"Perhaps misunderstanding and aggressive ignorance are ways to gouge
away. No expectations. Initial intrigue inspires and step closer as
usual desire suggests,but leave out of touch. W/o affirmation
requested. Hiding in plain sight. Action still takes place.'

what i meant (and this is going straight to my blog for all the world to not see)

"perhaps misunderstanding and aggressive ignorance are ways to gouge away."
my older brother is a nerd chemical engineer genius. he used to beat me at chess regularly. so one day when i was about 15, i decided to start making deliberately irrational decisions. trying to find the dumbest thing to do-not in the sense of just giving up pieces,but just nonsensical movements. and boy wld they chap his ass cuz he had these movements he wanted to execute.
i also think of a joke i like to play on myself: try to pick out of yr music selection what which you want to hear the least. and be honest.
misunderstanding and aggressive ignorance(the ignorance tied to aggression cuz it is obliviously confident, and battles with that which the "belabored w knowledge educated" are emotionally or rationally weighed and tired out into theorizing and non-action)

gouge away:implications of battling with (note: i say battling not harmonizing...i will play that side of the fence later) a "they" who are they but in a way our own selves and our own potential lowest common denominator? does it become about death and quality of life? gouge away at what? the seemingly knowable,i guess. the things taken for truth. for sake of art...blech.no. ego in exploration. relative to previous movements in art...i see how this one can fall backwards in many directions. gouge away at ways to ease existence. to go off in a direction as yet unconsidered simply for the sake of hoping by accident, a new aspect of what ? life itself? ...will be found..is hard to fathom. my thoughts still stay within range of images from books and my memories.

where are the dynamics in harmony? gouge away, you can gouge away...the pixies song,of course.
but gouge away, i recall seeing in my mind either a sudden tangent at an odd angle thru blackness of space or a tear in fabric of "now"..tiger shreds style...and before me i see in these tears other truths,other lives- or hell..some forest, somewhere else.or some whatever... that exists
...all that crap..i say crap because i don't believe in the practicality of the effort. not really. starts to become academic. can i learn from those before me? of course! part of this gouging is in defiance to research itself. ignorance and misunderstanding really dont exist. due to the fact all interpret and recall from exp what they will.( prolly from something that dictated this prior to their birth.)-again it falls backwards i know...the hypocrisy...logic vs emotion....facts or defined points of perspective-inform feelings...but feelings select imprint's saturation and even tweak fact. fuck i cld start quoting anne bradstreet or diogenes etc blah...hmmm..gouge away..means explore or make it new,of course. the plea for validity in ignorance was the upshot. plea for validity of laziness. for allowing people to just be themselves and be allowed to change their minds at will. isnt that bullshit if i ever heard it? ...thinking of rauschenberg's white canvases. thinking how i hate the need to show knowledge of predecessors,of how much is instinctive the rest is expression of it, and how that expression of it is recorded in our collective accessible memories as people.like a flag. or a launching point.
it makes no sense..me as an artist. me migrating and sort of reverse gerrymandering..the negative space that defines me is based on in the moment ,is also gouged away at..by my truth. which is ignorant. i dont know anything. i really am rationalizing as i go. i dont know. i do have intentions,tho. i do exist. consistently. i hate that i sounded like a 13 yr old in this..isnt that silly? in being truly ignorant,the thing i want..i get it. anyways...

"no expectations"

this comes from infatuation vs love. being in love. courting. recognizing feelings and that time period it takes for them to overlap into... expectations. and its all down hill practicalities boring real life shit from there....memory imprint transplanting like 4' 33 or quotes like we cannot know our last love if we dont truly forget our first....no expectations seeks to (by previous knowledge) sort of cheat..fuck an a... death. the thing that we focused on by forgetting we were aware of life was the thing itself. but to be aware,to point at it,define it..acknowledge it..or react to it??(i consider reactions to life to be art-otherwise it's just life) stops its motion. thinks of quantum laws now..but not really cuz i am ignorant to them in full...relative to what goal...goals vs paths. control is such a stupid word,is so easy to control it and slippery its meaning into grand implications that allow for the person it is directed at to load and point at themselves right before the one that said it. in real time.

"Initial intrigue inspires and step closer as
usual desire suggests,but leave out of touch"

this is more of the same on expectations. talking about that unawareness that creates goodness.the intial urge and 1st step or moment lived in it. how we make memories that will be like reels of tape in our minds,how we do this best and most pungently when we are not aware of it. i think we do anyways..meditation and prayer i believe are about the futility of it all. meditating for me brought about an awareness of a cycle,a pattern ...how we lapse in and out of feeling like we are there,or on time...lsd kinda did the same..i did a sweat lodge once an it was different but same. visceral escape nto head and rhythm. place to be and ride...sex is same...but shared....

