#attempt at a surrealist composition

[not-a-matopoeia]

He just had to many overdue movies, it’s not his fault

I was toying around with how to do this composition, originally I was going to do two different pieces as a diptych but after visiting my local art museum and seeing the work of the (late) surrealist artist, Philip C. Curtis, I realized I could just squish them all into to one composition and have have the back panel show what Dick is looking at whereas the front the audience gets to see his reaction too it.

Picasso was right, stealing is awesome!

[victory-cookies]

if anyone was wondering I handed in my assignment 5 minutes late 💀 rip 5% of my grade

[mybeingthere]

Max Ernst, The Wheel of Light (La Roue de la lumière) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle)c. 

1925, published 1926.One from a portfolio of 34 collotypes after frottage. composition: 10 1/4 × 16 15/16" (26 × 43 cm);sheet: 12 11/16 × 19 5/8" (32.3 × 49.8 cm)

"Ernst created these images by placing paper atop various materials—wood floorboards, lengths of twine, leaves, wire mesh, crumpled paper, crusts of bread—and rubbing the surface with a pencil or crayon. Inspired by the resulting textures, he added details to transform them into fantastical landscapes, objects, and creatures. Ernst called his process frottage (French for “rubbing”) and claimed it as a form of Surrealist automatism, whereby an artist attempts to let the unconscious guide his hand in the creation of an image.

"Gallery label from Max Ernst: Beyond Painting, September 23, 2017-January 1, 2018.

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/94253

[thechimerasdiary]

reviews | absurd cinema | biopic | comic

𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠

An artist biopic unlike anything you have ever seen

.·:*¨༺ __________________

Judith (Anaïs Demoustier) trying to conduct an interview with Salvador Dalí (Gilles Lellouche) on the beach.

How many Dalís is one too many? You might ask yourself this while watching Quentin Dupieux’s latest work. Daaaaaalí! (2023) is, as the screaming title already suggests, a film about the Spanish artist – but not like you have ever seen before. In the opening scene, mustache-twirling and cane-bearing Dalí (Gilles Lellouche) strides down a hotel corridor. Only for Dalí (Édouard Baer) to walk its length once more. And then, who would have guessed, Dalí (Jonathan Cohen) does it all over again. In this comic prelude, the ever-body-changing character is late for an interview but never seems to arrive at his destination as the distance of the hallway stretches into infinity.

Daaaaaalí! is full of such amusing instances. Dupieux’s film depicts a young pharmacist-turned-journalist, Judith (Anaïs Demoustier), who attempts to start off her new career path by meeting one of the biggest artist names of the 20th century. What begins as a simple interview with the surrealist ends up being a headlong plunge into his whimsical world. Judith soon realizes that Dalí has his own ideas about her project. And while the interview turns into a documentary film that never gets off the ground, reality is turned upside down. Characters wake up from dreams that never end, dead dogs rain down from a cloudless sky, and gun-slinging cowboys terrorize art auctions. 

Sounds a little absurd? Well, that’s exactly the point. The film successfully manages to break out of the never-ending stream of solemn self-assertive biopics by being less concerned with an accurate portrayal of reality and more with crafting a tone that honors the ethos of the historical figure. What makes the work so cleverly charming is that Dupieux has encapsulated the bygone spirit of Surrealism in contemporary form. Daaaaaalí! is a delicious accumulation of absurdity, much like the movement itself. 

Two of Dalí’s models posing for the artist’s painting.

In an early scene in the film, a highly-focused Dalí is seen sitting in the midst of a desolate landscape. With close precision, he is applying brush strokes to his easel. “Sir! Can we take a break?” comes a shout off-screen. The camera whips around to reveal a baffling setting. The two men acting as the painter’s models possess strangely disfigured proportions, one of them propping up his grotesquely elongated head with a wooden pitchfork. The scene pays a delightful homage to Dalí’s 1932 The Fine and Average Invisible Harp by transforming his vision into cinematic reality. And even beyond such clear referentialities, the film’s visual themes closely evoke the artist’s comically-constructed compositions. Dupieux has reached deep into Dalí’s palette, painting a Surrealist masterpiece of his own.

Daaaaaalí! certainly is a testimonial to the persistence of the bizarre. At the same time, the film works so well because it does not try to infuse the scenes with a layer of sober significance. It departs from a purely rational treatment of the narrative it creates. Instead, the events on-screen rely on ridiculousness. The audience is expected to laugh, to get lost in the endless comedic repetitions and the silly oddities of the characters. When Dalí is involved nothing makes sense, nor does it have to. Consequently, watching the film is a lot like contemplating one of the painter’s works: initially confusing, undoubtedly absurd, yet highly entertaining for eyes and mind.

With that, Dupieux's work tells more about Surrealist ideas than many previous documentaries out there could. Daaaaaalí! has manifested itself as a monument to the movement, a rollercoaster of funkiness and madness that the painter himself would have certainly appreciated.

Judith (Anaïs Demoustier) wearing the Dalí mustache.

__________________ ༻¨*:·.

[storyofthenauseouseye]

A Guide to the Father of Surrealism: Andre Breton

Philippe Jean (1931-1987) — “Elle était subjuguée par Le Monde” [oil on canvas, 1967]

Considering the topics in my last post, The Two Basic Pillars of French Literature, it'd be best to start this excursion with Andre Breton, the man widely considered to be the father of surrealism. The idea of surrealism is pretty straightforward, but it gets tricky the longer you think about it. Ironically, that's the point.

Surrealism is acquired when one pushes away the rational thoughts and everyday logic that goes into making traditional art. Surrealism is dreamlike, bizarre, and often challenging to understand. Sometimes, it's even difficult to look at. By accessing the subconscious, Breton and his peers could create art that had never been seen before (other than the similar dadaist movement, but that was based more on goofy arrangements of rational imagery).

Breton used his ideas on surrealism and put them into two pivotal works of literature that defined his career: The Manifesto of Surrealism and Nadja.

Left: Fernand Aubrey, MASKS, 1950. Right: Georges Spiro, "Composition Surréaliste" 1960

Le Manifeste de Surrealisme

The Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) is Breton's most famous and widely renowned work. In it, he goes on to explain what exactly surrealism is. Breton was one of many to publish a manifesto on the subject matter. Many of his peers and rivals tried to coin the term and define the movement for themselves, but in 1924, Breton's manifesto became the generally more beloved guide. It would travel the world and be used by artists, writers, filmmakers, poets, and visionaries everywhere. Breton's words would even be included in works he inspired, such as being stamped in braille in Leon Ferrari's famous "Union Libre" pictured below.

