Consortium Compendium

disappointment mitigated by fun with lasers

2009-07-31T10:59:00.002+01:00

Friends,
We have let nearly 3 months go by without a post on here. Now, I'm assuming that I am not the only person out there who is always looking for a good reason to procrastinate. And considering that everyone is assiduously working on "dissertation writing," by my calculations it is high time for some more activity on this space. In the spirit of taking it back to the days when style was WAY more important than what was going on in the classroom (and I realize that for some these days have never ceased) I'm passing on this site, recently sent by a friend with rad 80s style. My challenge to you (so as to continue procrastination) is do you have lasers??? My youngest sister did, but none of the rest of us -- hence many years and just another reason for our completely justified older sibling torment of her. Also this raises the question of whether the laser/school portrait thing was a purely American trend ... anyone?
Enjoy,
Kx

Can We All Please Move to Detroit Now???

2009-05-04T20:28:00.003+01:00

Please?

start a farm

buy a house

make some art

take a tour:

Detroit Wildlife from florent tillon on Vimeo.

fantasy film couples

2009-04-04T23:45:00.011+01:00

a mock-up of how Badiou will look

Hot from the pages of the Nouvel Observateur:
" Jean-Luc Godard démarre en Grèce le tournage de son prochain film, «Socialisme», dans lequel apparaîtra le philosophe Alain Badiou dans le rôle d'un conférencier. "
Trans: Filming has just begun in Greece on JLG's forthcoming "Socialism" in which Alain Badiou will appear in the role of a lecturer.

I don't know why JLG is in bold, presumably he is seen to be more immanent than Badiou.

Having recently seen in person the authenticity with which Badiou plays a lecturer, I am sure that some of us will be wildly excited by the potential of a production which promises to marry the scope and scape of Le Mépris with a radical Pauline reworking of the trope of (etc.)

To avoid voiding what has preceded, I have now decided to restore just emphasis to Badiou by rouging him. For the camera...

insonmnia

2009-03-25T14:10:00.002Z

insomniacs may want to check out this week's Jazz on 3, an insomnia-inspired jazz/poetry spectacular ...

Tuesday, 7:30 pm at Cafe OTO

2009-03-21T21:46:00.003Z

Hey! xpost from OPEN Dalston....Ian Sinclair and Patrick Wright will be talking about Hackney and Dalston, promoting their books. I saw them tag-team at the LSE and it was good fun. Show up early!

Library fail.

2009-03-10T15:19:00.002Z

An indication of the quality of our library services...

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life...

2009-03-09T16:13:00.001Z

What's New Pussycat?

2009-03-07T20:38:00.003Z

Thanks Lina for posting up Barry's board. I was rather wondering if anybody else had found themselves intrigued by the mysterious and ever-present axis of evil that stretches, inverted, across our whiteboard? I have feared it to be a classified directive in the misty background of all our teachings; a silent insister bent on our kowtowing to its twisted sensibility. However, having taken this opportunity for a closer inspection of the offending diagram, I am relieved to reveal it as the innocent result of an eighteenth-century talent contest, with persuasive Welsh cruiser Tom Jones trumpeting his way into the top spot, inches ahead of girl-next-door Pamela, and leaving poor old Robinson Crusoe ‘coming up the rear’ as a distant third.

S'alright, Lina. I bring you Potemkin Kitty.

2009-03-06T21:43:00.002Z

2009-03-04T13:20:00.001Z

I know the cat thread was a while ago, but couldn't resist...

a publishing deal that will launch you to(wards) immortality

2009-03-01T19:06:00.003Z

In very, very, small increments.

yes. If anyone wants to post a version of one of their course essays, or perhaps something completely new or random, please contact me. I'm looking for content for an online culture journal that I sometimes work on. It is run by a friend of mine, HaoyanofAmerica, graphic designer to the stars. Anyhow, we are working on a hardcover anthology to be printed in limited edition, so if you have something really special, maybe we can "do lunch" as they say in the industry (not the book publishing industry, actually, the other more lucrative one).

http://www.facsimilemagazine.com/

Baroque Board

2009-02-28T23:58:00.001Z

Paul (Saint), Outside Corinth.

2009-02-28T17:52:00.000Z

Down at Bragg's Baroque

2009-02-25T12:38:00.002Z

God of the Airwaves, Melvyn Bragg, has recently devoted an hour of In Our Time to the baroque. You can listen to it here

left behind

2009-02-17T22:04:00.002Z

welcome to the world of christian apocalypse fiction, ie fundamentalist pop culture.
Watch the video on YouTube >
my favorite recommended selection in the youtube sidebar: 'Barack Obama... we almost stopped him'

It's not too late to change your essay topic!

2009-02-16T21:17:00.001Z

http://www.lolsaints.com/story/2009-02-15/lessee-milk-eggz-cheezeburgerz

Better than "St Paul and knife crime", right?

workspace

2009-02-15T22:50:00.002Z

what's your workspace? Post it here.

