23/57
The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea,
The hot stars down from heaven are whirled ;
Fierce grows the steam and the life-feeding flame,
Till fire leaps high about heaven itself.
23/58
Now Garm howls loud before Gnipahellir,
The fetters will burst, and the wolf run free ;
Much do I know, and more can see
Of the fate of the gods, the mighty in fight.
23/59
Now do I see the earth anew
Rise all green from the waves again;
The cataracts fall, and the eagle flies.
And fish he catches beneath the cliffs.
The poetic Edda, Translated from the Icelandic with an introduction and notes by Henry Adams Bellows
He would lie in wait for monks grown weary with working in the oppressive heat, seizing a moment of weakness to force an entrance into their hearts. And once installed there, what havoc he wrought! For suddenly it would seem to the poor victim that the day was intolerably long and life desolatingly empty. He would go to the door of his cell and look up at the sun and ask himself if a new Joshua had arrested it midway up the heavens. Then he would go back into the shade and wonder what good he was doing in that cell or if there was any object in existence. Then he would look at the sun again and find it indubitably stationary, and the hour of the communal repast of the evening as remote as ever. And he would go back to his meditations, to sink, sink through disgust and lassitude into the black depths of despair and hopeless unbelief. When that happened the demon smiled and took his departure, conscious that he had done a good morning’s work.
Gunter Grass, The Rat, Translated by Ralph Manheim
Where man had been, in every place he left, garbage remained. Even in his pursuit of the ultimate truth and quest for his God, he produced garbage. By his garbage, which lay stratum upon stratum, he could always - one only had to dig - be known. For more long-lived than man is his refuse. Garbage alone lives after him.
[...]
Vast plains infested with garbage, beaches strewn with garbage, valleys clogged with garbage. Synthetic flakes on the move. Tubes that have forgotten their ketchup and never rot. Shoes of neither leather nore straw walk self-propelled with the sand and collect in pits full of garbage, where already yachtsman's gloves and droll inflatable animals are waiting. All these things speak of you, now and forever. You and your works wrapped in clear plastic, sealed in vacuum bags, moulded in synthetic resin, you in chips and clips: the human race that was.
Collage with Bulgari advertisement Octo, Eternal Values (2014) and a bookmark from the National Gallery, London (An Allegory to the Vanities of Human Life, detail, circa 1736 Jan van Huysum)
- collage with Francois Hugo dans son atelier and a stamp from the Album Nestle, Series 22
- role playing dice with the numbers removed and in the forms of the 5 Platonic Solids
- collage with Bulgari advertisement Eternal Values and bookmark with Vanitas by Jan van Huysum
- RUSH, Yikes and Power Promotions (1992) on a small white stool
- Collage with Odyssey, a Journey into Dance and postcard Urnascher Sylvesterchause
- Trophy, marble base, universal imperial spanner and chocolate wrapper
- Tomorrow is Born, Acidica Productions (Shepton Mallet, 1992)
- postcard of Arosa 1800m, Innerarosa, Alpentobel, Erzhorn
- digital machine timer Red Lion 202/95EC (counting the time in milliseconds)
- NEW AGE (Milton Keynes)
- a toy Halloween pumpkin
- mono-print on paper Mayhem in 1990 printed with an empty black ink cartridge
"fire, […] in the history of the medieval trail by ordeal, is a basic technology of truth. Burned, things of the world reveal their essential nature. The scriptural basis for this notion is iffy (Lot surviving the flames of Sodom? Moses' encounter with the burning bush?). The physics of the proposition, however, proves to be spot-on: everything that burns speaks with tongues of flame that cannot lie. This is called spectroscopy."
Fire and Truth, D. Graham Burnett, Issue 32, Winter 2008, Cabinet
As he rides his chariot, he shines upon men and deathless gods, and piercingly he gazes
with his eyes from his golden helmet. Bright rays beam dazzlingly from him, and his
bright locks streaming from the temples of his head gracefully enclose his far-seen face: a rich,
fine-spun garment glows upon his body and flutters in the wind: and stallions carry him.
Then, when he has stayed his golden-yoked chariot and horses, he rests there upon the
highest point of heaven, until he marvellously drives them down again through heaven to Okeanos."
I lived to dance all night. A surging energy created a new and unprecedented confidence:
that it was possible to cheat time. I felt invincible - transcendent. Life was light, without fear
of death; at least not in this state of being. I sensed in my body vibrations of sound.