Leon Ferrari, "Union Libre", 2004

Breton's definition of the movement would shortly become famous.

"Pure psychic automatism, by which an attempt is made to express—either verbally, in writing or in any other manner— the true functioning of thought. The dictation of thought, in the absence of all control by reason, excluding any aesthetic or moral preoccupation" (Academy of American Poets).

Discard all logic, and throw away the mindfulness you pay to your work. Surrealism is the logic of dreams, the strangeness in the human subconscious. A twentieth-century American surrealist writer would later simplify the idea to four words: Exterminate all rational thought. I'll let you guess the author.

Antonin Artaud, La projection du véritable corps, 1948

Nadja

Breton would eventually take this philosophical art theory and apply it himself through literature. In 1928, he published Nadja, a strange novel about a girl. The protagonist rambles on about surrealism, gives a description of a ten-day love affair with a girl named Nadja, and realizes she's insane and that he cannot continue the relationship. Then he gives a detailed monologue lasting a quarter of the length of the novel on how her absence destroys and inspires him.

Left: Cover of the 1928 Gallimard edition of Nadja, collaged cover by Marcel Mariën. Right: 1964 Le Livre de poche edition of Nadja, interior.

Nadja is a bizarre text. It's non-linear, borders as a sequel to his 1924 manifesto, and the density of the strangeness makes it a difficult read for most people; that means it did what Breton intended.

Breton can take the reader through his surreality through this dreamy, irrational writing pace. Surreality was considered the world where surrealism took place, eventually helping make surrealism into an ideology, not just an idea. Nadja was the first surrealist fictional work to be published. With it, forty-four images were added to the book to help create another layer of dreamy imagery.

And with that, I will end this post the same way Breton ended Nadja.

"Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all"(162).

Works Cited

Academy of American Poets. “About André Breton | Academy of American Poets.” Poets.org, https://poets.org/poet/andre-breton. Accessed 7 December 2023.

Breton, André. Nadja. Grove Press, 1988. Accessed 7 December 2023.

Further Reading

[karlamielgoart]

ETHEREO-REALISM

February 2020

Declaration of Intention:

The movement declares a new wave of expression. Neither realism or abstract.

Perpetually seeking it’s purpose, it’s meaning.

What artist has never questioned this rethorical question? What is art?

What's the point of making art? Plato’s theory of Mimesis states that all art is mimetic by nature. Art is imitating life. He believed that “ideas” are the ultimate reality. Art imitates ideas and so it is imitating reality.

Why after all, after the invention of photography and specially now in the digital era , would we continue to reproduce the world as we see it, as we feel it, as we experience it. Just like Sontag and Barthes inquired into the nature and essence of photography, I inquire the need to re purpose photography. It has been two years since I wrote this essay, the beggining on my manifesto, in which I state that painting,the beaty of drawing and illustration has and  will never died. It’s meaningful beaity surpasses it’s utility.

IN FACT.

What we as a society,thought would kill the visual arts,aka the and distribution of photographic cameras in the 1900s, SAW THE RENAISSANCE OF MODERN ART. The avant-garde movements. The ultimate rebellion against capturing reality.

On our continuous search for purpose through artistic expression we question the futility of our actions. To sell or not to sell? That is the question.

Abstract art might upset many classical artists, probably more than to the average person. Abstract art confounds its viewers, how are we supposed to deal with an art completely untethered (inalterada) , from the world of recognizable objects? Why should we? BUT. Freed from the burden of realistic representation it  gives space to more interpretation. Since then,the history of art has been diveded in two opposites,often rivalries. In my attempt to explore both sides equally, first I must agree on a convienience marriage between the figurative ( the terrenal plane)  and  the abstract (the astral plane) we intent to explore the three bases  of human needs; emotional, spiritual & carnal.

We must shed off the burden of high expectations of traditional mastery, and become understtanding of the misunderstandment of the abstract. With the abstraction of realism , the distraction of subject matter is no longer apparent, with it,art can directly act on the soul.

Declaration/ Statement of Intent We are against the XXI century popular movement of the superficial & fake. A movement which illustrates the complex imagery of dream or subconscious visions and irrational space and form combinations. Ei. George Grie modern surrealist dreamns, dark gothic, inspirational romanticism etc. Etherealism explores the conscious, existencialism & expressionism

⦁ Rivalry between classic and modern painting must stinguish ⦁ That each artist must find it own way into abstraction (if they belong to the classics & reject the unkown, the uncertainty of the abstract) ⦁ To explore our subconscious-idealism ⦁ To disfigure reality into our reality ⦁ the introduction of Psychoanalitical realism ⦁ Do not fear the de-construction of matter ⦁ neither the composition of life & perfect beauty ⦁ Meditation through mind and body will lead to your true expression. ⦁ Emotion and consciousness are realities ⦁ Intuition ⦁ Anti mimesis- imitación de la naturaleza como fin esencial del arte ⦁ to use whenever its possible our melancholy &  neurasthenia ⦁ the equilibirum of Apollonian & Dyonisioan artistic natures. ⦁ Emotion and consciousness are realities. ⦁ Artistic feeling & Intuition ⦁ Symbolism ⦁ Colour ⦁ Perspective ⦁ Nature ⦁ Space ⦁ Distorsion Realism

