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Anselm Kiefer's Walhalla at the White Cube, London

A combination of large scale installation, sculpture and painting, Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition title alludes to a cosmic space in Norse mythology - a place of perpetual battle in which the dead warriors of the underworld are housed. Upon entering the building, the viewer encounters a dim-lit corridor containing frail metal beds that are laid out mirroring the pathway on a large photograph mounted on the back wall. The image includes a solitary figure walking into a bleak a horizon that slowly meets the viewer after passing derelict beds reminiscent of a destroyed hospital or dormitory. With sheets of lead weighing them down under their metalliferous ore, this pathway echoes into a wasteland of ruin and toxic minerals... the walls painted with oxidized lead and a noxious stench that lingers from room to room. The initial space is gloomy and does not hold the grandiose presence that the subsequent paintings and sculptures impact upon us. However, as the audience is forced to turn back into this central corridor we encounter a sense that Kiefer’s hallway of desolation is central to the more insidious nature of this experience, crossing more beds with name-tags and reinforcing the central image of the lone figure who traverses upon a bleak landscape. We too are on this pictured journey where the path is laden with haunted relics of lost victims.

The journey continues onto the phase of the artists paintings which stood out most impressively by the final room where the initial ‘solitary’ landscape is mirrored through paint containing a slew of corrosive and earthly materials. Resonating a voice of explosive destruction, one is struck by a sense of the artist’s ability to observe and make comment upon the images of war whilst animating the passing events of battle through a succession of processes; the layering tubes of acrylic, sand and earth produce thick textures of ground escaping and winding into the dismal view. Disfigured flowers grow increasingly abstract as we approach the paintings and juxtapose themselves from the large hazardous clouds composed above. The room no longer contains the scent of lead but instead there is an aesthetic of toxicity. This time the central figure is removed from the image, perhaps requiring us to place ourselves inside the frame and walk through the wasteland being conveyed.

The rooms continue with botanical boxes containing war relics that have been suspended under sheets of metal and plants. Here the artifact is displayed as a large fossil inside glass cabinets representing the structural implications of war. This is further reinforced by the final room in which we encounter an assemblage of similar devastated objects placed surrounding a suspended plant root where the visual language becomes a metaphorical statement of our nature and the networks that war roots in us. 

This acknowledgment for the capacity of devastation within us is recreated with german name-tags, dimly-lit rooms and gloomy subject matter as if from a visit to Auschwitz, Poland where naive curiosity becomes a heavy and dutiful acknowledgment of horror. One room in particular conjures a similar sensation of mass and claustrophobia which only visiting a  holocaust site can truly replicate. The institutionalization of death; bodies piled upon each other; personal belongings displayed on mass and human remains of hair and teeth that make life appear utterly disposable - these themes are brought back to our conscience in Walhalla. 

Most notably in reference to the scale of mass ‘stacking’ of death was not just the paintings of crates, but an installation in which a room with boxes, name-tags and hair are stacked to the ceiling. The scent of oxidized lead is now putrid as vestiges of a now organic holocaust becomes increasingly ominous in the confined space. A crushing sensation may begin to grow in the minds of viewers with more acute imaginations in which recounting the atrocities of man or contemplating the remains of a genocidal landscape can produce. Here we do not need a tour guide reciting the endless statistics of lives lost to be reverberated inside our ears. Kiefer’s Walhalla is a prophecy as much as it is a reflection, both of ourselves and the imminent acts of war that inevitably bind us to our organic desolation. 

by KnowMe

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Generic Status Update

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A Wet Dream

“The long endless hillside of a sand dune runs straight into a cloudless horizon that is stained blood orange red. As I lay on the granules of sand that move beneath my dry roasting back, a scorch blazes against the heat of my body drawing the sun nearer to the Earth’s sheer copper slope. Like a piercing hot bulb its flames lick me trapping my skeleton tighter against the flat ground. I sit still mesmerized by the sight of this gargantuan titan sun filling the sky... it is so close, too close, crushing me beneath its curve. I am afraid to move, afraid to breathe. If I inhale too deep the boiling air above my nose will set me alight. If I move a millimeter too far the liquid granules of sand will slide me forward faster than I can move to stop myself. I can feel my body being pulled forward and falling straight off the face of the planet. Down the hillside beneath me in the dark abyss I can only imagine is the end of the Earth. A weightless sky, gentle and cool that leads to nowhere. A place without heat, without earth, without air. The burning red sun rotates like a magnifying wheel, taking with it a kaleidoscopic rotation of its size. It’s perfect burning circle of light is slowly shrinking inward bellowing a new wind from a different direction.

