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December 09, 2005
It's all in the name
Damien started it, love him. [Well he didn’t really, but he springs to mind.]
He put a shark in a tank and we would all have gone: “Oh – a shark in a tank,” except that he named it. That’s what did it. He called it: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Now we all gasped and sighed and the world’s media heralded a new genius.
I’ve been working on a series of images connected to the very Unstuck project that spawned these diaries. Being interested in the surface of the body and writing, I began writing on bodies.
This produced some good images.
But once in the shower the work only existed as a photograph, or more existentially as a thin trickle of dirty water heading for the main sewer. Which in itself is not a bad thing.
I wanted to take it further, into something more tangible and lasting. So I thought, well, next to the skin we have clothes. Underclothes in particular follow the contours of the body. I could write on the clothes the figure is wearing, and thus describe the form.
I’m still working on it, and I’ve just put up an image on my other site, where I title the work. [and here’s the reason for this entry] I called the image Unstuck Bodymapping, which isn’t headline grabbing, I know, but that’s not the point. I then described it: gesso and ink on fabric.
Now, that sounds very proper, and adds a sense of authority to the piece. Much better than: writing on pants for instance.
Unstuck Bodymapping, gesso and ink on fabric, 230mm x 270mm
See?
Posted by john at December 9, 2005 11:01 AM