Art is currently in a dormant phase.  Stuck either in the past or thrilled by the hope of selling abstract pieces.  Society is blinded by the superficiality of fast produced images, suberged in constant self hatred , racism,borders and conflicts. We are afraid of feeling & the reality of life. Real-ism, real raw artistic expresion. It's absolutley neccesary to get rid of superficiality , superficial beauty, superficial erotism, superficial sensuality, superficial fanatism, superficial instant gratification attention-It's ESSENTIAL to search into the reason and meanings of art making.  The lack of purpose comes with the death of art.We are in search of sources and origins of structures of signification.imaginary world's  evoking our visual experience. The pursuit of realistic optical effects, we artists still the attempt to achieve extraordinary realism. But why is this? What is the use of this mimesis and is it worth our time to observe it with awe when the world around us it self is all around us in pure form.since the Romantics vision of artists, artistic endeavour roots from a deep need of expressing a vast variety of emotions ,sometimes beauty,sometimes ugliness. When "Realism" emerged in the mid 19th century , it was at the same time when photography was emerging and getting the attention into every aspect of our lives. photography.We can find cameras in technological devices, a large range of photography cameras , digital & analog. Everyone has access to photography. But the aim of realism was not to glorify mythological or historical figures. BUT to depict the reality around , every day people and places of the time, in no way idealized or sentimentalized. NOT to paint in a photographically realistic manner aka naturalism and this theme has been prelevant throughout human kind history, to depict us humans and our enviroment, our landscapes, the people & their beliefs.  It was SHOCKING to paint like life it self, it still is, but it can somehow lack purpose and meaning. It's done for the sake of beeing able to. Sometimes, essential and neccesary skill to become an artist. The development and use of linear perspective; helps in crafting the appearance of a three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface. Shocking immediacy and impact. Looking back to the ancient classics, the greeks, who represent the IDEAL figure. The desire to depict life itself, has long played out in three dimenions. The IMPACT of the wildly uncanny feeling of realism. Realism emerges as a strategry amond many thats combined with other approaches and employed toward a wide variery of ends. Disrupting many people's expectations about what art should be, showing us the often aggresivly unartful side of every life, and acknowledged the invasiveness of advertising and consumer culture. While the subjects of photorealists paintings aren't usually that remarkable, the skill involved in their reproduction often is. Cries for help as we drown in an image saturated world or the death rattle of the great pictoral tradition. ABSTRACT Throughout the time spam of ( 1780s-2020) artists have demonstrated that things that exist in the world can often look abstract eg. James McNeil, Victor Hugo, William Turner. Artists became increasingly interested in depicting things non-naturastically, the early stages of abstracting things, ie stylizing,symplifying, flattening it. Reaching the 20th century artists were painting familiar themes in unfamiliar ways, using  intense vivid  colours in broad brush strokes that critic dubbed them the Fauvs or Wild Beats.  Or as the case of Hilma Af Klint (1862-1944) was painting mostly abstract works as early as 1905 as a form of spiritual communication. The main interest was in the spiritual and the occult, science and the depiction of of invisible forces , recently discovered such as  electromagnetic fields. Annie Besant / Charles Leadbeater had published images in 1901 they called Thought Forms, illustrating their belief that ideas, emotions and sounds manifest as visual auras. Then the Cubists came along, the Futurists in Italy, German Expressionists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who used abstraction and rich unreal colours to depict the chaos and anxiety of the streets-city life. As Kandinsky's interest in to commune with the spiritual, he claimed his art was quote " What the spectator lives or feels while under the effect of the form and colour combinations of the picture".  Abstraction was not opposed to Realism. It was realism. The immediacy & pictorial realities of color and contrast,by Sonia Delaunay & her first disk was considered the first and purest obstraction at the time. As she illustrated an influential book of poetry combining abstraction and typography, a style she extended into painting and fashion. The sentimentalism of expressionism, this style is filled with emotion, spontaneity, and movement; you can feel an artist’s mood almost jump off of the canvas at times. It’s all about painting a feeling or experience that is shared with the world through the canvas.

"For this reason we call on all those in the world of science who know that art is a fundamental requirement for our species, that they may direct part of their research towards discovering that malleable substance full of light and instruments that will produce sounds which will enable the development of four dimensional art."- Concrete Art or White Manifesto?

[ardn632harrisonwatts]

Having a grandfather who was the chief photographer for the New Zealand Herald, I grew up with a firm belief that the media and more specifically, the photograph, were undeniable manifestations of the truth. Being young and naive, we tend to believe what we are told and accept what we see. However, as we grow older and begin to make our own political choices and pick and choose what media we wish to consume and believe, we have no choice but to wonder if there is any fabrication to what we are seeing. My Grandfather is gone and so are the days of trusting what we see, read, and hear which begs the question, where does the photographer fit in all this? Although it is no secret that image manipulation and falsified imagery are more prominent in our modern, post-digital era with technology like Photoshop and artificial intelligence available at the touch of a button, can we really act like this is a new problem? According to an article published by Photo.org.au titled “A Brief History of Photography and Truth”, the photograph has been a manipulated art form since its inception. The Article talks of photographers in the early days of the art form who would stage events that they had witnessed to capture for the press as their cameras were too slow to capture the live events. Throughout the course of history, there is plenty of evidence of manipulated imagery used in the media whether the intent of the publisher was immoral or not.

Love it or hate it, it seems as if photo manipulation is here to stay so we may as well embrace it for its good, and reject its bad although the line is very blurry. Early embracers of photo manipulation were the pioneers of the Surrealism movement with the likes of Dora Maar in the 1940s. Dora Maar created manipulated compositions through analogue collage methods cutting together different images to create seamless and realistic compositions. Dora’s work and the wider implications of the surrealist movement are something that has particularly informed my direction for this brief. Surrealism as a whole is about exploring the unconscious mind through dream-like and almost nonsensical scenes. Surrealism is believed to have been pioneered in the 1920s in Europe and offered the artistic minds of the time an escape from the bleak horrors and depression of the post World War One society. Though I can’t say that I have experienced a world war in my lifetime, the harsh realities of adulthood seem to be enough reason to crave a dream-like escape. Out of all the different examples of manipulated and staged imagery that we looked at, the curious and mind-bending portrayal of life in the surrealist work really had something to it that my mind wished to grasp. I played around with a few different styles of surrealism testing out surrealist-style landscapes where I blended a stereo into a hill to replace a hillside home. After trialing a few compositions, I decided that my favorite aspect of Dora’s work is the inclusion of a human body feature which tends to make the composition feel a bit eerie. I played around with creating an apple with an eye in it surrounded by a bed of roses and on my second attempt, I created something I was proud of. My image is meant to be a surrealist interpretation of the phrase “your the apple of my eye” and aims to provide an uncanny visualization of human love with an unsettling surrealist twist. I am happy with my work so far and with the help of David’s videos, my Photoshop skills have developed quite a bit to the point where I can create compositions that I can be proud of. 

[stevenimmonsphotography]

Interpreter of Dreams - Surreal Acrylic

The Interpreter of Dreams is a dark surrealist photographic artwork that uses acrylic painting on plastic. It visualises the entity that helps us interpret dreams.

This entity speaks the complex language of dreams, but we cannot ask it questions directly.

The composition intentionally obscures the Interpreter of Dreams.

It is mysterious, ethereal, visible only in fleeting traces. We cannot easily locate this entity.

