; immortalized voices patrol, haunt and reign, becoming unhindered meteorological weather.

Sydewerlding / By : Douglas Park

 

 Sydewerlding

Convenient nextdoor neighbouring wasteland and droughtzone, barren — even by such standards — but place where furrows plow and tend themselves.    

Subsequently, newborn lunar desert grows enclosure surrounds and covering rooftop.   

Behind there, indoors, down below and underneath.   River and ocean, bank and shore, bed and depths.  Mud quagmire and quicksand saltmarsh — extraction and drainage — ignite, burn, crumble and dissolve.  Ensuing sawdust, rusty filings and raw ash —  which weep, perspire and bleed — far beyond mere death gone and passed.   Careworn, tired, weak and empty.   

Until diluted and impure irrigation-supply comes to the rescue.  Dosage and salvation, planted and sunken, dryness and need, absorb and swallow.              

So awoken, that fresh again, then strength returns, before empowerment is attained and rejuvenating back.        

Next, they become multicoloured — infinite spectrum flashes up — solid ground, actually turning into completely different material substances altogether — in fast change — each one after another — when not on overload, same time, all at once.          

Tropical coral reef of very much living and healthy glitter, sequin, millefiori, chameleon and kaleidoscopic pollen and spores.          

Hyperactive decoration pattern and pictorial imagery.  Embroidery carpet pavement, stained-glass see-through flooring, jewelry mosaic terrain.   Rainforest jungle gardens blossom.  Clear water flows.           

           Photo : ©, Copyright, Oriana Dierinck

https://sulfursurrealistjungle.com/2020/08/27/sydewerlding-by-douglas-park/?fbclid=IwAR1cXSMiRIP1cpouJ3CkNHYQeV15Pu9X7GwLFTKWRU0AAdQDEn8bL-aKFJQ

Douglas Park Greatest hits

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1141979245846955&set=p.1141979245846955&type=3&theater
Dec. 2015

La légende comme source

Parfois, lorsqu’on navigue dans les eaux de l’art, une question inattendue nous arrive à l’oreille, remplaçant l’habituelle « Que fait cet artiste ? » par un « C’est qui ce mec ? ». Douglas Park a fait basculer les réflexes interrogatifs. Car ici la balance hésite en permanence et doucement entre la personne et la pratique.

Douglas Park est un artiste anglais, vivant dans le sud de Londres. Il est peut-être dans le top dix des artistes les plus connus de la scène londonienne, bien que, précisément, on ne sache pas précisément ce qu’il fait, ce qui ne préoccupe personne, car c’est, en l’occurrence, une mauvaise question.

Entre la mascotte et le socializer à l’américaine, associée d’érudition frénétique, Douglas Park est celui qui cherche à sortir des travers qui font de lui un personnage.

Connaissant ce que personne ne connaît (par goût, par luxe ou par devoir civique on ne sait pas), il est devenu l’encyclopédie vivante des pratiques les plus obscures : amateurs, fous en tous genres, œuvres perdues et disloquées, groupes improbables, scandales étouffés, parias, professionnels hors catégories, qui consituent une deuxième histoire de l’art, non pas que cette histoire alternative souhaite aspirer à de quelconques lettres de noblesses, mais plutôt parce qu’elle est le terrain méconnu sur lequel se forme l’indispensable et grande Histoire de l’Art. Douglas Park est le connaisseur des « artistes pour artistes », ceux dont, parce qu’ils passent sous les radars de l’académie, on imite, dans certains cas, les meilleures idées. Il devient aussi le défenseur de nouveaux rôles, ceux qui, ne suivant pas avec orthodoxie les clous d’une carrière artistique, deviennent, par façon d’être et parfois par accident, des agitateurs.

Récitateur d’anecdotes et d’épisodes capitaux de l’histoire de l’art moderne, à n’en plus finir, il poursuit inlassablement une double quête d’évangélisation à la cause de l’art et au récit. Ces lectures frôlent avec la fiction, le moment où l’événement vrai rejoint la création artistique en évitant la neutralité documentaire. Ce qui est adjacent prend alors une place centrale. La légende est sa source. Et les individus valent autant que les objets, les moments et les actions prévalent sur les lieux, et donc, pour reprendre une formule connue, l’art se confond avec la vie. Il faut donc être exemplaire.

En prêcheur expérimenté et obsédé par le détail, Douglas est entouré de fidèles supporters et en profite pour agir avec de multiples groupes déterminés et indéterminés, des groupes comme ceux qu’il a dans la tête. Il prendra le rôle de l’acteur, du performer ou du critique d’art, et deviendra, comme dans chacune de ses collaborations une mémoire vivante et fiable de l’action collective.

