Banksy - Fallen Soldier

Growing up as an army brat and later working alongside the US military I've had a little more experience of the the war machine than most.

These days I've no patience for the way the military and war is unfailingly portrayed as a noble thing. It's not. The RAF pilot that blew this Libyan kids chin off deserves a good hiding instead of being lionized as compassionate because his cocker spaniel missed him while he was bombing the shit out of brown people.

I know the men in the line of duty are not the war creators but that's why it's so important to speak up.

Recently during Memorial Weekend in the States I was listening to my favourite radio host repeating the ' we honour our fallen soldiers' line and I got really annoyed. It''s pure conditioning and plays into the hands of uneducated kids by portraying that joining the military is honourable. So I tweeted this.

And so the Banksy synchronicity continues.

Banksy On The Vatican

The Banksy on Advertising post has been phenomenal for internet traffic here and I couldn't work out why. - I discovered the reason just now. 

His Cardinal Sin bust, with pixelated face was just donated to  an art gallery causing the usual outrage from Rome. Banksy responded "At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse."

In further digital trigonometry the other post that wont stop pouring in internet traffic is my Vatican Bans Advertising, Endorses Child Pornography.

Possibly The Last Jack Nicholson Fan Photograph You'll Ever See

I was just listening to BBC World Service Outlook programme about a celebrity fanatics life of photographing himself with celebrities. I was about to change the 'channel' when  Richard Simpkins mentioned that Michael Hutchence was the most charismatic person he'd met over the decades. 

The official story of Hutchence' premature death has never sat comfortably with me and I thought it was an interesting comment Simpkin made so I hung in there. He then talked about the first time he met Jack Nicholson who declined his request for a fan photograph as he no longer does them and especially so as he'd mislaid his sunglasses on the golf course. Nine years later Richard Simpkin found himself at the rear of a Hollywood restaurant while Jack smoked a customary after-meal cigar . He reminded him about the first time they met in Sydney. Jack recalled losing his sunglasses and no doubt impressed by Richard's tenacity promised to do a photo with him at the front of the restaurant later. It's a quirky story and an anomaly in so much as I avoid celebrity topics. However the idea of Richard doing a 'Celebrity Fan Photographic Exhibition' is a brilliant example of 'But is it art?'.

In my view the world of art is so far up its backside it has neglected to address real issues in a way that is compelling, memorable and intelligent. The Independent recently asked us if contemporary art has 'Jumped The Shark' and the answer isn't hard to determine although I've always had a sneaky respect for Damien Hirst taking the piss out of the art world and charging as much as he could get away with.

Most of the art still housed in the National Gallery was commissioned by the 1% and so it's hard not to ask if the art world has changed that much? Hogarth was an exception but by and large I've never seen a more self obsessed bunch than contemporary artists who seem to have missed out on the point that great art taps into the times and articulates the unspeakable.

I tweeted as much earlier and there was a response to check out occuprint.org that I think is worth a mention. It's also worth mentioning that Richard Simpkin's body and style changes while snapping celebs from boyhood to man are oddly fascinating in their own way. You can see his photography exhibition in Liverpool. 

Maybe art is so up its own arse that anthropology is more interesting these days.

Donnie Darko - The Manipulated Living Will Do Anything To Save Themselves From Oblivion

When Donnie Darko (The Directors Cut) was re-released, the slightly Arabic looking font was removed for the usual brainwashing and paranoid issues that the US command and control corporate media have when a piece of art about a plane part hitting a building jangles the post 9/11 nerves. 

At least in Soviet Russia and The Peoples Republic of China the educated knew they were being lied to but most Americans are still in the dark about how manipulated they are. That is changing though.

Donnie Darko is one of my top movies ever. There's so much synchromysticism in it that I found myself moved twice as much as the first time I watched the movie, and still there's much room for digging deeper into it. There's no need to go on at length about the eerie synchronicity I experienced last night as much of it is personal but it resonated heavily and struck a even deeper contextual chord for the times we are living in. 

