Thats all folks…thank goodness

…And cartoons! Whats going on there, I ask myself. Just a thought, as I am talking about how perception of violence and aggression has changed in our culture, I grew up fixated on the cartoons of the 60’s and 70’s. My eyes locked onto images of crash, bang wallop. A dogs jaw locked onto a mans arm, a frying pan in the face, a cats tail on fire. Pure sadism and torture, and to such an astronomically absurd level. But also with regards the more lovelorn characters. It seemed it was quite acceptable to behave appallingly towards women, or at least females. Bluto was only able to get a woman by kidnap and against her own will, Pepe Le Pew, the inimitable skunk with his interminable pursuit of love, requiring him to disguise, coerce, trick and drug his quarry. All this seemingly innocent amidst the outlandish violence being enacted around them.
Yet, the cartoon remains as violent, if not more, the depictions of the sinister perversions are gone, I hope.
Pepe the Date Rapist will have to put away the Roehypnol and start happy-slapping if he is to return to the big screen.Pepe le Pew

State of the art..

I am starting to formulate an enquiry which is becoming a research issue, possibly for use as my PGPD essay, albeit related to my main body of work and well ahead of my obligation to produce the piece. It strikes me that through the process of discussing my research, I seem to be quick to state that, where boxing is concerned, there was definitely a golden era for boxing that allowed people to view the many positive facets of the sport, be it the political, social, universal metaphors, or just the sport itself, with its noble and philosophical flavours. This fact, I have always taken for granted. I have maybe put it down to the characters of the fighters themselves, or maybe the personalities commentating on the bouts. It could also be purely down to being a witness of junior years, wrapped up in the romance of a misplaced sense of good over evil (there always seemed to be a bad guy who needed a whupping for having a dirty mouth, no respect. Whether it was Joe Louis against Max Schmelling, Ali Vs Liston or even Cooper vs Ali).
My definite impression now is that it is far more a cultural and contextual issue than one of rose tinted spectacles. With the advancement of technologies, increases in population and the changes in the demands of the masses, we are used to a stronger vantage point for our voyeurism. The days of being policed by a bobby on the beat with his rarely used truncheon are gone. The day of the traffic warden with a Kevlar Stab-Vest is upon us. Defending ones home now would require a home arsenal, and a team of lawyers. The trip home from the pub needs to be approached as a military sortie, and you can forget telling the local pre-teens to stop sitting on the bonnet of your car, lest we find it keyed, spat on, tyres deflated and covered in eggs. Or worse still, one of them “borrows” a Stanley knife……
So, in short, are we lacking personalities in the sport that keep us glued to the screen? I dont think so, Prince Naseem, Amir Khan, Joe Calzaghe, Danny Williams, the Klitschko brothers, Nikolei Valuev, Barrera, Jones Jnr, Ricky Hatton etc etc etc. Or has the culture of violence evolved so, that we are desensitised and complacent when faced with a knife, or a headline (more often than not, just a sidebar), reporting decapitation, car-jacking, torture, rape, mugging, happy-slapping for Gods sake!!
What chance does boxing have in the polpularity stakes? Two guys standing in a ring in shiny shorts fighting above the belt; How can that possibly compete?
In my mind, I’ll fight anybody. In reality, I’m shit-scared of teenagers. (and crack-squirrels, if you read the south London press).

Dip your toe in..

The following clip is a result of playing with some footage that I shot last year for another piece. The piece was called Sink and Swim and ran alongside another piece of mine, Fight and Flight. These were early forays into my current enquiry on the psychology of aggression and containment.
Shooting the footage was an event in itself due to trying to explain myself in a proposal to Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, who thought I was either a pervert or just a lunatic..

Carpe diem

One thing I need to do is to make myself aware of other current practitioners in my field. I have developed a relationship with my computer, which gives me access to an abundance of information on anything and everything. What it does detrimentally is to keep me at a safe distance from the subject I am trying to engage with. In a similar way, as mentioned in my previous post, the dormant works and methods of representation of old maintained a safe distance between viewer and artist, or piece. It would appear that if a video or performance piece is currently exhibitted, one has to seize the day and go see. If not, one is left with sitting at ones screen and viewing referential snippets, never quite getting anywhere near an understanding of what is being displayed.
On hearing about Haley Newman and Marie Sester, I was happy to discover artists that were actively guinea-pigging themselves with their research and pieces. Haleys use of local anaesthetic before giving a lecture, and Maries random tracking of people in a shopping centre are both pieces that interract in a way that broaden curiosities and provoke an awareness of environment and culture, whereas works by Marcel Li Atunez Roca and Orlan seem more to do with shock or creating upset. These latter works seem to be more connected to a previous era, the 70s and 80s, where artists such as Franco B, Chris Burden and Stuart Brisley, performed their visceral pieces amidst the explosion of new technology and therefore seemed to sit, or run alongside a more substantial turn in our evolution as artists and appreciaters. Being a massive fan of Burden is a dangerous thing when tempted to follow in his mode of research. But I am still moved to work in a similar way, just not as a mimic.
In my written journal, I am beginning to formulate a method of process to achieve the enactment of some supporting pieces. I hope to somehow avoid the contrived, but also suspect one has to experience the contrived to fascilitate the production of the truly new.
Action research I guess.

I came accross this piece by accident and thought it linked nicely with my research. I am in the process of researching the whole piece as this seems to be a “trailer”.

As seen from above..

I feel I am finally getting a grip on this blogging scenario. Looking back over my previous entries, I feel that I need to make it more coherent/cohesive regarding what I am actually trying to journal.
My work stems from various fascinations with violence and aggression. This is coupled with a personal need to have a sense of control over my own feelings of anger and subsequent feelings of aggression. My pursuit of a mode of channeling these feelings has led me to the discovery of not only the complexities and universalities of the Fight or Flight scenario, but also to the psychology behind making that crucial decision and how one copes once that decision has been made. I decided that to fully engage with both my own need to discipline my urges and to gain understanding and clarity, that I would train to be a boxer. This, I am convinced, will help me access the research sources better than were I to be approaching them purely from the outside.
The term Action Research, a term I had not heard before this academic year, seems to cover exactly what it is that I feel I need to be invoved with to progress with my work to the degree I feel necessary. By this I mean to underline my involvement in training to box. But I am not doing a course in boxing, it is purely a subject of focus. My pressing need is to be active with my filming, editing and fleshing out of ideas, for it is here that I believe the evolution of my piece will gather momentum.
I am accumulating a number of ideas for supporting pieces which seem to be being triggered by recent talks from my peers and artist talks within the college. The common denominator for these ideas appears to be connecting in some way, the relationship between the artist, the camera and the audience. Ex-student Peter Ford who spoke with us yesterday, put into words something I felt important with regards this relationship. I agreed with him that as technology has progressed, so has the experience of viewing art in a gallery. Where for many centuries a piece of work was viewed as a dormant object or piece, with the introduction of new media, and particularly video and performance, an interraction with the viewer has been established and evolved that can only enliven the gallery experience, subsequently waking the spaces from their hibernation or dormant state. Does this therefore mean that until the 20th century, viewing art was a lesser experience? would it be arrogant to suggest this, or are we just experiencing the evolution? I believe that with the advancement of technologies, we are living in a world where we require more interractivity, resulting in an impatience with more decorative pieces and a fundamental need for a fuller engagement with what we choose to look at.

The following is a sample video edit showing the way in which I have been working: