STATE OF THINGS
[Obscene 'Objets 'd'art' of Onan-obsessed Odd-one-out (or) Audacious Art Asking All Amelioration and Amicability]
After a successful run of about six-months I regrettably changed the art-work below which until recently has been viewable in all its 5 metre long glory at one of my two large windows which looks out onto the busy street below. I say regrettably for two reasons. The first one is that the intention was to keep it up until there was finally a new government in Belgium which is continuing its unbelievably long period of coalition negotiation. There was a major breakthrough with resolution relating to a final decision regarding the Brussel-Halle/Vilvoorde split which has torn this country apart for generations; I thought incorrectly that this was a sign that things were changing and that within the next couple of weeks (as predicted by the politicians) all the other problems would be solvable. I've removed the first, second, fourth and fifth panels; I did it gradually over a two week period. Fortunately the third panel is still there; I say fortunately because there is still no resolution and the large number of parties currently negotiating are digging in; the most recent problems being the liberals digging in for the middle-class vote. It's really sickening considering the clear damage this is doing to Belgians economic condition in a European crisis but typical of politicians anywhere in the democratic world. I really regret replacing the four panels, however, because of a letter I received from the syndicus. I was threatened with a fine of 50 euros per day if I didn't remove the work immediately, because apparently a hairdresser (who is not even situated anywhere near the work) complained because of its 'obscene' content. I told them clearly that their request would be denied because how dare they threaten me with a fine they have no right to impose when they could have just contacted me (among many other reasons, including infringement of my right as an artist to a express myself freely in a democracy, but I won't go into them here). Further I told them that it would stay until there was a new Belgian government; the work itself was a clear tribute to collaboration between the increasingly polarised sides of Belgium and was thus of cultural significance. I thus regret that it is not shown in completion because the ridiculously small-minded idiots who requested that I take it down may get the impression that I was intimidated by them. Otherwise, my third hamster has escaped and my pet rat (named aptly Ratticus) won't escape no matter how long I leave its cage door open.
[elegant energy enables ethernet extensions]
My silence for the last six months has been symptomatic of a general slippage in my own sense of self-worth. I turned fourty, all my goldfish died and my house started falling apart; that coupled with receiving devestating news over the future of my right eye put me into a right state. I was struck dumb with anger about the eye, but also for some reason embarrassed largely because the unfriendly doctors here treated me like I'd stuck a pen in my eye rather than had an operational procedure to lower vein infested conjunctival tissue over the cornea. This was four or five years ago to aid burst cornea which had left the cornea transplant which had previously taken place even more badly damaged. In any case, I'm coming out of that dip and have begun creating again, at least, things that are not directly connected to my eye (I made a sculpture of an enormous eye, made a video which fetishised the eye and I've also written some poetry which I'm planning to post soon). Writing, making graphic art, designing and even playing piano. I hope it stays like this. My creativity is also bringing changes to this website so that it better represents what I'm doing NOW as opposed to what I 'achieved' in the form of completed works in the past. I find that I may start many projects, but many of them will never get past the planning stage. I refer to these as the 'Corrupted Endeavours'. Very soon I'm planning to make a detailed SITEMAP that explains how the system works.
[on a decidedly devoted dandy's designs]
This rubric was originally added so that people visiting this site would get a quick slice of what is happening in my life. I haven't been at all good at keeping it up or in fact starting then. Looking below I'm embarrassed to see only one entry per year. I'd like to take this chance at last to confess what the real problem has been. In a burst of enthusiasm which probably dates around the time of the last entry, I decided to renovate my place of residence. In an almost bafflingly quick series of intense creativity I installed a mezzanine-floor, repositioned my workplace to be directed towards the process of creativity, repainted, built a set of bookcases, renovated furniture constructed an enormous eye on one of the windows, rewired everything to remote control devices at easily accessibly posts, constructed a set of artworks directed towards the street, among many other things. From that impetus, however, it has taken until only very recently to get over it. In other words, I must be the only person who has spent the last year doing little else than cleaning up. All in all, I'm lucky to be alive. As I did it all on my own without even a single bit of help my body is covered with scars; learning how to jigsaw a bathroom fixture into the right shape can really hurt if you direct it accidently through your finger. Discovering through an almost fatal fall from the mezzanine that the construction of a set of stairs needs a hand-rail taught me one of many valuable but painful lessons. There are many, many absurd and funny (but all true) stories to tell about this last year and in fact what I've done and am attempting to do, so my current emphasis is on finding a new way to present the structure of my website at a glance so that potential visitors can see not only that I do amazing things a lot of people are too scared (or too smart) to dare, but that the whole process of making mistakes and learning from them, and how this relates dynamically with how I make sense of my world through my art; how I try to get people [both real and virtual] to interact with me. I want this site to reflecf not only what I do but how I think. This involves some basic structural changes which are currently being brewed. In the homepage, in any case, each new rubric should show things I've done but also foundational concepts and ideas that may or may not develop into music-theatre compositions or films or art-works. This will not be easy; at the moment apart from a few innovations this site is basically a set of my collected works. From this week I've decided to do something about it. The first is to include a recent photo of me. This is important because the way my body changes or the way I change it can actively influence the processes I undergo in the creation of art.
[on the chillingly cold climate and also on covertly covetting curious clocks chronically]
- It has been extremely cold in Belgium but I find these two months during which the temperature often slips below zero that the weather has a contrasting effect on my thought patterns. Cold days, especially those with clear blue skies, make me think in a clearer fashion. Although the days are short, I find the hours spent outside in the open are more beneficial to my health and creativity. Unfortunately the cold weather seems to have no impact on dampening my obsessive compulsive habit. I am finally forced to reveal the truth to the world: I'm addicted to purchasing Art Deco clocks - this week alone I added five new ones to the growing collection. Each example a beautifully economic statement about temporality and the environment, these icons are also fulfilling metaphors to represent the irreverent way I look at life, and the inevitable consequence time renders on each of our lives.
- Although 2008 was tainted by the tragic death of my brother and periods of severe depression, I still have to admit that it has all the same been as equally fruitful artistically (if not more) than the preceding years which brought me from Belgium, through China and Australia back to Belgium again during which I developed a general loathing for travelling. Staying put has its advantages, and I feel that for the first time in my life, regularity will help both my state of being and creativity. but as the year has concluded and we move so very soon into 2009, personal developments in my own life have helped me get out of the difficult rut I'd found myself in. The tragic death of my brother mid-year came alsmost directly after I felt like I was truly back on track creatively as an artist. Personally my films were both intimate expressions of who I was but also a form to throw at the world and see if their could be some exciting cross-referencing of signification via the work of other film-makers/composers. For the first time I chose the film festivals - that was naive because although the films are at a professional level to say the least, they do require significant input from the watcher and create their own genre within the short film market. The sudden shock of my brother's death and my short return to Perth, Western Australia, to attend his funeral, was really difficult for me and I've been fighting to return again to the excited film-maker/composer I once was. I can honestly say today that an understanding of the reasons for my films not being chosen for the festivals has nothing to do with the quality of the work, still every rejection is like a dagger in my heart. All the events that occured around the death of my brother, including disturbances with the public transport system where I had to fight to have maltreatment recognised, lost luggage and of course the funeral itself, will one day be combined to create a story that brings into words the loss I feel for a brother I both admired and loved; the hard part is knowing that he had doubts about my true faith and love. I love you, Benjamin Laskewicz, and I miss you every day.
Currently I'm working on a number of poems, one about a little piglet called Bernadette who saves the life of its owner (parodying Charlotte's Web by using the pig as a human organ harvest. The other poem is surreal in style and is based on the existential notion of 'Stage-Fright' I've discussed in other works. Tentative title : 'That Awful Racket'.
- Recent developments have been in the direction of design; this has included most recently tailoring costumes on an antiquated sewing machine and also furniture restoration/sculpture. Although I'm really pleased with my new developments as a film-maker, the world has been almost completely unanimous in its total lack of interest of my experimental works : I have the dubious honour of being rejected by almost every major film festival held in 2008 all around the world. Largely because of this injury to my self-image, I've industriously involved myself with other forms of expression. Photos will come soon of the new clothes I've designed for use in possible film projects.
[on becoming more real on the internet than in real-life]
At the moment, working on my website has the highest priority and saving or revitalising works from the past is of the uptmost importance. I say this after the recent discovery of an article I wrote over ten years ago (in hard copy) and the capturing of the TV Brussels Interview and its translation into English (sub-titling) that has helped me observe how alhtough I've learnt a great deal and have become a more mature communicator; I'm certainly a lot less naïve than I used to be, still the basic themes underlying my work remain the same, whether that is as a composer, or a writer, or a performer or a film-maker. It is true that I feel a lot less serious about it all now than I did when I was in the midst of writing my PhD or taking my performance on tour to festivals in various unheard of places. Still with that said, now that I'm spending a lot of time rescuing and preserving older pieces, I'm getting more of a chance to stay at home and think about new projects, which I also find a positive development.
[On explaining the sudden interest in working with film and the saturation of films now available]
I've always had aspirations to work with film. Since the middle of 2006, circumstances for the development of this side to his work were optimal; access to camera's, musical instruments, props, costumes and a musician/composer to develop music-theatre projects. The early days involved period costume setting of early twentieth century works, as well as the training of compositions by Glass which give you a lot of time to move the right and the left hand around before crossing them over. These compositions by Glass, in fact Glass' exaggerated repertoire in general, brood upon romanticism, and it's only logical that making the connection between the piano, the silent-film era, the avant-garde in dance around the turn of the century and finally expressionism/symbolism all graphic and multimedia art, would cause me to be stimulated to write a series of my own compositions which use these ALL of the possibilities provided by the filmic and the musical, combined with the linguistic : I would write a new language based on one that was spoken somewhere in Europe between the world wars during that period of artistic ferment. It would be a Sanskrit-based language, but its references unusual and absurdist; many chances would be offered to me to create meta-narratives based on the structure of this language and the dramatic framing techniques I used in performance.
Currently I'm working on the opening chapters of a novel. Initially, while teaching multimedia music-composition in China, I gave my students an assignment : to decorate an existing ancient Chinese melody that had the simple title 'Music for the Emperor', providing them with many possible opportunities to see what could count as a 'decoration' - anything from a trill, to a variation, to an extension of the very idea. As an example I composed a number of works, which quickly extended from being just musical ideas to a whole narrative and linguistic concept for which I ended up writing a dictionary of sorts, a grammar and a cultural history. With the music I'd composed for a combination of western and Chinese instruments I'd planned to write a libretto which makes use of two languages: the langauge of 'the court' in which the emperor exists and which the audience can understand (English initially), and the language 'Umònatònmènatilànutàlitònolah' [or 'Umolah' in one of its shorter titles] which are spoken by the people who the 'emperor' is supposed to have power over. In the course of the narrative, one gradually discovers that the emperor, in fact, is trapped in a nightmare, and the process that he has to go through is the relearning of his native language in order to escape from the literal hell of the court in which he is trapped. I had a whole set of music-theatre scenes planned within this day in which the emperor must realise why his life in the court doesn't make any sense, but the ridiculous complexity of the language I composed and the impossibility of it every being performed left me with the far better idea of writing the story in the form of a novel, which is rich in content in itself and has the potential to work far better. Examples from MUSIC FOR THE EMPEROR can be seen at the following link:
HOMEPAGE - SITE MAP - STATE OF THINGS - SITE HISTORY- ACCOLADES