"w/o affirmation requested"

how do we affirm ourselves? im not asking...is what im trying to say. no quarter asked or given. it exists and happens.....(action still takes place)

so u see.in order to better prove i am ignorant , i need to practice more and learn more.about how tired even what i just said is....
funny how i learned to think about negative space/positive space of self/other definitions and endless possible interps of presentation("intentions mean nothing" and "you gotta be doing it for yrself" crud amongst others was thru lonely/alone experience of internet...

On Mar 29, 2010, at 9:21 AM, Jeff Dahlgren wrote:

The following are some questions line for line.

Not indictments . . . just questions for sake of greater clarity. Hopefully.

Clarity is what defines art (at least, this might be one effective definition of ART).

"The artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing." (Duchamp)

Perhaps misunderstanding and aggressive ignorance are ways to gouge

away. (gouge away at what?)

Not about any particular place

to experience art.
getting too close to details that cloud space and infiltrate,the roots of where it begins. saturate and realize a limitless sense of ...

eyedrum bathroom

fluidity informed by upbringing.

ingrates

they line both sides of the fence. inside of me outside of me
a wave layered with truths and an undertow of feelings
water cooler lies and accidental involvement. perfect.

try again bathroom,do again bathroom..a lifestyle

bathroom is disgusting and i need it and i go in there. a piss or a shit and hurried movements, for perhaps another will come in this private place,that isn't mine..i use it.they use it to.nobody ever feels quiet clean. but this is my moment right now. i feel free on a base level in here. honesty and direct by-products of me. the walls are connections of everyone's own little universe.
putting art in here. i realize the challenge of my serious joke. it is bigger and more saturated than me. its feeling is stronger and i must acquiesce to that. i work with what is here and pull from it .Blur the reasons of why do this with an addressal of presentations and positioning. position my shit directly,this is me. am i worth noticing?
the bathroom commands me,tho. i feel the need to work to only extend it. it will force a connection back to itself, and each persons approach to it. a bathroom, a place to communicate, like a log in a commode, a blog where you comment.
i went into the bathroom to install art because i thought art placed in a bathroom,not so much curated,but editing the bathroom,an involved way that is sarcastic but serious, is trying to say something about -strangely enough-the internet. how we communicate anymore.

BATHROOM. at eyedrum (men's version pt 1)

John Otte's work dominates this latest branch of Eyedrum's expressive arm.
Curated by eggtooth,
It pulls from what is and stretches it out for us to see, emphasizing, while showing a conscious awareness or hand of involvement, but just barely enough. The work is obvious. There is art here.
Into another attempt at honesty. An unrefined brutal realism...or an idea of truth as close to life as possible. Questioning, in a sense, where the experience begins in relation to how to perceive work. And maybe even why. expected to interact with this is the many and the unseen,in their private or unleashed(unzipped) moments...
The path is also to draw attention to the hilarious need for clean and proper presentation of work in Atlanta. Even in work that utilizes important observations that could address social change/ needs, the work is more concerned with safety in terms of art careers,some silly idea of couch aesthetic, resumes and permission,not wanting to hurt feelings. Often this results in an insulting rape of what art could do to take important issues and connect back to life. (and incidentally-invest in an art scene that could one day actually be taken seriously...we "shit in our own mouths and call it a sundae")
The repeat result is ultimately an evening's gesture for art, while the long term is a stamp of inauthenticity, keeping Atlanta's art scene braided with but disconnected with itself. Trying to clambor (with good intentions and often great art) for a piece of a fake perception... so much of this is done with such an obnoxious concern for proper presumed ways to context work,disguised as polite and proper,that for years now the soil has been fertilized with forgotten ineffective walls for etiolating and atrophying anything good that might happen. It grows portfolio minded students ,presuming they need to behave and work the existing system,when in reality...there is no system. more than anything,the environment itself needs to be addressed in the work.Atlanta itself and perceptions of self exposed.
(the use of the bathroom)
The bathroom in a non-profit multi-use art venue. The result of this .The weathering and characterization of a bathroom in the manner one would expect. Scribbled thoughts. Graffiti. Crap tags and weirdo doodles. Thoughtful delicate effects over the top of eroding, and molding perhaps, the utilized truth of basic human use.Taken for granted,maybe. not maintained? (will this show result in change?) this bathroom is sacred in the same sense that krog street tunnel is sacred,only more disgusting. maybe. It is also a beautiful sort of public usage. a sort of neglect and desire to piss on or claim territory.Or to express the self freely or even with rebellion.( the coming insurrection written by The Invisible Committee, is used in the present eyedrum bathroom display as a flavoring)
This bathroom now known for its creative dialogue, political dialogue and trash intellect base humor. It is gross and it is heard men fear it so much as to use the womens in cases of number 2 needs. Mostly scribbles and urine stains in the air. A funkiness that is unshakable.
Positioning art in here seeks to not liven or sprucen, but to operate in conjunction with. To quietly and without pointing,exhalt by blending with this natural almost expected state of existence.

In an effort to echo the sentiment expressed by other organizations supposedly interested in utilizing public-ish space to supposedly create new platforms for where art can intersect with life, the work here makes no bones about that fact that it is congruent with the environment. It is an extension of it, not addressing it. makes no claim otherwise.
In this bathroom case, maybe the result will be an exaggerated awareness of what is in so much a raw "natural" state as to be undeniable. It balances out and absurdly does , as art, a perfect kind of nothing.

whitespace beep beep kavarna

I see icee seeth i sea
these other ecologies (within eco)w/in on/off (ecolologies. A corner
in my blindspot on edgewood- with a coffee shop. And within willt to walk to walk>>>>>two walk
walking distance places where another gig is being played.


And it is as real as it is real as an image
an image on a computer screen to me. i move through based on associations that have their origins.
and mine is from here.
Over there on


burnaway

what they feel like. My first impulse is to consider their characteristics that get in the way of even having a point of relevance to discuss things. I would say that base level or common denominator is in how we are both cutting our chops. forever about the path and trying to not admit that we are an exposed process of development too much,because while that is admirable,it also discredits a value or respect that seems to be needed.
These different pockets. And then i think of a sort of flash mob that i participated in at the last "fashion rules!" event at Nieman Marcus. the pockets of people there. the art on the walls in nieman marcus. funny. would you go to an art gallery and see the thin cliched idea of clothing fashion in its own reverse. would i go to a bill lowe opening and see...tuffskins on timothy tew's strutting buttocks?
i see comments over at burnaway and i try to trudge through other local art blogs. the local level. the self-aware while comparing to others. Cautious expectations that still, in the end, have to be 110% with regards to confidence in expressing an idea of taste,or simply being yrself,using that physicality that does at least take up that space,to be honest about that. as close to the chest as possible.
i still see comments about some supposed stifling idea of southern mentalities,when i'd say one is pretty hard pressed to find anything but transplants these days. Coming here, presuming there is a soil to plant ideas associated from other places, more connected in terms of walking familiarity- as well as connected to the self.

Atlanta's make for a perfect business environment.(As 40% of our skyline is in foreclosure,they say.) Designed to keep us in our compartments and still communicating,a perfect editing of what on paper is the necessities. In the same way a fast food uniform and dress code are supposed to remove clutter of personality, real individual personality is deleted respectfully and efficiently from the transaction. and one could argue this is a good thing, i suppose. how much emotional energy do you have for others? for... art? Don't you want to buy your burger or communicate with your clients and co-workers with as little emotional touch as possible? to save it,to savor it for sharing with those you truly care about? How much/when does all of this compartmentalizing ever end? I think of those long in the tooth ladies in certain small mom n pop shops around, older people as well as running into those locals that just in a maybe subdued drawn out drawl...talk.not flast clattery chatter of change and drawers slamming empty talk. a place of mind and pace that precedes it. While they ring you up, it is all happening.funny, my first thought when it comes to interacting with the public at large has to do with strangers encountered in the environment made for buying things.

What with people in art openings? art in this environment. specific to atlanta as if it exists in a bubble. okay let's play. know thyself. but our being ourselves is the hiccup,the groundhog watching traffic.

where all did i go? i see art in kavarna. i dont feel like writing about it when i see it in my mind. whitespace.
(*sidenote as i write this: funny how i still have this lingering feeling of impending obligation to...something....like waiting for the phone to ring)

i get bored with structure,but chaos makes me feel lost in a department store. freedom and rules and whitespace. these different images. the front gallery is specific imagery with horizon lines and human figures and class distinctions have been subdued by our own need for purchase and our own delight with the numbing illusion of electronic gadgets.individuality and cohesion. solidarity is never,is defined and replaced with false light. "the owners of the means of social production and wage labor" -are ourselves ultimately. lost in a cave away from it all while feeling in the thick of it, a place without relevance in the "prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it..."
to try to bring an awareness to legitimate class struggle. ever again. when artists themselves are reduced to dance floor club transplants rubbing elbows.

the liberation of the self must be attained on the self's own terms and by its own blood. arts duty reflected in this outmodes and moves beyond my own awarenesses and back into a suburb. atlanta. looking at art in whitespace. now recalling the paper cave and rubber uvulas and stalactites of beep beep. and the girl withthe hard serious look on her early 20's face,dressed hard fashion points and severely apathetic about her unlit cigarette and demanding glasses frames,she commanded the air in front of her nose as she shoveled into the see of happy mingling diminishing returns. bodies blobbed and drinking seeing the art or overflowed into the parking lot. the
long brush strokes in whitespace
and the silly same feeling of burnaway. i feel like going to mint or beep beep is kinda like what happens to flynn in tron when the mcp pulls him into the computer world.their coverage ranges,but the collective feeling of the thing is a tribe of its own. a class that attempts to use the machine of manufacturings sweet images while retaining this-this .....incohorent intent that is so well-intended.

