bouncing thoughts, hard to get ahold of.

What I am listening to:
Fever Ray, fever ray, a solo project by Swedish musician Karin Dreijer Andersson (thanks to Janice Anee Hunter)
Broadcast, tender buttons
Broken Social Scene, feel good lost

My general mood:
On the edge of a sharp knife.

Sunlight is my friend, but now that it is light until almost 1230 I am starting to see cracks forming in our relationship. I’ve been wearing my eye pillow as prescribed by my wife, but my brainwaves seem to be cued into this prolonged day and no eye pillow in the world will help me now. See the outline below for a short synopsis of the things I have been thinking about, and please discuss as you see fit.

I. Birth and related activites
    A. Procreation
        1. The sexual act, interpreted
            a. a sin
            b. a blessing
            c. a trigger for the release of chemicals in the brain
            d. a power relationship
            e. how did sex become taboo?
            f. are we hard-wired to be uncomfortable with 
                sex by default, or are we programmed by 
                culture to feel this way?
            g. are there different types of sex?
            h. if so, are some inherently morally wrong?
    B. Babies
        1. The right to children
            a. 14 children and on welfare
            b. no children and aren’t allowed to adopt
            d. two kids are enough
            c. who has the right to make these decisions?
            d. what about when these decisions affect a 
                 large number of people?
            e. how many people can the earth support?
II. The past
    A. Memory
        1. Things you can’t forget, even when you
           desperately want to
            a. lost love, unrequited love, etc.
            b. the pain of loneliness. The pain of everything, actually
            c. missed opportunities of all shapes and sizes
            d. how good things were some other time
            e. certain songs, when they seem to mean something
                beyond the obvious
            f. what makes something unforgettable?
            g. how can these memories become so overwhelming?
            g. when it becomes difficult to carry these memories 
                any further, how can they be gotten rid of?
        2. Things you can’t remember
            a. how good things are right now
            b. birthdays
            c. details, when they matter most
            d. how many people care about you
            e. why are the most obvious things the hardest to 
                keep in mind?
            f. why is it hard to remember the good things and 
               easy to remember the bad things in life?
B. History
        1. Things you are ashamed of
            a. hurting other people
            b. hurting yourself
            c. poor decisions in general
            d. should guilt have an expiration date?
            e. If you apologize, even years after the offense, 
                are you exonerated?
            f. why can some people put the past behind 
                them while others can’t?
            g. if something is a secret that that no one else 
               knows about, can you still be ashamed of it?
         2. Things you are proud of
            a. helping other people
            b. accomplishments that have helped you get where
                you are right now
            c. if something is a secret, can you still be proud of it?
III. The Present
    A. Here and now
        1. Waking up
            a. coffee, food, morning medication
            b. say goodbye to your partner so he/she can go off to
                work/play/whatever
            c. think about yesterday
            d. think about tomorrow
            e. browse the internet
            f. why is it so difficult to start the day?
        2. Doing stuff all day long, just like the other days
            a. eat lunch
            b. try desperately to concentrate on one single task and
                complete said task
            c. browse the internet
            d. even the exciting life is monotonous. Why?
        3. Winding down
            a. eat dinner
            b. converse with your partner, see how he/she is
            c. feel guilty about not accomplishing more in the day
            d. browse the internet
            e. evening medication
            f. go to sleep
            g. some people say that all of this time on the computer and
                tied to other technology is killing us slowly. Is this true?
            h. every day is different, but every day is ultimately the 
                same.
IV. The Future
    A. Everything that will ever happen to you
        1. Things that cause anxiety simply because you think of them
            a. health
            b. failure of any kind
            c. hurting others
            d. losing someone you love
            e. hurting yourself
            f. keeping secrets
            g. divulging secrets
            i. new opportunities
            j. if you don’t understand something, and we all can’t 
               predict the future, is it best to be afraid?
            h. how do you defeat these anxieties?
            i. some people recommend not thinking too much about
               the future.
               Is this a legitimate way to avoid anxiety, or does it 
               seem irresponsible?
        2.  Things that cause excitement, and perhaps subsequently
             anxiety
            a. a meaningful relationship
            b. a family
            c. breakthroughs and the opportunities they present
        3. Things that just cause excitement
V. Death and dying
    A. Details
        1. The bits that matter
            a. being afraid of dying
            b. the grief of those around you
            c. the comfort and closure for those around you
            d. is fear of death a modern cultural construct?
            e. why is it so difficult to lose someone close to you?
            f. is there a physical or scientific way to describe grief?   
        2. Rites and rituals
            a. Interment of the dead, ancestor worship, funeral customs
            b. why would anyone want to be buried in the ground 
                for the rest of eternity?
            c. is it ethically sound for a hole in the ground to cost so 
               much money?
    B. The part afterwards, i.e. the soul
        1. Where you go (adherents and people who might end up there)
            a. heaven (christians, jews, mothers, suicide bombers, etc.)
            b. hell (Christians, jews, mothers, infidels,
                   satanists (happily?), etc.)
            c. limbo (catholics, infants, etc.)
            d. nowhere at all (me?, richard dawkins, earthworms, etc.)
            e. can the existence of an afterlife be determined using 
               any current system of  understanding?
            f. alternatively, will the mere existence of an afterlife  
               always be a  question of faith?
        2. Who determines where you go
            a. god, allah, yahweh, etc.
            b. no one at all
            c. does all of faith boil down to what happens to you 
                when you die?
            d. is it possible that a set of rules as laid down or indicated
               by a higher power determines the circumstances of 
                your afterlife?