The closer I got to the source, the more it enveloped me, becoming a physical entwinement with
music and space. I felt one with it. But as the years passed, inevitably my heart began to
beat out of time. The breath did not come so easily. I held it at the top for a few seconds,
afraid to exhale. In these moments, the perceived syncopation that was once such a joy had
started to become a dissonance.
*
I feel alive, and the world - it's turning inside out Yeah!
I'm floating around in ecstasy
So don't stop me now,
I'm a shooting star leaping through the skies
Like a tiger, defying the laws of gravity
I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva
I'm gonna go! go! go!
There's no stopping me!
I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars
On a collision course
I am a satellite, I'm out of control
I am a sex machine ready to reload
Like an atom bomb about to
Oh -oh-oh-oh-oh explode!
(Extracts from 'Don't Stop Me Now' lyrics by Freddie Mercury, 1978)
Through the grainy unsteady image and the sound, distorted by low quality compression, it
seems like something is trying to break through. The first few seconds sound like noise
pulled through a synthesizer, screaming and kicking as it emerges, fighting for life in its new
digital form. Something about it is alarming, frightening, tortured and angry. It is half-formed,
raw and unrefined. Streaks of red and white light flash across the screen.
It is an arena for action. Something about this situation that is chaotic; yet there is an
element of control. The driver makes tight circles around a central axis. At first this is
demarcated by a traffic cone, but as things proceed, the silhouette of a young man moves into the
centre. The car stops and revs up, creating billows of smoke in the air, obliterating vision for
a few moments. As the car skids and screeches, I feel a sense of alarm. This is coming close to
disaster for the lone, central figure, potential victim of the anonymous driver, a sacrifice for
the entertainment of onlookers. I can sense also the collusion. One figure willingly places his
trust in the other. There is a tension between these two.
*
A smoky, fiery object is spinning recklessly. One might say things had spun out of control.
Not quite though; for to completely lose control would mean total destruction. It would mean the
end. It all went up in flames. This is a sudden, intense and short lived burst of energy. More
like a supernova than the sun, and more akin to a meteor careering around a planet, than a planet
orbiting the sun. It was more than this, though. This scene was not simply about objects in space;
it was human. It was a game or a task, perhaps even a ritual.
Although I can identify it as a human activity, shot through with the implications of one's
relationship to another, from my vantage point it also seemed anonymous. In the dark, these
figures could be anyone, totally unrecognisable by the light of day. In this moment they had a
relationship to one another. Certainly for the two central protagonists, it was one of great
significance and trust. At any other time, on any other level, it was unclear. In this sense, the
action had become symbolic. The figures could be understood as archetypes. Ones which, for reasons
I cannot yet identify, I associate with the masculine.
***
In the threat of a loss of control, images had already flooded my mind. I remember as the
helicopters circled in the air above my house one evening in August. I had no idea why it was
happening, but this circling was incessant, the noise repeatedly coming close and fading away,
swelling and receding, but never quite out of my consciousness. It always gives me a slight sense
of unease, the idea of something being under surveillance, coupled with the notion that something
might be wrong. Why this surveillance from such a great height? It is a safe distance for the one
who watches. Then I remembered the destruction that had taken place, just minutes away from my home.
The aerial images of buildings and cars set alight, and rioters surging through the streets, anonymous
from this point of view. London's Burning.
As cosmic man or the personification of the intelligence in the tree of life, the Green Man is
the point at which the truth is manifested in creation, whether as life, light, song, words or
other figurative forms of art. He is the medium through which divine inspiration guides the works
of time in the fullness of space. He is the point of entry of eternity into time. Space is the
medium of sound, and therefore the music of praise.
W. Anderson, Green Man: The Archetype of our Oneness with the Earth.
...
Such circles designate, like the spirals, the paths of entry between worlds, and the pacing or
dancing of such designs in imitation of the journeys of the Gods, offers a perfect explanation of
these structures.
The Avebury henge was not a sculpture in the sense of being a finite, completed object.
Instead, it was brought to completion at the right time by human participation.
M. Dames The Avebury Cycle
...
In the extraordinary madness which periodically invaded Europe from the fourteenth to the
seventeenth century, people danced until they dropped.
At Liege in 1374, after certain possessed folk had come dancing half naked into the town
with garlands on their heads, dancing in the name of St John, we are told that many persons
seemingly sound in mind and body were suddenly possessed by devils and joined the dancers.