BRUCE COVEY @ Whitespace (Texting while Decaying

Bruce Covey is a better poet than me.
Practiced and self-aware, i admire his brian posehn need for cuteness a bit. It is very confident and comfortable. Could say it respects his audience. I've never written a poem as focused as his. I subscribe a sort of same state of mind to some of his origins in my own incessantly improvised situations. Random and maybe even a bit sarcastic. A use of a quality of words that have their own character,making it where a glance of his page of words is similar to a distinct personal line quality in a draftsman's style. Is evident in a feeling that comes thru with the generalized pattern creeping through sounds and their visuals and then the association with the symbol for that idea.
I watched brian posehn read at whitespace and enjoyed the body of it. His stature commands presence while his demeanor is disarming and goofy. If not a bit awkward. When reading,this awkwardness is utilized as a tool. The performance of reading poetry exists in a direct manner.
A common language is presumed,
one that matched common
expectations
to a certain extent. Certain expectations
for what it is supposed to do were done:
A bit risque, but not really. Funny-but also a little insightful.
Experimental-but palatable.
Using as a frame or grid,Covey draped various random sets of subjects to a rating system that, after a short while,the repetition of it became invisible,focusing the thought on the selection of ideas and words. Hearing him say "7 out of 10" in reference to ,i dunno--perhaps a bowl of spaghetti or a flintstone vitamin-it was fun to hear these objects made to seem reasonably situated together. Inspires me to go further with the realization that it is all practice. it never begins or ends and so therefore training for execution of a specific intention becomes somewhat mute. Living is it as much as it is preparation. The improv emits the intangible and uncontrolled that is chaos to the other option of strangling true creative life with another rote methodic pattern that should not be confused with meditation or ritual. it is cut off from the source and in the classic contradictive sense provides while it malnourishes. Specific to Atlanta and this year of two thousand something-gimme a break. I almost yelled something like, "Whimsical Spectacle Trash!" at him because i felt what people want from going to hear poetry is some sort of release,or scratch- an intellect or a biological click, a challenge of expression that connects them to today and ..yeah...whatever..whose to say..theres so many reasons.
but in this case, his little ivory chapbook, so pink and sweet and elegant at first glance. I look at it with a sense of dignified respect and like it immediately for no reason. I open it and read it and then close it a few moments later, sitting there looking at the art, hearing people talk. This now slightly icky object in my hand begs me to open again and examine and read and simply read.. It is vaguely vulgar and sarcastic now. This little book of words. Is a schtick in a way. Was reinforced by the end of his set(or close to it....I had to leave at about 9:15...)

I enjoy Bruce Covey and enjoyed the environment he created at Whitespace with his words. Hosted by Anne Stephenson who organizes Ready Set Readings courtesy of Susan Bridges of Whitespace who likes poetry and who has an eye for good matters. I am thankful for this evening experience provided. this is the internet. i can pretend to scrutinize others with typos,wires, will and local live sampling, crushing suburban sentimental marketing one flux project at a time.

COMPROMISE

GRace and greed layered with an altered sense of benevolence. Utilitarian:

Some discussion of Importance, Will & Compromise

The ability to perambulate, the secondary handling of the books.
Debtors and Empty Commercial Space, alienates and inspires
Systems of collaboration & Level Playing Fields, the growing up
The Merchant, mercenary alcoholics and graffiti wrapped around
old rail lines and and gentrified stereotypes.
Gridlocked into numb patience under concrete and trees,
laughing at the self and the hatred, importance and

Fantasies educate the stability,the high society and
share competition for funding, and grant proposals
for abandoned spaces so sentimental and disappearing.

Huts & UFO's don't point at value
Fire purifies symbolic of materiality
lost in the gaining of new grids to
connect us
together as individuals


pt.2
Justice loose and wobbles forward
into a purple soft material.
Stained and angry, the reptilian aspect grovels for
sand paper for tears, rote and forebode in
(titanic mandibles reverberate massive shadows up black trench cold walls)
carnivores bungee desperation against sea mist and iron pours
Learned satisfaction rakes payments across checkered patterns.
Red and White or Black & White denial particles defile
License rubber candelabras and dance hall monks so chaste with laser beams.
In favor ripples tune the gallows robin breast while
warf tomes lone swank kayaks mountain praxis.
Antigone:
Bruise colored children's cereals
Chapped lather desiccates lost green house monocles
sober truths travel on intangible pot boilers of last jobs

Burning pt II

Memory succumbs in saved and captured
and moving forward filters spirits shadows
flickering thoughts so low
self-contained vision is (kind of) transparent
omnipresent discorporation