Are these thoughts the hallmarks of higher consciousness? How did we develop this sense of philosophy, a desire to understand the world around us completely? As we move further and further into a new understanding of the world around us, as we are confronted with an increasingly insurmountable wall of information, I think we actually lose the ability to answer these questions adequately. The mystery simply deepens.
My time alone here has led me to frequently play that most dangerous mental game, the what-if game, where you pick a point in time where a choice was made and you meticulously reconstruct reality starting with taking the other path.  Superficially this seems harmless, but it requires a re-evaluation of everything important that has happened since that point. It never turns out good for me, no matter how appealing the other decision might be in retrospect.
This outline is a work in progress. I have been sitting on it for a while, concerned that it was too personal and perhaps offensive. Really I just want people to think, and perhaps to help me think a bit more clearly too.
The next installment, pending response to this entry, might include Dreams and Art.

I'm on a boat.

I took the ferry to Sweden today. I will be staying for a few nights with Eva and Stefan, the Swedes I met in Denmark about a month ago. Their children are some of the nicest kids I have ever met. Albin spent the day testing me on my Star Wars knowledge; he knew every character on the Deathstar when it exploded the first time, despite having never seen the film. Kids these days...

I wanted to open up a debate here on the blog. I spent some time in Hjorring taking part in some nefarious late-night activities involving handmade stickers and public/private property. Is this right? Is this wrong? Would you be upset if you went to open your middle-aged women's clothing store at 9am and found a sparkling silver rain cloud with lightning bolts stuck to your display window? Where is the line?

mors flowers...

Greg and Janne went on a little holiday to Rome, and when they returned we took a car over to the island of Mors for a bit of fossil hunting. Also on the agenda was a trip to a special private Japanese-style garden Greg heard about through a friend.

Mors is a small island in the west of Denmark, completely surrounded by the Limfjord that extands part-way across the country. The whole island is known for a special clay deposit that makes good bricks as well as a great deposition of fossils close to the surface. We hit up the Mors fossil museum and then went hunting, though honestly we must not have gone to the right place because we didn't really find much of anything. I think a trip back with an insider would be the best course of action if you wanted to find fossils. See the map for an idea of where Mors is, and notice the small town of Hurup just to the west of the island, which is were we went to visit the garden.
http://maps.google.se/maps?q=Mors,+Danmark&hl=sv&ei=Zl0WTI_6NM-QOPLfkawB&sll=56.821912,8.714862&sspn=0.306642,0.424371&ie=UTF8&view=map&geocode=Fcv8YgMdUy6FAA&split=0&ved=0CBYQpQY&hq=&hnear=Mors,+Danmark&ll=57.148161,9.733887&spn=1.460191,4.938354&z=8&pw=2








The garden was really fantastic. Greg met these people through a friend, and it turns out that the woman has traveled all over the world collecting special/rare/exotic specimens to plant. It was surreal to pull up to a plain suburban house in Hurup and find this place in the back yard.

is it destruction that you require to feel?

I make a lot of art that doesn't last. People ask me why, and I am not always sure how to answer that question. I don't get paid to make art very often, and that is ok with me; I have a job that keeps me happy and pays the bills. I think this gives me a bit of freedom to explore, to make art with a different set of goals in mind. I suppose some might call it "academic", which is either good or bad depending on which side of the fence you are on. It might also be frivolous and wasteful. I really don't know. Sometimes this question keeps me awake at night, and sometimes it drives me on and on in the studio. How can something have value if it isn't worth anything?

I used the time in the museum to experiment, to try some new things and see where they took me. The project got big fast, and I took a lot away from the experience. The best part about making art that doesn't last is the catharsis that comes with destroying it, and in fact this process can be as revealing as the making itself. I achieved some semblance of beauty in the forced and static structure I created, but an undeniable and powerful beauty revealed itself in the chaos of that structure as it unraveled.

I enjoy learning new things.

on to the next thing.