The image is a representation of the ineffable and complex process through which dreams are deciphered and given meaning. We are given these meanings, we do not really ask for them.

- visual art work extending the idea of dream guides and attempting to visualise the image of the 'dream interpreter'. Image made using acrylic on plastic and flash photography.

[ardn632niamhbeattie]

Final

As photographic technology and practises have evolved over the years. Photo manipulation has become the idea of changing and manipulating images to obtain a desired look, feel and style. Photographers Such as Beate Gütschow, Victor Enrich, Jonas Bendiksen and Laurent Chéhère have used photo manipulation as a form of creativity and art, allowing them to express themselves through their work and create their style primarily through Photoshop. However, these artists use many technical approaches to change a singular or series of images to alter people's perception of what is real. It's fantastic that the art of photo manipulation doesn't surround one idea or concept of how a manipulated image should look. The possibilities are endless, and there are no limitations when it comes to creativity. 

Exploration led me to the conclusion that I preferred the satisfaction of manipulating realistic scenes. I looked at different alteration approaches, such as Victor Enrich's hotel photo series (2014). Enrich distorted, twisted, flipped upside down, stretched, and demolished a hotel in Munich, resulting in a series of 88 modified, one-of-a-kind pictures. However, I found Jonas Bendiksen's work to be more appealing. Bendiksen's book "The Book of Veles" (2021) uses picture manipulation as a project on the fabrication of fake news in Veles, generating these convincing but fictitious scenes just for fun. It became absolutely irresistible to try to play around with. What was real and what was fake here?"- Jonas Bendiksen ("Magnum Photos," 2021.)  I found myself experimenting with modification. I discovered that I enjoyed how people perceived my work when I had to explain three modified images within one image. 

I aimed to create a series of manipulated realistic/surrealistic cityscape images for this project. As the series progresses, the photograph becomes more surrealistic, making individuals question the beginning of the series, hinting at the question of the constant change in Auckland city and its central identity. Auckland is perceived as a young city through modern evolution compared to other cities, where the face of their city landscape and environment expands with the protection of historic buildings and architecture. These buildings will always be there and be the central identity. However, what is central Auckland city and its identity?

With this, I experimented with several composite imaging processes, attempting to produce a single photograph by combining multiple images to create a visually compelling composition. The images become unified and lifelike by framing and arranging through buildings, lines, and street signs and integrating minor details. I then utilised similar procedures but gave myself more freedom in visually connecting elements to create a more noticeable and surrealistic environment to assist in the questioning component of my manipulated series. This will display the images in a gallery context to help showcase the progression of realistic to more surrealistic environments. Displaying the series' order allows viewers to swivel their heads to determine whether the photos have been edited.

Chan, Jade . 2021. “The Book of Veles: How Jonas Bendiksen Hoodwinked the Photography Industry | Magnum Photos Magnum Photos.” Magnum Photos. September 17, 2021. https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/book-veles-jonas-bendiksen-hoodwinked-photography-industry/.

Frearson, Amy . 2014. “Manipulated Photography by Victor Enrich of a Munich Hotel.” Dezeen. January 8, 2014. https://www.dezeen.com/2014/01/08/manipulated-photography-victor-enrich-munich-hotel/.

[somethingvinyl]

The Mothers’ next album is a big one, and their last as a going band. FZ wanted the band to make a movie called Uncle Meat, and they spent a long time on the film and its soundtrack. By the time the album came out, Zappa knew he wouldn’t be finishing the movie—the liner notes call this album a soundtrack to a film you’ll probably never see. A sortof version of the Uncle Meat film was finally released in the ‘80s, but I have not heard good things. It was cobbled together from the original video shot by the Mothers in the late ‘60s and new material from the ‘80s, and does not cohere into a vision of what the original might have looked like if finished. That’s what I’ve heard—I’ve never attempted to watch it. 200 Motels was bad enough, and he finished that one. Zappa is one of my favorite composers of all time, and a lousy storyteller (I feel this way about his rock operas too).

In keeping with this dichotomy, this “soundtrack” is one of Zappa’s greatest achievements. It can be a bit of a mess—you can hear the stresses forming that will soon cause Zappa to dissolve the Mothers entirely. The most obvious sign is the skit “If We’d All Been Living in California,” which is just a candid recording of Jimmy Carl Black arguing with FZ about not making any money. It’s actually fairly painful to listen to. But this album is the furthest out into jazz/classical fusion that the original Mothers will venture. The title track and Dog Breath have long afterlives as live showpieces for just about every subsequent Zappa band, there’s some warped, surrealist doo wop that could never have been on Ruben & the Jets, and all of side 4 is devoted to King Kong, one of Zappa’s finest compositions to date.

After this album, Zappa called a meeting and abruptly, unilaterally dissolved the Mothers of Invention. The rest of the band were furious—they thought of it as a BAND, but FZ thought of them as his employees. He thought that touring with so many musicians was becoming too costly, especially since a number of them couldn’t play his compositions to his satisfaction: he’d augmented Jimmy Carl Black with the much more technically proficient Art Tripp on drums, for instance, and figured it would be better if he could just start over with the right musicians rather than having to drag along the guys he’d started with. It was cold, heartless logic, very in keeping with Zappa’s character. The band was right to be angry, but though he could have handled it better (and maybe NOT claimed sole composer credit for pieces entirely improvised by other members of the band, for instance), Zappa was right that it was time for him to move on. The original Mothers represent a great era, but he was composing music far beyond their greasy, home-brewed R&B roots.

If you stream Uncle Meat or get the CD, make sure to skip the penalty tracks. There are three “bonus tracks,” bizarrely placed between sides 3 and 4, that come from the ‘80s movie and are nigh-unlistenable. For years I ignored disc 2 entirely because of them, meaning I missed out on King Kong!

My copy of the vinyl is the modern re-issue. I bought it before I had succeeded in finding many FZ records on original vinyl—Michael Bremer praised the sound quality of the pressing, and that was enough for me. Still is, since I haven’t replaced it. Still, I’d like to get a copy with the Bizarre labels, since this was the first album issued with them. Zappa left Verve after Mothermania and got a distribution deal with Reprise to run Bizarre as a full label. In this era he also put out a slew of releases by other artists on Bizarre and its sister label Straight, most notably his high school friend Captain Beefheart and the early works of Alice Cooper.

[rachelcapstone]

Week 11: November 15

This week for creative research I made video collages/GIFS.