One hard to ignore example though was the Patrick Swayze character of Jim Cunningham with his creepy influence in school education. Cunningham is subsequently exposed for being a child pornography user which I saw as an analog for the recent Jerry Sandusky football coach abusing students at Penn State University and which for me isn't a scandal but merely business as usual for powerful and influential people in society as I've written about here here and here.

Donnie Darko is the kind of film that triggers future memories and past futures. You can look at a couple of examples over here and here but I think you should bring your own experiences to the film and see what I'm trying to adumbrate. It's a personal experience. 

There's also an interesting and immersive website over here.

Dark Knight Rises On Wall Street

In the future art and life will merge into a single stream of creation. 

Sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from the highest forms of spirituality. They are indeed the same thing.

At Close Range - Auf kurze Distanz

In 1986 Prizzi's honour and Out of Africa secured the memorable Oscars. For a moment just then I thought Out of Africa had the memorable line 'Not another fucking beautiful day' as the veranda shutters were thrown open on a Kenya Savanna morning but I think that may have been White Mischief.

However as usual, the Oscar judges made a mistake. It's hard to find a single flaw in any scene by Sean Penn throughout At Close Range but for a staggeringly quintessential Christopher Walken performance this movie nail-guns the red carpet into the concrete with ease. 

Shoulda got an Oscar. Great performances by Mary Stuart Masterson and Chris Penn is great playing brother on screen as well as off.

A couple of weeks ago I met a German friend of mine who insisted that Sean Penn is rubbish so I countered with have you seen Harvey Milk to which he responded 'you could play a great homosexual Charles' which I found very funny on a lot of levels at the time. In any case I guess not everyone thinks, as I do, that Sean Penn is one of the finest actors of my generation and furthermore I think he pisses over any of the greats, from any era of the 20th century. Particularly the clichéd picks of Olivier or Gielgud.

I was just enjoying the fine screen performances to a workable though slow moving script when the narrative takes a sharp right turn about three quarters of the way through, so hang in there. The entire movie is on Youtube and the first part is above.

It's set in Pennsylvania and is based on a true story.

Transformers 3

Exceedingly Good Gear. Don't miss it.

Post Structuralism - What The Fuck Is That?

Via Tricia

Opposite Bangkok

Opposite Bangkok

Turned Off TV

I know I've blogged about 'But does it float' before, but today's offering is hitting my Z spot if I can use that expression for the zeitgeist demonisation of the end of the TV era I'm noticing. 

Here's a couple of turned off TV's below. Something I almost feel affectionate for from a bygone age when screens played out a unique signature of light-drama at the electric curtain call. 

I've rejected a TV screen in my home for years now to the point that when I visit other peoples homes I'm taken aback how intrusive and badly informed the TV is. Like an ungrateful house guest. Bellicose and belligerent.

Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?

Update: Marina Abramovic has inspired Lady Gaga to explore performance art.

Less Art More Artlessness

Tim's written a post about paintings and sculptures by Preyawit Nilachulaka, and the collision of childlike cartoon imagery, sexual transgression and violent humiliation. I don't really get the connection but it seemed like a good chance to get some overdue gas mask imagery in a post along with vague allusions to recombinant culture. Go read some more.

Lip Animals

Lip Animals Via the most excellent Tricia Wang

John Carpenter's 'They Live' & Banksy

I'm watching the Banksy documentary which is well worth downloading from www.nikflix.com (somebody should buy that domain). I'm struck how politically it closely ties in with the movie 'They Live'. It's practically a palimpsest.

Update: ODD has produced an excellent analysis of They Live.

The Disney scene in the Banksy movie is extraordinary. It morphs from family fun to plain clothes Guantanamo Mickey Mouse security on Robocop pathology. To quote The Beatles I was playing earlier, "It wont be long, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah".

It's a very provocative and entertaining movie and possibly the most self referential piece of art I've come across for some time. Part postmodern, part self fulfilling prophecy. Watch it if you can. Maybe I should come back to the John Carpenter movie They Live some time because of Freeman's slick sick synchronicity spiel on it. Mind blowing stuff.