Kultur Nat (culture night) in Hjorring was a much bigger deal than I imagined it would be. I understood it to be similar to our "first friday" events in the US, but really the entire central district of town stays open until after ten at night. Food vendors come out in droves, and there are music stages at the end of every little alley. They had a big stage in the middle of the main square with a really terrible adult contemporary rock band playing. It turns out Danes really love hot dogs; the street vendors sell 8 or 10 different varieties, with or without buns, etc. I didn't eat one, in case you were wondering. I spent my evening walking around with some headphones on, people watching.

I haven't mentioned this before, but the people here are beautiful. I have tried to talk to some of them about this, but they don't seem to understand it. I suppose it is all contextual. For instance, the technician at the museum, Hans, is about to retire at the ripe old age of 62, but I never would have guessed he was over 40 or 45 at the very oldest, and this is indicative of my nearly universal surprise at the discrepancy between actual and perceived age of the people I meet here. I will delve into the suspected reasons for this in future posts.

My last post outlined the sort of temporary gallery room I had set up with the help of Hans here at the museum, and I threw myself at that project for the last several days. I came here with the intention of working more on the unfired clay and wire installations I have been showing for the last few years, but about 2 weeks ago I decided that some time to experiment with something entirely new was too valuable to pass up. I brought along a good bit of this colored, adhesive-backed vinyl as a sort of palette, and I am confident enough with it now to use it as a drawing tool, so I spent some time cutting it into shapes and parts. I also spent some time considering how to expand the thread/pin drawings I posted a few weeks ago, and it occurred to me that my interest in an expansive work that filled a volume of space could become part of this project. The thread is so fine and fragile, and with enough patience and practice I could essentially translate this fragility into a large web or skein structure that would be barely visible from afar but overwhelming from close up. I spent one day applying the vinyl, and the next day completing the small "drawings" in the open clouds. I spent the rest of the time working the thread from node to node, completing as many connections as I could without compromising the structural soundness of the project. In the end I just couldn't squeeze in there and reach anything any more, and I suppose that is when I knew I was done.

The museum was free to the public all day yesterday, and because I had finished my big project on Thursday night and prepared for visitors I decided to spend the day working on an installation in this little nook under the stairs on the way to the bathroom. I have finished a number of works using this process, but never in such a tight space. I ended up laying down with my head crammed in there for 4 or 5 hours, but it really turned out strong. I am a bit sore today.

The museum director asked me to prepare a written statement for people to take away. I have copied it below:

"My installations, sculptures and drawings are an investigation of interconnectivity and the building of complex systems of information out of simple, autonomous elements. Without directly referencing one type of system, I allow viewers to make those connections for themselves. I have come to recognize several key conceptual references within my work:

1. Social networking maps, such as those one might find outlining an individual's Facebook network, where peer relationships are described and one can make personal connections through degrees of separation.

2. Food webs describing the flow of energy in an environment, and also predator-prey relationships and an inherent hierarchy.

3. Flow charts where process and direction are outlined and there are choices to be made, each with its own series of consequences.

4. Molecular structures that indicate strength and weakness in material structure at the most basic level, and also begin to reference contemporary advances in technology as we design new materials.

These works are by nature temporal; they have a finite lifetime because of the materials used, leading back to the concept of complex systems, which themselves have a tendency to break down when only one element is out of place."

The small space is about ten feet cubed, though the right-hand wall is a bit longer. The lighting is imperfect but serviceable. From this distance you can just make out the thread (you can click on the picture and it will open larger).

The thread, which was mostly gray, black, and dark blue, connected the open cloud shapes on the wall, pushing the solid cloud shapes into the background. This entire process was new to me, and I found it fairly challenging. The thread is pretty unforgiving; if you miss one loop you might have ten lengths come down. Once or twice a pin came out of the wall, which made for a real mess.

I am especially interested in the way the thread fills up the space. The vinyl graphics are loud and abrasive, but somehow the thin skein of thread maintains a strong presence in filling this volume. I had a few people mention that they nearly walked into the thread before they saw it. I always found that surprise element to be exciting. I remember as a kid growing up in Florida, I would spend all summer in the woods looking for good things to investigate and/or stuff in my overall pockets. We had banana spiders, which are enormous and make webs that span great distances; generally you either walked into them or noticed them at the very last second and stopped short. I am with the idea of coupling art with anxiety...

I estimate that I used over 2000 meters of thread on this project.

I would do this again. I would do it differently, but I am happy I did it. A major learning experience that could not have happened at home.

Here is the smaller installation I completed on Friday. This is a little nook under the stairs to the second floor, and you pass right by it on the way to the basement bathrooms. People really responded to this work, especially as it sort of sneaks up on you. It is hidden when you go down the stairs, but very bright and obvious when you come up.

afternoon break

I am working through some things. I don't have ownership or authorship over this idea yet, but that comfort and confidence will come later.