We have three tubes of white arrived from Skapamer1 and a roll of canvas from Kristinas Scrapbooking2 on the way. That should see our season out and thank you for extending until the spring although it is of course in your interests also but I cannot agree with your verdict opinion on the video messages. In your response you say simply that I 'must erase them if it's bad for the climate'3 but it's not so easy. We have poured our thoughts and words into those videos in good faith communication with the Singularity of the future and we must be heard. There are other ways to be responsible with this other than by killing it and I suspect that there be an element of the soured vine in your view on the matter. Maybe you harbour some resentment for the way we took off on our own4 and look here, I understand that and was careful to admit that we may have been a tad ungrateful or had perhaps even taken advantage of your lenient, tolerant nature allowing us to Do as we please. Am I wrong to read it thus in light of your uncharacteristically negative and final judgement on the videos? Or is because of what Ingelar Högdhal has written?5 Are you under pressure from the local members? Are we in danger of being cancelled? When I described Siri as a "wee ride" I was not using the term in the way described by Miss Högdhal. My understanding of the term is way milder than her course definition, a ride meaning simply slang for attractive and in fact I only knew the term from a friend of mine from Belfast who we lived with for three years at the Sunderland Photography Academy back in the late nineties. He would say something like "John pass me a beer there you wee fuckin ride ye".
So tell me right now if this is the case and furthermore if you care to pass on Miss Högdhal's details6 I would be happy to straighten the matter out personally and reasonably but please don't let this impinge on our Doing. The topic of cancel culture is within our remit with regards to all things Borg but at this late hour we cannot take a bite but rest assured we are aware. We are not Bernard Manning7 after all and I would hate for this to become an issue or worse, to lead to decisive action as was the case when I was forced to resign as Primary Instituter of the Open Council due to the complaints of visually impaired David Bowen who took exception last world.7
Forgive me, we find ourselves less than firm this morning. Perhaps things are getting on top of us. Perhaps this war is getting on top of us? It just may be that in our wish to ration our attention to not be dragged too far in to the media spectacle, rather like last season with the election, we suffer a different angst from not knowing that is manifesting in the emotional. For example I was just needing to wipe a tear from the eye and hide ourselves from my children in the back seat. Just 20 minutes ago, it was the strangest thing and we perhaps have not recovered. The car radio was activated for the first time in years, I forgot we had one, and after a long time scanning for music among the advertisements I was delighted to find Nessun Dorma by Pavarotti. My children were not so pleased and sat somewhat non plussed until that is I turned it up for the crescendo which was awesome as always and that had them listening. How can you follow it? What could possibly come next and not seem foolish? Almost immediately Blackbird came on and we were suddenly overcome. Tears and what's wrong daddy? I suppose we were taken by the contrasts presented; strong powerful, expressive, passionate, loud on the one side and quiet, fragile, gentle, introspective, vulnerable on the other. We give ten out of ten to the disk jockey for the curation and thank them. We fell for it hook line and sinker and even now we sense the moist. Two extremes, a fine pairing; what follows Nessun Dorma will always be Blackbird. What a gift.
The work above was taken a good few days past and represents another chalked off the list. We do not usually work so, with a list. We follow the season and our adjacent whims but as we are finishing up we have to be more choosey and think more about what needs to be said. The work above is needed as it refers to the topic of a 'middle', not the 'squeezed middle', not the 'middle class' but a politically conscious middle with a necessarily savvy attitude to the tech and its political effect and uses that must grow and assert itself to overcome the false computational left right binary. An attitude that sees through the culture wars, is aware of the games afoot and does not crumble at unknowability, does not reach for the nearest and simplest tribal identity to live to, and is not provoked by conspiracy and baiting. An impossible ask perhaps but the image of the little icey gap between the fields which seemed to us to be growing captures something of relevance and it is surely the case that the New Dark Age has had a hand in this. It is though also a reference back to the first work of DS 2 where we used two fields, one ploughed one not, to bludgeon in a metaphor for our political state. With the experience of the recent past in the bank is there an appetite to turn away from the culture war infused, conspiracy influencer, data led, disinformation fed, hate laundering, cancel culturing, psyche war ways we have ended up with for something else? That lot will all go on even when nobody is looking, automated even, (as my daughter said when asked if a tree makes a noise if it falls when there are no people about; "of course it does") the question is can enough eyes and minds be wrested from that computed spectacle and onto something other, enough to create a little space between our fictional far left alt right state? So much might well depend upon an engaged but selective relationship with the media, with the internet and upon tech education but to be real it perhaps must also emerge quite naturally, not from campaigning but from a collective turning away. It must be political in its apathy. With an election later this year much will depend also on people simply looking in the spegel9 and asking themselves if they are really going to vote for a far right political party of neo nazi origins? But we have no reason to suspect that will happen, indeed of all the businesses to suffer over these post truth years surely the mirror maker that has come off the worse.
All too much to imagine but we tried to make a painting of it and enjoyed making it happen in colour.
A Still life next,
John
1. A local colour merchant.
2. General craft supplies store.
3. Based on John's own discovery of the high carbon impact of You Tube we advised that the videos should be deleted if John thought it was right.
4. There are no sour grapes at all, John is free to Do as he wishes.
5. We received a message from Ingelar Högdhal of Rimbo, complaining about the content of one of John's video messages in which he talked to Siri and at one point referred to her as a 'wee ride'. It is not clear how Mrs Högdhal saw the video however as John stopped uploading them on environmental grounds.
6. ingelar.högdhal@yahoo.com
7. British comedian.
8. Visually impaired David Bowen complained to the Open Council about one of John's instituting initiatives leading John's resignation. See Open Council Founder Succumbs to Mustgo.