(Could not get videos to run here but screenshots are attached) 

This collage of GIFS is again an attempt to deconstruct meaning, in a similar way to the Surrealists. The imagery was chosen randomly, but the composition was up to me. The first one to me is reminiscent of a dreamland, with the clouds and swirling mirror. The girl in the upper left is sitting in a way that it looks as if she could be lying on a bed, which further reinforces the dream. The second one feels less like a location than the first one. The imagery that comes to my mind is “crazy cat lady”. This is likely because of the common image of a lonely old lady who watches television on an Old TV, with several cats like the one sitting above the TV. The socks on the legs that the cat has is also reminiscent to me of  comfort and relaxing in front of the television. Finally, the last collage to me feel vaporware/space theme. The sphere with the waterfall in it as well as earth are reminiscent of space, as well as the astronaut. The robotic hand relates to the future, or maybe a robot in space. Finally, while usually sharks make me think of the ocean, the way they swim here suggests a lack of gravity such as in space. The juxtaposition of objects together creates a somewhat cohesive theme to me. 

For scholarly research this week I read a chapter called Communication, Meaning, and Signs from Introduction to Communication Studies by John Fiske. This chapter was given to me by Nancy, and it essentially is about semiotics and how we make meaning. This relates to juxtaposition because in order to understand how a connection is made between two things, how meaning is derived from those things in the first place. Important quotes are highlighted below: 

What is semiotics and what does it consist of

There are a few systems of making meaning, but generally these systems have three main components: the sign, what the sign refers to, and the user of the sign. 

Saussure divided the sign into two parts: the signifier (which is the sign) and the signified, which is the mental concept that the sign brings about. 

I have come to realize that semiotics was an important piece in the mechanisms of juxtaposition (particularly in media). The imagery in a work of art become signs, and bring about mental images of many signifieds, which are based on previous experience or our cultural or personal association with the sign. The brain then jumps from signified to signified that come about from the two distinct signs, until there is one in common, or two that are close enough that a connection can be found between the two objects. Because of our pattern processing brain, we will almost automatically, subconsciously, and very quickly will come to a conclusion to what the two objects or signs mean in relation to each other. 

I am glad this week I was able to make something animated or digital. Right now, I am unsure if I want to go more in a physical or digital direction for my final project. I liked using the gifs because they are looped, and I think it makes this kind of format (or a similar one good) if I wanted to do a digital collage of any kind. I think that they all bring about very strong connections between the objects in the collages, and they definitely all point to a very particular signified. I also am intrigued by semiotics in relation to juxtaposition, as it can explain the basis for how our pattern processing brain make meaning in terms of media. I plan to explore it more, 

[shuyi06]

Week 12 24/Oct/2023

Self-Directed (Artist Research)

Hans Arp (also known as Jean Arp)

A prominent artist and poet associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements. He was a pioneer in the development of abstract and biomorphic art.

He allows forms to emerge from his subconscious mind rather than being meticulously planned or controlled. Arp's sculptures and paintings sought to evoke a sense of the natural world, but without directly imitating it. He aimed to capture the essence and vitality of living forms through his abstract, biomorphic compositions.

Joan Miro (1893-1983)

A Spanish artist is known for his Surrealist and abstract works. Miro's art is characterized by a playful and imaginative use of shapes, colours and symbols. He often combined abstract forms with elements that suggested the natural world - featuring organic and biomorphic shapes, along with simplified and childlike representations of objects.

Ten (also known as Jan Ten Broeke)

A Dutch-American Artist who explores the scientific miracles of the natural universe, especially the fragile biosphere that envelops Earth.

He intends to transcend the superficial, socially established erotism of sexuality. He attempts to demonstrate the experience of the forces essential to the continuity of life on Earth.

[mybeingthere]

Max Ernst, The Wheel of Light (La Roue de la lumière) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle) c. 1925, published 1926.

One from a portfolio of 34 collotypes after frottage.

composition: 10 1/4 × 16 15/16" (26 × 43 cm);

sheet: 12 11/16 × 19 5/8" (32.3 × 49.8 cm)

"Ernst created these images by placing paper atop various materials—wood floorboards, lengths of twine, leaves, wire mesh, crumpled paper, crusts of bread—and rubbing the surface with a pencil or crayon. Inspired by the resulting textures, he added details to transform them into fantastical landscapes, objects, and creatures. Ernst called his process frottage (French for “rubbing”) and claimed it as a form of Surrealist automatism, whereby an artist attempts to let the unconscious guide his hand in the creation of an image."

Gallery label from Max Ernst: Beyond Painting, September 23, 2017-January 1, 2018.

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/94253

[canmom]

Animation Night 90 - Jonni Phillips

Hey friends, exciting occasion this week, and it’s not just the increment to a multiple of 10, which is sacred to us. No, this is the week of the public release of a new feature-length film by one of my favourite independent animators, Jonni Phillips! Here let me just steal her website banner:

I’ve talked about her work before, e.g. on Animation Night 48, and since then I’ve had the chance to get much more familiar with her work. Let’s start with her own little author bio:

Jonni Phillips is a 24 year old filmmaker and animator.

Jonni grew up all over Southern California, moving from place to place and up and down all over. She was homeschooled and spent most of her time making lego movies and not paying attention to anything important. Eventually she got into traditional animation and ended up going to “Calarts”, where she got her brain poisoned, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Now she’s dug a hole too deep to get out of so she’s going to keep on digging until she dies.

When Jonni isn’t doing this stuff, she’s probably just keeping it freaky as per the usual. Cheers to that!

Which is kind of vague but sure, OK! Cheers to that indeed.

So let’s talk about her animation instead! Jonni’s style is distinctive: disarmingly crude at a glance but with a lot of specificity in the details. It’s all about shape design, see. I can’t find the post right now, but it was fascinating seeing the model sheets for the other animators who worked on Barber Westchester where it specifies the precise way that the lines should cross over and how to draw the right kind of distorted expression.

Much like her friend and frequent collaborator Victoria Vincent aka Vewn, Jonni’s work tends to lean into a sense of disquieting alienation. We’ll begin with her compilation film Wasteland, which she made during her time at CalArts.

Wasteland consists of five short films:

The Earth is Flat, a ‘surrealist non-linear narrative’ about the subjective experience of a flat-Earther

Goodbye Forever Party, at first inspired by the actors who play the teletubbies, but became what Jonni describes as a very personal project about the different personas she inhabits

Dr. Sam Mulaney’s Burden, inspired by a ‘weird fiction’ story of a man who has a hotdog removed from his eyeball, in which Jonni found a compelling metaphor for depression

We Are All Dying in the Wasteland, about the psychological experience of SoCal - ‘claustrophobic spaciousness and aggressive emotional energy.’ is her phrase which strikes me as very apt

and then, Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia, which is the only one of these I’ve seen right now, so let’s say a little more!

