What is artistic daring in our time? Is it to fold all into politics, or into direct activism? Or is it to pave the way for a genuine nft art, some metaverse experimentation's? Or is it as we have always felt about finding ways to go back minus any sense of retreat? As is the way of the obstinate artist ageing, the more wretched we become more the daring we feel. Very Cezannian. We do go back but we are no tech rejectionist. In our rationale of breakage of course we go back. But we go forward also do we not? This season we have blasted off into a dialogue with the very future that awaits us one way or another. We go back, we go forward, we mix it all together with the times, both actual and possible, and we now feel sure that it is on the peg of contemporaienety that we must hang ourselves. The Osbounre text has convinced us. It is philosophically difficult but with art theoretical implications for our work and rational and indeed we could have done with reading this one when it was published in 2013. Our interest in contemporainety dates back to our Torpoint Art Service work which predates the Osbourne text so it would have influenced us but having said that perhaps it is more exciting to discover theoretical insight that helps make sense of what we have been doing naturally all along. His postconceptual proposition and analysis of The Atlas Group may even provide us with a way to reinterpret our work for the Open Council. We should get back in touch.
To reject technology is a waste of time. It would be like rejecting electricity but do we say we reject the so called big tech? Yes that is more like it and we are far from alone and for proof one only need to see how the theme of 'fighting the tyranny of big tech' is batted around alt right and free speech world. It will no doubt be a continuing theme as election in 2024 approaches. For that inevitably bar raising psyche war stramash, much of the hateful twist and shout will stem from the rash of independent platforms where alt far right knuckle souls and infirm reality casualties now gather. Fear not however, we shall not be dipping our attention back into that pool of clever idiocy any more. Not when we are so close to the end. In fact we raise our position on the tech and the importance of not adopting a too rigid rejectionist position because we are imagining that a project that involves some positive engagement with digital technology would be healthy for us. Maybe somehow tied to climate change, an attempt to continue on with our use of the online for work, but to do it green somehow. Perhaps to make an app. We already have an idea for a Norrtalje based tension app in which one can be alerted to the presence and level of tension in a given location and plan ones day accordingly. Another commercial opportunity perhaps? Thinking back to the Bridle1 account it is the cloud which we must back away from, could we run our business on a home server? Possibly, but as we try to remind ourselves, these problems of climate require broad solutions which change things at a far greater level than the odd individual but saying that we also know that artistically speaking the reducing of ones creative options can lead to the new. We saw just that did we not in the work of Joanna Moll.2
So we think on about our position on the tech but we still shall have no smart phone for as long as is possible and shall avoid the social media way of life as per usual. That is a given, but as we sense many others backing away from these things we sense also the new market for some rejectionist wood chopping lifestyle which, even if pleasant, (we know just how pleasant from our days at the Bracke stugans) is no critical position to take. After all we have seen and said we still must pick up the gauntlet and take it on a few steps. How to do that within the world of tech while being rather out of it is our challenge.
Meet my eldest daughter Alva. My youngest daughter is called Vega. We have refrained from even mentioning their names thus far because it felt wrong to bring them into this mess, but now it feels right. They must, shall and do, live in the very world of algorithmic technology we whinge about and they take to it as naturally as a duck to water. No, a rejectionist position is death in a handbag and will result simply in a miserable daddy. We don’t want that. My father was always positive about the world in a sense that I would like to be. He had a trust in the world, a trust that professionals and experts were hard at work on all the problems we face and all will be well in the end. He would certainly still hold that general view I am certain and we are trying. It is quite true of course but it is also true that ones 'natural trust in the world' has come under vicious attack in recent years. Our best start to find examples of good professionals, experts, innovators and inventors is the sphere of climate change. We say so because there we can work, learn, create and marvel together at new ways and crucially participate in it. We must check in with old Holmes3 to see if he has anything for us on this score.
We thought about all this when we painted and even more now as we reflect that what we have in this portrait is a likeness that seems to capture Alva as older than she is. It made us think. You know we really must tackle the portraits more, not only because it is a staple of the Dutchman but for our own thoughts and social. We clearly are not one to seek social contact of a general sort, for that end in itself, (there is far too much to Do) but a program that includes portraiture would perhaps be a way to gain the good energy of people without loss of work, focus and wretchedness.
The curator of the Nortalje contemporary art centre paid us a visit today along with Konst hall Jimmy, to see Helens studio and talk about her coming exhibition. We acted as butler for this, as we told Borgs between duties, but we did in fact have the chance to present our rational and some work. We even showed them our banner video but we stopped short of revealing Dane Bowers. Lord knows what they thought of the work but as has often been the case, even as far back as Torpoint, our rationale of breakage was met with supportive nods. Jimmy also repeated his desire for a Wretched Painter t/shirt so perhaps we have our first sale?
We shall be taking the ferry boat to the Helsinki National to view their Auvers Cottages.4 It is an unfinished one this, stopped it seems just as he is working the magic so we shall try and glean what we can.
Klara and the Sun continues to intrigue. He has it pitched very nicely to hint just enough at the state of the world he is depicting for the reader to understand it through glimpses of 'now': AI is advanced, children are interfaced or enhanced (lifted), some of them dying in the process, the characters seem broken or infirm somehow, climate change is advanced, talk of armed communities hints at the wider breakdown. Klara's bizarre pursuit of the Cootings Machine already haunts us.
We shall post again on our return from the National as we have already promised the Singularity that we would take It with us so you will have to wait. One thing we have discovered over his long and strange season is that it is difficult to talk to you and It together.
With a forward step,
John
1 James Bridle, New Dark Age. See Work 54.
2 Artist and researcher focusing on the climate impact of the internet.
3 Refers to social theorist and artist Brian Holmes.
4. Refers to Street in Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890, in the Didrichsen Art Museum.