I can breathe a long deep breath. 

My skin joins me. My pores relax until every hair can take a gentle sigh and I look over to my right side carefully... slowly... to avoid slipping downward. Once I manage to get on all fours I climb gently upward to the top of the bank to gain a better view of my surroundings. In the distance I see dark silhouettes dotted sporadically in small sociable clusters but then, with my mind sounding trumpets in my eardrums I see the once too familiar sight of that burning star. It is smaller now but still seems reachable as if I could follow its long narrow edge onto the horizon, a treacherous journey winding along it’s shadow. I stand still, catching the wind at the very top of the sandy bank. To the left of me cold a shadow drowns the steep slant - to the right, hot smooth endless ridges of silk earth as wide as the eye can see. The wind is sweet and gentle as if the Earth had kissed me and breathed from its lungs of green. I am caught in a still moment. Eyes shut. Pure bliss.

Before I can think to react, my body is traveling. Downward. Fast. I open my eyes instantly to watch myself speeding down the bankside. Frantically, I reach out trying to catch any solid of mass the Earth offers me through the infinite granules that are sinking away. Faster and faster the sand whips, dancing through my toes, I am falling. Faster.  I am afraid.  I may fall forward…there isn’t enough gravity to hold me flat onto the Earth. I might fall outward into the sky. 

Suffocation. I cannot see the end of this cliff. I am no longer sliding but shooting down. I cannot feel the ground. Air has caught underneath my body and is now lifting me upward. Suddenly, before giving in I refuse to panic and focus on being still. Concentrating all my energy as if I were a rock in a zen garden I put all my thought into being caught in the sand... It works and I am finally still.  I stay for a moment to take one slow deep breath gently making my way forward. I maintain the same mindset of stillness and quiet to delicately wade upwards over the ocean of sand. I must not be afraid. Before long I am at the top of the bank again, only to see a rush of bodies laying down towels and baskets of food.  Tourists of this dreamscape, they mutter and laugh. I finally feel safe. There is anticipation in the air, something I do not know. They are here for something, but before I can guess the sun sinks backward and up into the sky, only to then shift to the right, rotating through its lens. Now it is soft and yellow and the atmosphere is salty and brisk, with hazy twilight. 

.

Water.

The sound hits me first. Bellowing waves and happy voices. I face the right side of the bank over to the Sun’s new horizon, keeping enough distance to the razor edge drop behind me. Blue. Beautiful Blue. It comes in and out teasing my eyes with its fluffy tides, rippling fresh water slipping back and forth closer and closer. People run out cheering to what is now a sea. Relieved in the success of my journey I sit patiently admiring the new landscape from afar. The water eventually reaches my toes, running itself through each crevice of my dry skin. Baptized by the wet my body surrenders itself lying flat on my back to bathe in its wonder.

The earth is becoming a shallow pool of liquid, and peoples belongings are hovering over toward nearby strangers. The wind is following, slowly but visibly rumbling behind the distant waves. Smiles are turning into shouting voices at random. Sporadic yelling and cries follow. It finally occurs to me…the tide is bringing us closer to the edge.

I take a moment to realize what will happen, and how little I can control the force dragging me outward. I have done this before, I say to myself. I may be the closest to the bank, but remember, I have done this. The water will cushion me from whatever waits at the bottom, I am first. I turn around slowly with seconds to spare, lying on my back again, this time knowing that as each cm of water envelops my body I will float forward. I could have run toward the ocean, but that would mean being trapped in the masses and I felt safer here.

Like a ship about to set sail, I drown out the panicking voices with a gentle hum in my head.“Weyyyy!” I yell. The water is taking me toward the black slopes of the ground. I am over the edge, but this time it is fun. I feel content with wherever this oblivion takes me…because I have no choice. No control. I am fearless and I am first. I sail, not downward, but forward. I am truly content, and after a quick journey I land at the bottom of the bank side. Another surface. Another landscape. Another, which I am yet to explore.”