The major part of Wasteland is a 45-minute film called The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia. Ascensia is a fascinating film; it takes as its premise that the belief of a UFO cult is entirely true, something it reveals in the first few seconds but then spends much of the subsequent period suggesting that this may have been a POV hallucination. Rather than use digital compositing, the film is - unique among her films - almost entirely created using cutout animation, with the exception of a brief segment by Vewn. It follows an isolated teenager who becomes drawn into the comforting structure of the cult, her low-key struggles with the authoritarian rules laid down by Ascensia, and eventually her attempt to escape when it seems the cult will stage a mass suicide...

Like many of Jonni’s films, the dialogue is very naturalistic, and there’s a great sense of... kind of understated wistful comedy, I guess you might say, sympathetic but appreciative of the awkwardness of the situations it depicts. There’s a great sense of when to cut, and very thoughtful use of music, and the simple character models allow a lot of compelling exaggeration.

Ascensia manages to strike a very delicate balance of thoroughly sympathising with its protagonist against the disdain she receives from her estranged family members, without saying ‘please go and join a UFO cult right now’. It understands the impulse towards escape, which makes the ending - where the cult leader, finally brought back to her alien objects of devotion, discover that the aliens too worship a god of their own: none of the answers are there to be found. All of this is very conscious, as she describes on her website:

In Summer of 2017, I recently finished a 20 minute animated piece, called Goodbye Forever Party, a very personal film about my struggle with depression & gender identity, filtered through the story of someone who worked as an actor on a kids’ show. When I finished the film, I got really interested in the UFO cult, Heaven’s Gate, an infamous cult that committed mass suicide in a San Diego mansion in 1997. I found their initiation tapes online, and got really drawn in to the leader, Do, and what he believed. I watched another video of the cult members talking about how excited they were to “go to the next level”. Because of my religious background, I found myself really drawn in, almost as if I couldn’t help myself from believing in what Do was saying. It led me to start thinking about how I may have been susceptible to joining, if I had been alive back then. I empathized with their mindset, and felt like I loved and supported them, even though the whole situation was extremely tragic. I wanted to make a film about empathizing with cult members. My idea was that I would invent my own fictional cult, and portray what the cult believed in, in the film, as the absolute truth, and that they actually did ascend and leave earth.

From there, I outlined a story in which I felt I could explain the appeal of joining a cult like the ones I was influenced by, as well as a meditation on the aftermath, still taking the side of the cult members, rather than the people left behind. This was something, which, at the time in 2017, I found severely lacking in most articles and documentaries I could find. There wasn’t much empathy for the people who actually left us, and moreso demonized them and made them seem to be crazy.

However, this is just one part of Wasteland - unfortunately I can’t write much about the other four, since, well, I haven’t watched them yet. Something I’m looking forward to doing tonight. Let me pull out another quote from Jonni, on the project as a whole:

Wasteland was an experiment in telling a cohesive emotional arc through 5 separate films. Individually, each film has its own message and themes, but together, all the themes come together and act as stepping stones to the next theme. In the final film, The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia, every emotion and thematic element comes together and is given an emotional conclusion.

The presentation of Wasteland, in it’s consistently inconsistent fashion, is intentional and meant to contrast with how popular animation and the way we typically consume it. I’m very interested in creating captivating work that breaks popular rules that are taught in animation school and beyond. I’m not interested in engaging with some arbitrary perimeters of what is acceptable, and would rather create my films intuitively and in reflection of how I see the world. The presentation of the film is meant to further the point about the subjectivity and fragility of reality.

Now, this film is, honestly, a pretty high-effort style - cutout animation is no joke, but often Jonni is doing even more than that, doing traditional animation then cutting out the drawings (while keeping pegbar registration) to composit them on the multiplane instead of using cels, a process she describes as ‘very time consuming’. However, by and large she’s very critical of the ‘hard work and realism above all’ view of animation. Her tweets express it all very well, e.g.

Animation is a bunch of nonsense and that’s why I’ve dedicated my entire waking life to it. Because I was born with a deep love of nonsense and bullshit

or

IMO animation isnt that hard and can actually be super fun and mentally stimulating. It doesnt have to be a nightmare to do. U can just have fun w it. For real. Motion is super interesting to study and theres so many ways to work with it and think about it.

and

My general feeling about the state of modern animation is that cartoons should look more fucked up than they do right now and then secondly I think they should be animated more fucked up and as if a baby did it

In an interview with Animation Obsessive, which also provides the above incredible smear, she describes her approach more explicitly:

My taste in art already is centered on wonky, funny-looking stuff. My favorite animation artists are Richard Condie and Sally Cruikshank, who are majorly inspirational to me in regards to my work in general, but especially for Barber. I’ve been obsessed with independent animation since I was a kid, and even before I knew about that world my favorite shows were always stuff like Chowder and Ed, Edd n Eddy, so I just gravitate to that kind of stuff to begin with.

But going to animation school made me realize that a lot of people get super bogged down with perfectionism, or shooting for some standard that I personally find to be irritating and missing the point of making art. There’s only so much you can do with the limited amount of time we have, and not everyone is going to be Da Vinki. Especially not me!

My goals are firmly rooted in just trying to take advantage of whatever situation I’m in, and to make something that feels as honest and true to how I feel about the world as I can. Since I’m always in a situation where I have to work very fast, that means whatever I make needs to be of the moment, so I try to make every drawing as emotionally expressive as I can.

And her work makes a case for that: she has a really great sense of where effort is most fulfillingly spent, something I could really do with lmao even if my own aesthetic preferences are different.

Her next major project after Final Exit was a series of ten shorts called Secrets and Lies in a Town of Sinners, which introduced the character of space-obsessed child of UFO cultists (again!) Barber Westchester, and their surrounding cast of weirdos including some very low-key angels and aliens. It’s a series that’s compelling in a way that’s hard to describe: although it’s got plenty of surreal humour, there’s an emotional honesty and empathy at the centre of it that builds that into something seriously moving.