Il est celui qui ajoute, en apportant avec modestie une personnalité comme symbole visible et en faisant dévier ce qu’on lui propose. De portrait, de lui-même et d’autres personnes, il est toujours question avec Douglas Park. Mais les dizaines et les dizaines de portraits qu’on a fait de lui, les hommages, forment un ensemble s’agrandissant qui cache les particularités d’un prose et d’un style omniprésent. Constituées de ricochets, mobiles et divagantes, les performances de Douglas sont les cours de celui qui a vécu l’histoire en direct et retranscrit, conteur sur-documenté, un ensemble hallucinatoire de sensations et de faits. L’adepte de la parenthèse et de l’insert, des déclinaisons de mots et d’évènements historiques, l’homme fasciné pouvant encore tout savoir dire et tout dire, reste un modèle, dans sa capacité à transformer en forme plastique absolument tout, du mot à l’image, ce qui lui tombe sous la main et entre les oreilles.

Damien Airault

Paris

'Dream-Solution Questionnaire', 'A Pœm A Day', anthology / calendar

edited by Bruno Devos, Nico Dockx & Clara Meister, Curious / Stockmans Kalenders bvba, Antwerpen, Mu.ZEE Ostend, 2014 Design ©, Copyright, Jean-Michel Meyers

Dream-Solution Questionnaire

Attempt to establish, 1st, (acknowledging mutual similarities with this reality — partly due to 2-way influence between the factors involved): if any geographical space and time-zone occupied by states of dream, fantasy, hallucination, idea, imagination, memory, nightmare, prophecy, reminiscence, reverie, thought, vision and whim etc is approximately estimatable — or positively located; then, is actual access, entrance and occupation possible; which material substances and energy forces do they consist of; what production-means are behind them; can measurements be made, recording size, weight and volume, with readings taken of scientific properties; does their existence extend beyond manifestation within conscious experiences, e.g. maybe already being up and running or ongoing before accepted beginning (such as through falling asleep) even starts, perhaps, continuing after apparent exit (for instance, upon waking up) finishes off, potentially, having constant, non-stop endlessness; would separate events happen, during the same occasion, but oblivious to perception, away from reach, without physically appearing, obviously or not, instead, occurring somewhere else apart; are some or all such places, leading or connected to others; will people, known or strangers to each other, be able to go to meet and interact over there, whether on a deliberate or involuntary basis; finally, could discoveries like these ever get found out, harnessed and put into practice, including, how to modify extant — and create new ones?…. 

©, Copyright, Douglas Park

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=836317749769222&set=a.104795376254800.7231.100001730141045&type=1&theater

NEON GRAFFITI / SHADOW CAMOUFLAGE + Explanation / Apology / Excuse / Attempt

NEON GRAFFITI / SHADOW CAMOUFLAGE + Explanation / Apology / Excuse / Attempt

Destination discovers voyager. Travelator pavement delivers upright paralytic cadaver. Wrong-turning side-street and behind-the-scenes backroom gaping jaws beckon. Entire body and newfound territory pound out slow heavy deep bass pulsing beats, in tempo together, gaining ever intensifying momentum. Contagious radioactive infection of innermost thought, wish, whim and freewill-power, spills straight out from the head to visit and tour the world, while the world penetratingly invades and swims inside the head. Upon contact, the solidly fossilised pitch-black nightfall toxic-hazard coalfaces in this neighbourhood shall surely burn, sting, stain, soil, bruise and cut the person; although, obligingly enough, lurid flashing blood rose sunset and dingy fog-blanket smokestack supply shock-absorbent guidance. 

Asleep, dreaming, worn-out, boarded-up window, fly-poster hoardings reawaken into technicolour flower, butterfly, jewellery, dragon, shooting-star firework-display fountains, e.g. kitsch glam’ camp chic look made of rough, dirty, crude, derelict and barbaric customisation, interior décor, cosmetics, ornament, packaging, gloss, commodity and promotional material — in a state of refined, precious, delicate, fragile and contemplative vandalism, defacing, waste, decay, damage and deterioration. 

Glimpsed arrival, lingering and departure of somehow almost familiar, recognised and well-known, yet unplaceable total strangers, reveals silhouette motif low-profile mugshot icon portraiture sitters’ casting-couch screen-test audition for body-count i.d-parade catwalk roles in bacchanalian orgiastic mass carnage inferno. These hovering phantom spectres, haunt and patrol, incognito, wearing finery of armour-plated fancy-dress-party costume disguises of mournful sackcloth-and-ashes hood, cowl, visor, shawl, sari, cloak, drape, veil, shroud and gown — with festive war-paint carnival masks. 

Time after time, again and again, 2 distinct, recurring figures attract and hold attention: the 1st one, prominent, bold, visible and actively posturing in the limelight, follows and even forges time-honoured roads, earning respect — and envy; then, a 2nd, far more solitary, seen to lurk, creep, duck, dodge, hide and run behind corners, away from view, enacting unclear conduct, deserves utmost contempt — but also fascination. Both personages find and make up all the rules, aim, score — and the actual game itself accordingly, whilst bulldozing their merry ways along on the job; sometimes, at certain stages, through mutual common-denominator go-betweens, they meet, cross, converge, overlap and intertwine paths with each other and brush shoulders. 