With Thanksy to Banksy

Yuna Zarai

Rumour has it the young Malaysian singer is going down very well in New York right now. What a voice and what a credit to creative women of Islamic faith. Watch that space.

But Does It Float

My favourite art website is on cracking form recently in case you've noticed the change in style for visuals here. Tons of synchronicity too if you keep your pineal gland nice and squeegee clean.

Hermaphroditism

Very pleased to see that my hot tip of January 2008 Joy Island, is back in Beijing (after a spell at St. Martin's I think) and is being picked up by Neocha on her latest exhibition at Yang's Gallery in Beijing called Hermaphroditism.

Don't Make Me Over

"When Dionne Warwick played the Olympia in Paris in '66 the house orchestra felt Burt Bacharach's music was too complicated for them. So Warwick who had studied to become a music teacher before she became a star taught the orchestra the songs. Here the orchestra at one point is losing it but Dionne doesn't skip a beat. One of the greatest song stylists of all time."

"I've seen Dionne a couple dozen times through the years and wether it was at Carnegie Hall or Radio City Music Hall, at certain points she would deliberately put the microphone down below her waist and then hit some spellbinding note and the folks in the back row could still hear it. She's not doing much of that any more but if you were lucky enough to have been there when she did it was something to behold. Great musician and greatest vocalist."

Twisted - Art, Schizophrenia & Drugs

This is a portrayal of schizophrenic degradation over a period of years by a patient drawing cats; I think in the late 1920's. I don't want to get into the why a lot of mental disease is exacerbated by 20th century problem/pill solutions but I think it's a useful benchmark for codifying drifting reality.

I quite like the fire god pussy at the end. Frankly it looks splendid and if that's what cats look like, then I want some of that. Well, rather that, than the cheeky catwalk turn and that exposed-in-my face feline arsehole they serve up currently.

And so I also want to introduce to you something I came across from my subscription to dope nation the other day that I've been holding back for you while I get over  Wittgenstein's mesmerizing come down. Truly he is the peak.

In a way it's good coincidence, as I specifically want to talk about the effects of morphine because when I've been screaming so loud at an entire hospital complex, to put me out my pain that they've jacked me up on 200mg of Pethadine AND 200 mg of morphine (eight times the hourly dose they prefer to administer) that it's only when I saw this picture that I realised what went on through the blinding pain. 

That actually, even though it's the most cathartic transfer of schmerz to no pain in my life, I previously had no idea that beneath the sea of doped up tranquility, that what was really going on in the hospital bed festooned with pipes and wires and drips and gastric pipes up my nose was a lotta lotta sedated neurological activity.

OF COURSE NOW I SEE. The mind was merely being deceived. And I think you can see that in these pictures below which frankly are the most dangerous artistic and neurological experiment I have come across to date that the morphine tricked me into thinking the pain had gone away. Here is a portrait that portrays otherwise.

And so I claim that the Psilocybin (magic mushroom) below, is ostensibly cheekier, funnier, more dramatic and a little bit bucking bizarre. But as I've done both I'm allowed to shoot my mouth off about that. 

There's a lot more of the artist Bryan Lewis Saunders doing drugs for us all; that is him, you and I over here. 

Update: I can't find the exact post but Clif High talked about using snow to diminish burnt toes and the pain duration lasting infinitely longer than just dealing with it sans snow.

Werner Herzog's - Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I'd love to see this 3D documentary by Werner Herzong. Coincidentally, I've been spending a bit of time  over the last few weeks listening to descriptions of the caves in Lascaux in Southern France where Picasso emerged and said 'we've learned nothing' after seeing the intense visionary drawings which in this instance also adorn the caves at Chauvet Pont d'Arc. However both locations (and others) liberally portray therianthropes for no explicable rational reason.

Anybody else learned of the similarities between these caves and the features of cathedrals such as Chartres?