Compelling as it is in its own right, this was in fact a prelude to her big film project of the last couple of years, Barber Westchester. She describes it such:

It literally shouldn’t exist but it does anyway. Literally it’s crazy that it’s even watchable. It’s just a movie of my subconscious mind talking to my conscious mind trying to tell it something important and I did my best to try and make it into a movie

The result is, by all accounts, phenomenal. Here’s what Animation Obsessive had to say:

Barber’s placement here isn’t a consolation prize. Even compared to the heavy hitters of 2021, this no-fi film holds up as one of the year’s most creative and exciting works of animation. A 90-minute comedy-horror-drama, it’s a project that Phillips animated largely solo in her free and expressive style. It’s about growing up, cults, parrots eating clay, mental illness, friendship and, above all, hope.

If that sounds overwhelming, it doesn’t feel that way. We’ve watched Barber twice, and the thing we talked about after finishing the second watch was watching it a third time.

They have a much more substantial interview from during the production of the film. In addition to a lot of Jonni’s own animation, the film apparently has segments from a number of other great independent animators, among them faves like Vewn and Ian Worthington (aka Worthikids).

And now it’s out on Youtube and not Patreon-locked, so I can show it to all of you without guilt!

The plan tonight is thus to watch Wasteland, Secrets and Lies, and then Barber, which should be an absolutely harrowing emotional rollercoaster. Just the ticket. We’ll be starting quite shortly (once I’ve gotten upstairs) at twitch.tv/canmom - hope to see you there, I think this is gonna be one of those memorable ones.

[theliterarywolf]

Here’s a List of Shows/Channels/etc. To Get Into if You Need a Distraction Right Now (Part 2)

Because, unlike some sociopathic motherfuckers out there, I recognize the need to disengage from heavy stuff every so often...

SCP Animated - Tales from the Foundation: Out of all the attempts at animated series centering around that most enigmatic of organizations the SCP Foundation, only two of them, in my opinion, have earnest effort put behind them. Note: I said ‘series’ not overall projects. There are several independent films and the like surrounding various SCPs on YouTube that are really well done. Tales from the Foundation is one of the better ones. Centering around several reoccurring characters who work for the Foundation, we are taken through the humor, horror, and tragedy that working for such an organization typically entails. And, honestly, one of the things I like most about this series is how the animation quality has gone from ‘basically an animatic with rough rigging’ to ‘oh, we are just a few steps away from being a fully-fledged show, huh?’ in just under a year.

Lord Bung’s Confinement series: This was the first YouTube animated ‘series’ that I stumbled upon when I was first getting into content relating to the SCP Foundation. However, much like Tales from the Foundation, the series decides to mostly center around an original character and their interactions with SCPs due to working for/with the foundation. In this case, however, we follow Connor who is, himself, an SCP: whenever he is killed (which happens a lot due to the foundation using him to test how deadly other SCPs are), he will reappear alive and well a few seconds after. I personally really like the writing of this series and Connor manages to be an engaging enough character that you yourself get pulled into the mystery of his true origins...

SpookyRice: If you stroll through the remaining horror film enthusiast channels and the like on YouTube, you’ve surely stumbled across channels like Dead Meat that categorize the kills in horror movies. SpookyRice is a channel very similar to Dead Meat (in fact, I thought he was a knock-off when I was first recommended to him) except rather than just categorizing the kills in horror movies, he summarizes and discusses the disturbing content in horror movies, disturbing movies, psychological thrillers, and comics. Admittedly his use of a young Gohan from DBZ without pupils and with a bloody fang is weird, but he’s still pretty funny. WARNING: THE WHOLE ‘DISTURBING CONTENT’ NOTE IS NOT A JOKE HERE. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Alex the Honking Bird: Sometimes you just need some cute birds being silly and funny. That’s where the channel Alex the Honking Bird comes around, centering around cockatiels Alex, who has the most adorable honk, and his son Dominic who loves to photobomb and sing his ‘Screm Song’. 

You Suck at Cooking (Yeah, You Totally Suck): As mean as the title of this channel is, the videos do offer a combination of genuine cooking advice and surrealist humor. Basically think a combination of Binging with Babish and How to Basic.

ididathing’s “I Made a Hot Tub for Australian Birds”: Admittedly I haven’t watched any of the other videos on this channel, but this video in particular is a bit of an experience. It has the same humor approach as the You Suck at Cooking channel but this guy takes you on a journey of him building a hot tub bird bath for the birds that come to his backyard to keep them out of his swimming pool and to keep them safe from that cats who sneak into his property. Funny and informative, plus cute birds!

Gobelins: One of the things I do every so often is just go down the rabbit hole of original animated short films on YouTube. Sometimes you get something good, sometimes you get tripe, sometimes you get blatant reposting of other people’s videos -- But one of the steadier channels for this is the YouTube channel for the Gobelins School L’image in Paris. This channel does its best to upload students’ films every year and you get to see drastic differences in styles, writing, composition, etc. A good way to spend a few hours.

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: one of very few albums that I think is truly perfect. John Foxx’s second solo LP, The Garden, is a masterpiece of Medieval mysticism, romantic longing, and modern electronics. Transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! In this installment, I’ll be looking at a classic sophomore album, and one which epitomizes the principle of taking one’s sound in a different direction the second time around: The Garden by John Foxx, first released in 1981.

While The Garden was Foxx’s second release as a solo artist, it’s also his fifth LP overall, as he had spent the late 1970s fronting the original incarnation of Ultravox. Foxx’s Ultravox was an eclectic mix of influences from glam, punk, and, of course, electronic pioneers like Kraftwerk, but it would be the latter of these ideas that dominated Foxx’s solo career. His 1980 solo debut, Metamatic, is some of the purest, starkest, and harshest minimal synth around, and remains one of the most iconic early works of the subgenre.

Music: “Underpass”

If you want more like Metamatic from Foxx, you’ll want to skip ahead to the 1990s, because he turned his back on this thin and aggressively inorganic sound remarkably quickly. While he would produce several more LPs in the 1980s, the group of them seems to grow progressively lighter and softer, with less blistering analogue synth, and more radio-friendly love themes. But while Foxx’s third and fourth efforts are often panned, The Garden has actually won nearly as many fans over the years as Metamatic, proving itself to be powerful in its own ways, despite its radically different aesthetic. Where Metamatic dealt in brutalist city blocks and Ballardian psycho-sexuality, The Garden takes place in moldering cathedrals, embracing Gothic splendour and (imagined) Medieval emotionality.