(Inspired by a vivid night-terror - artwork pending)

by KnowMe

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Redefining history and exploring the subjective lives of ordinary people

Text pending

Acrylic on paper

by KnowMe

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“Fragile history”

Acrylic on cling-film 

by KnowMe

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Domestic landscape

by KnowMe

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“honorable mutilation”

Illustration upon reflection of the ISIS attacks and the ancient act of beheading as a form of ritual siege and triumph.  Ink on paper by KnowMe

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Creative mind mapping on the philosophy of Sublime (to be edited)

by KnowMe

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Plastic water bottle Marker pen on cling-film (left) and paper 

by KnowMe

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Industrial architecture in London, 2014 (unedited) photography by KnowMe

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Deep ocean marine biology and atomic physics: a strange romance

When I watch deep ocean cinematography such as the video above on the Scyphomedusa Deepstaria a bizarre living organism that is said to resemble a ‘bag’ or trash, I find the alien lifeforms and disturbing textures of the deep to resemble a similar texture to that of early Rapatronic images of atomic particles. These high-speed cameras developed in the 1940s captured images exposed at the speed of up to 10 nanoseconds and were first used to photograph the rapid changes in the ignition of a nuclear explosion. The attached black and white images below display the how the nuclear explosions translucent bulging and growth-like forms share aesthetic similar to these ‘sacs’ of bioluminescent and electromagnetic pulsing jellyfish found in the ocean depths. Nuclear reactions and their atomic spores would not seem out of place amongst a magnificent sea anemone, or even Giant Pyrosome and Salps. Perhaps this has to do with laws of nature and fractal-like repeated imagery that we associate with lasers, eltronics and energy.

The Magneto-Optical Camera (MOT) is a laser-cooling device developed in the 1980s and is otherwise known as ‘atom trapping’ as the machine cools and reduces the momentum and position of atomic mass. This branch of experimental physics is used to control the matter to be able to precisely measure and experiment and display sought-after phenomena. As we witness the smallest particle reaction under quantum-degenerate gases and atomic beams, life is reduced to a simple image. These otherworldly patterns throughout abstract natural forms can be linked to natural biological structures of cells to the chemistry of atoms; astronomy with the falling clouds of a dying star resembling a wave on an ocan. The mathematical formulae of the curvature of a persons spine, structure is sublime.

^Rapatronic images of nuclear reaction and (above) Bulptip anemone in black and white for comparison (source:google images)

(references: Berkeley University, CA online article on advanced lab syllabus http://lab.physics.berkeley.edu/atomtrapping) by KnowMe

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Notes on Film and Elizabeth Price Turner Prize 2012

^still of two viewers watching Turner Prize winning piece The Woolworth's Choir of 1979, 2001 by Elizabeth Turner

There is potential for film as a medium to create a hypnotic simulation where the viewer becomes engaged with the work in a distinctive way different to other mediums. The screen performs as a vehicle in which we are participating (aside from virtual reality) and the level of interactivity can be determined in a space by distraction and self awareness, but when we witness a film we can be said to chose to submit and spectate by entering or leaving the space consciously. This process of ‘watching’ is different to witnessing of any art such as painting, sculpture, perhaps even theatre or literature. Within the art world the editorial decisions in film are hilighted by this sense of temporality, as the work exists through a passing of time or sequence. By the end of a film we can find our experience to have been guided by these editorial decisions and it can be almost transportive, hypnotic, or construct narratives through which to describe and document. This subject of combined sound and moving image as a kind of hypnosis was sparked by my interest in contemporary fine artist Elizabeth Price as her use of film and editing is highly reflective, and considered to comment on and expose ironies of events or changes within modern society. Her video installation The Woolworth's Choir of 1979  which later won her the turner prize in 2012 contained a repetition of sounds such as ‘finger-clicks’ and contextual popular culture references that mesmerized and disconnected me from my environment. (notes on turner Prize shortlist Exhibition 2012) 

(image source: thetimes.co.uk)

KnowMe

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2012/dec/04/elizabeth-price-woolworths-choir-video?CMP=share_btn_link <-click to see her work

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When the clouds look like an ocean 

KnowMe

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Lion Skull (Tatoo design) 2015 Marker pen on paper KnowMe

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Biro and ink skull, 2016 KnowMe

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“We eat light, drink it in through our skins. With a little more exposure to light, you feel part of things physically. I like the power of light and space physically because then you can order it materially. Seeing yourself seeing is a very sensuous act—there’s a sweet deliciousness to feeling yourself see something.” James Turrell Photography by KnowMe

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Good afternoon people pixels