Sporadic and ongoing, sudden, instant, gradual and emerging broken-off outbursts and sustained announcements of free-verse consciousness-stream prose, given out in a vernacular colloquial dialect slang terminology jargon, conveniently provide the following 5 helpful services: A.) faltering overdubbed voiceover, soundtrack, subtitles, interpretation, dialogue, script and running commentary; B.) local pirate radio station broadcast and reception to, from, against, around and throughout vicinity, persistent despite interference, background noise, signal distortion, atmospherics and disturbance; C.) estranged chatline ansafone comparison and swapping of mismatched and incomplete memo-pad note telegrams in stereophonic soliloquy monologue conversation; D.) ectoplasm and poltergeist teams whom scrawl, mutter, exclaim, pour, unravel, expose, smudge, erase and scour out desperate and urgent confessional diary entries, which alarm and reassure, warn and boast to all-and-sundry about this, that and the other; E.) spreading vague suspicions and wild rumours as to what might be original authorship and source, intended purpose, meaning, subject, target and consequence of such secret message publicity propaganda campaign evangelism. 

Explanation / Apology / Excuse / Attempt

Originally generated in 2001, as an invited reaction to Trix Stephenson’s Wonderground solo exhibition at A & D Gallery, London. Sadly, there was never any outlet for usage or exposure, due to Trix Stephenson 1st changing his work in favour of other directions, then any and all such activity of his hitting a hiatus due to other commitments and ventures. 

Around that time, Trix Stephenson was more than just some other worthy and exciting new arrival on the block and scene. Much interest and support followed for awhile. His energetic and raw but deep and serious work used scavenged paint and graphic materials for mark-making, not just being applied onto found host support surfaces. 

This output split into 3 distinct but connected facets or personæ. The star (or decoy?) “Larry Large”, mostly involved in the adult-entertainment industry, ruthlessly ambitious or even already successful, hellbent on fame, money and possibly also power and influence (the works included many references to advertising, fashion, brandnames and consumerism); unusually for such concerns and subject-matter, complex and even cumbersome, yet still effective. The more marginalised and secretive, “Raymond Lee Chandler”, a misanthropic serial-killer, with much misplaced drive and planning behind their campaign (or mission), the paintings appearing like umpteenth rate (but nonetheless powerful, believable and insight-infested) brutalist toilet walls, with graffiti, stains and paintwork to match (surprisingly, sophisticated and mysterious, for all the directness and crudity). Less specified or defined, “Bobbie Delicious”, a female character, somehow having dealings with both “Larry Large” and “Raymond Lee Chandler”, not so prolific as the other 2; mostly represented by waist-upward humanoid figures, with gloved hands coming from the genital area; the few or only 3d works by Trix Stephenson were soft sculptures based on this motif. 

A common-thread running throughout, was genuine exploration of the affinities and linkage between such behaviour, then to what extent they’re caused by and contribute to society, as well as public attitudes and perception towards them — including the extent to which we are all susceptible and implicated. 

Circumstances surrounding ‘Neon Graffiti / Shadow Camouflage’ influentially entered the end-result and outcome. It had been on the cards to visit the show as promised. The day that happened began when I awoke to find myself in the toilets of the Royal Academy of Arts Schools, following an art award private view the night before. After explanation to good-humoured and sympathetic Royal Academy of Arts Schools staff, my 1st port of call was the Seeing Round Corners mini-retrospective of the (since lating-greating) sculptor, Barry Flanagan, at Waddington’s in Cork Street. While there, the phone rang. It was Trix, wondering if I was around, free and up for checking out Wonderground that day, because he’d be at the A & D Gallery then. Having nothing else to do meant I’d may as well go, so offer taken up and accepted. This meant making my way from Mayfair to Chiltern Street (in and near Baker Street / Marylebone / Bayswater / Portland Street / Regent’s Park), where A & D Gallery still gœs strong to this very day; o.k, so nothing difficult, unpleasant, unique or special otherwise, but journey, environment and experience became self-consciously aware-of, adding to pre-existent knowledge and expectations of what lay waiting. The only remembered visit along the way was Cornelia Grassi’s Greengrassi gallery, in those days based in Fitzroy Street, Fitzrovia (off Warren Street and Euston Road). 

Not too much later, getting to A & D Gallery, meeting Trix again, seeing work, similar to and the same as what I’d already heard about and seen before and further discussions (with all that entailed and brought), all joined forces together, alongside every other external factor entering equation. Even more than usual for me, it became inevitable to play around with readymade (or even sometimes from-bad-to-worse) clichés of imagery conveyed, phrasing and embodiment, then how overall impression would be pulled off and come across. Doing my utmost to capture, save, preserve, emphasise and reinforce that which was then and still is so real and credible, to the best of my ability possible, hopefully without corruption or weakening of it. 

©, Copyright, Douglas Park 

Online at http://www.slashseconds.com, curated by Graham Horton & Peter Lewis, Redux Projects, London / Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, 2011 

http://e-flux.com/aup/project/neon-graffiti-shadow-camouflage-explanation-apology-excuse-attempt/

NOT WANTING TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT DP: Rambles and recollections (some fragments)

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”