Music: “Europe After the Rain”

“Europe After the Rain” opens the album, and also served as its lead single, becoming a relatively minor hit in the charts. As we hear it, we immediately become aware that Foxx has abandoned the instrumental palette of Metamatic, made almost exclusively with an ARP 2600 synthesiser, in favour of something more lush. On “Europe After the Rain,” traditional instruments like acoustic guitar and piano are impossible to ignore, though the constant bass synth ensures we never forget Foxx’s roots either. It also seems to be a major thematic leap away from Metamatic, with its tender and romantic feel. Still, that may not necessarily be all there is to it--the song is presumably named after a famous painting of the same title, by the Surrealist Max Ernst, executed in the early 1940s as World War II was first beginning. Ernst’s painting is a sort of apocalyptic vision, in which crumbling structures are overtaken by vegetation, and two figures wander through it, seemingly passing by one another. Perhaps Foxx’s “Europe After the Rain” is also a theme for a devastated landscape, its lovers meeting again the last survivors of some nuclear holocaust? Maybe it isn’t too far away from the themes of crushing modernity employed on Metamatic after all.

Note, as well, the emphasis on “Europe,” conceptually--The Garden is, at least partially, a sort of search for a new European cultural identity. The Garden fuses electronics, and hence Europe’s characteristic technological achievements, with a love of more traditional European cultural ideals, namely, the aesthetics of Medieval Christianity. For evidence of that idea, look no further than its most obvious apotheosis, the track “Pater Noster.”

Music: “Pater Noster”

“Pater Noster” is, of course, a setting of the Latin-language translation of the so-called “Our Father” or Lord’s Prayer, one of the most popular and well-known texts in Christianity. “Pater Noster” is the album’s most obvious love letter to the Middle Ages, but an informed listen will show that it has little to do with actual music from that era--I actually could forgive the synthesisers, which might be analogized to the role of church organs, but the percussion-propelled nature of the track is what really makes it feel ahistorical to me. Despite the religious themes of The Garden, Foxx always averred not being any sort of authentic believer in religion or God, and maintained that he was interested in the traditions of the Church purely on aesthetic grounds. Whether you think this sort of appropriation is appropriate and respectful or not, it’s certainly one of the album’s prominent themes, and part of what makes it feel as unique as it does. While I’ve emphasized the themes of romanticism and religiosity, it’s also worth noting that The Garden is not a complete break from Foxx’s earlier works, and in its return to a more guitar-driven sound, it often winds up riffing on something not unlike punk.

Music: “Systems of Romance”

Astute followers of Foxx will have already noticed that the track “Systems of Romance” shares its title with the third and final LP he released with Ultravox, in 1979. Apparently, it was written that much earlier, though it wouldn’t be seen to completion until several years later. Combining a hard-driving guitar, played by Foxx’s Ultravox bandmate Robin Simon, with the inscrutable, sensual, elemental lyricism Foxx employs throughout his mid-80s oeuvre, the track “Systems of Romance” really feels like a bridge between 70s art rock and 80s avant-synth-pop, moreso than anything else on the album. Much as “Systems of Romance” extracts a certain prettiness from punk, so does the aesthetically-oriented “Night Suit,” which plays with appearance, deception, and masculinity.

Music: “Night Suit”

“Night Suit” is the track on The Garden that I feel is the most exemplary of its own time period, a mysterious ode to a mystical garment that could almost feel at home on an album by Visage. The Garden is interested in “romantic” themes, but “Night Suit” truly feels at peace among the New Romantics. It’s got some of the most “believable” rock influences, with a prominent guitar riff from Simon, and yet its emphasis on the power of fashion and appearances, destructive, and perhaps even supernatural, is hard to imagine in a genuine punk context. As it implores us to “be someone” or “be no-one,” it’s easy to fit “Night Suit” into one of the major themes throughout Foxx’s career: the tranquility and liberation of personal anonymity. Why is the “Night Suit” a suit in the first place? The song wouldn’t make sense if it didn’t deal with a garment that is also a non-garment, something to wear that feels default, neutral, and unassuming--not to mention classically masculine.

On the cover of The Garden, the main thing we see is, well, a garden. Despite Foxx’s more obvious personal presence on the albums before and after The Garden, it’s easy to miss him here, dwarfed by the scale of nature that surrounds him. It’s almost like the album is more meant to be about this place, and the concept of “the garden,” than it is Foxx as a person, or any particular perspective of his.

While the actual capital-R Romantics were deeply interested in the “sublime,” and the scenes and moments in which mankind faces its vulnerability and insignificance when compared to the natural world, it’s also worth remembering that a “garden,” by definition, is really not a natural space at all, but rather one which is arranged by human hands. Even if this composition resembles those of Romantic painters, I think it’s worth looking earlier in the European past to interpret this one. Gardens were one of the most prominent symbols in Medieval literature, and scholars have suggested that they serve as symbols for sensuality, romance, and the yoni itself. Through the association with the Garden of Eden, gardens often represent a sort of lost, but longed-for paradise, and a return to innocence which is as tantalizing as it is impossible. In particular, “Europe After the Rain,” with its theme of lovers meeting again after the passage of some time, seems to connect with this idea.

In hindsight, The Garden really stands alone in Foxx’s career, a masterpiece whose precise style he would never attempt again. We might say it became that Garden of Eden, to which the artist could never return. While Foxx’s interest in Medieval spirituality would return on ambient works like Cathedral Oceans, and he would occasionally return to love songs with an electronic backing, the precise combination of lovelorn bardistry with a flair for the baroque that appears on The Garden remains totally singular. Foxx’s follow-up to this album, 1983’s The Golden Section, narrows its thematic focus towards poppy love songs, and its instrumental focus, likewise, is that of a fairly unremarkable mid-80s synth-pop record. But at the same time, I like to think that tracks like “The Hidden Man” manage to maintain a sense of the mystical.

Music: “The Hidden Man”

My favourite track on The Garden is “Walk Away.” While it lacks the severe and tragic grandeur of the album’s title track, which closes the album on a lofty note, “Walk Away” shares some of its delicate qualities, reviving the soft piano that we heard on “Europe After the Rain.” Thematically, “Walk Away” seems to deal with fragility and transience, and the grave significance that a brief, passing moment may have--which makes that “delicateness” feel all the more poignant in context. Its call-and-response outro, featuring one of Foxx’s most anguished vocal performances, really makes it a stand-out. That’s everything for today--as always, thanks for listening!

Music: “Walk Away”