Messianic Space

2009-02-08T14:13:00.004Z

"To be sure, the term drawing is a misnomer, because the Shakers did not use it themselves when they were referring to these works. In the few Shaker documents in which the gift drawings are mentioned, they are typically referred to as sheets, rolls, signs, notices, tokens of love, presents, rewards, hearts — sometimes prefaced by the adjective sacred. This definition focuses on the function of the works as gifts from heavenly spirits, rather than on the form in which the gifts were materialized. In fact, the gift drawings often include titles, captions, inscriptions, and extended texts, in English as well as in scripts written in indecipherable tongues, that place them on an uninterrupted continuum with other manifestations of belief, such as inspired writing, ecstatic movement, and spontaneous speech, especially in the form of song." (France Morin, in Shaker Gift Drawings and Gift Songs, The Drawing Center, New York, and UCLA Hammer Museum, 2001)

Christian Zionism

2009-02-07T10:19:00.003Z

Disambiguation: (mostly) North American, Fundamentalist, (Tele)Evangelical Christians.

Although this probably does nothing to improve the image of America's religious believers, it does seem necessary to make connection explicit. When the rapture comes, you can blame it on John Hagee...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060814/new_christian_zionism

http://www.christianzionism.org/

http://christianactionforisrael.org/czionism.html

Love Thy Neighbor (P.L.U.R.)

2009-02-05T14:12:00.002Z

Circa 1989, the study of St. Paul was revived in Chicago. All documents were published by Trax Records (sorry, no Stanford University).

Just in case...

2009-01-29T20:45:00.002Z

The Guardian's Apocalypse Survival Guide.

Biblical...

2009-01-11T18:34:00.002Z

Steve Bishop, Suspension of Disbelief, Taxidermied fox, fluorescent
tubes, electronic ballasts in wood and perspex housing, wires 170 x
170 x 160cm, 2007 , In the collection of J. Helgesen, Oslo

I heart Mark Dion

2009-01-02T21:23:00.006Z

Mark Dion has recently emulated the eighteenth-century American naturalist, William Bartram, and traveled through the South to collect stuff. Spiel:

Once on the road, Dion will collect specimens and man-made artifacts found in the landscape, which has clearly changed a great deal since the Bartrams’ travels 200 years ago. In keeping with Dion’s longstanding interest in “mail art,” he will send his findings back to Bartram’s Garden. The artifacts and specimens will be installed in souvenir cabinets that Dion will be designed and built for the exhibit in John Bartram’s historic house.

The website that catalogues the project is great.

Collecting, taxonomy, world making, kitsch

2008-12-23T22:36:00.002Z

Lest we forget

2008-12-19T18:13:00.002Z

Fire!

2008-12-16T11:05:00.003Z

Quick, bury your valuables!

I'm an In Our Time addict. I even hoard the podcasts on my lapdog. Last week's show focused on the Great Fire of London - I found it really interesting, especially in light of our CofC course. A few weeks previous to this they did a show on the Baroque - a truly excellent introduction to the topic if, like me, your art history lacks a little ecstasy.

The definition of collection...

2008-12-14T16:59:00.005Z

has obviously already been given to us.

a trove which contains:
- gadgets and gizmos aplenty
- whosits, whatsits galore
- twenty thingamabobs
- etc.

collection

I wish I had written my paper about this song instead.

The Opposite of Collection is...

2008-12-14T12:06:00.001Z

Noise?

The opposite of collection is...

2008-12-11T08:36:00.002Z

Dispersion! Those postcards and tear-sheets glued onto black mounting board reminded me of this exhibition that just opened at the ICA. It's a mixed bunch of artists, and I couldn't read as much into it about dispersion as I'd hoped, but there's a great video where Hito Steyerl goes to Tokyo to try and find a bondage photo she'd posed for in 1987. And I dare anyone to request the cunnilingus reel in Maria Eichhorn's piece and watch it all the way through with the gallery projectionist lurking in the corner.

Collecting As A Work Of Art More Recently Than The 20th Century

2008-12-10T11:01:00.020Z

"[...] drawings, formal studies by the artist, personal photographs, newspaper clippings, found images from the internet, computer prints, photo-copies and other vernacular paper mapped onto clear, free-standing acrylic walls. Many of the images are easily recognizable fragments of personal, cultural and political life: snapshots, ghost rider cars, the sketch released by the McCann family of an unknown man carrying a child, Francis Bacon’s ‘Study After Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X’, a portrait of Jerry Adams as a young man." Store Gallery Press Release

Talking about Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne project reminded me of - along with Gerhard Richter's Atlas Project - an exhibition at Store gallery last year of the work of German artist Tobias Buche. I first came across his work in a group show at the Lisson gallery called Construction Time Again, it seemed so flimsy and whimsical (Richard Flood, who's the boss Curator at the New Museum in NYC called Buche's work 'Anti-Serra') but really involving and seductive in the way that he mixes layers of images onto small, rickety labyrinths of painted wooden or transparent perspex kiosks - here too is the collection at the scale of the body, and as Flood described it, in a conversational mode (also thinking of Thomas Hirschorn's info kiosks & installations).
They're quite diary-like with their ephemeral personal imagery but as they're presented quite loosely and without any textual indexing, they float about the gallery space feeling both personal and non-specific at the same time. In a way he invites the viewer into an interaction with the presented images, an interaction in the sense that one starts decoding and interpreting them into narratives (no matter how fragmented they may be) or kickstarts a type of instinctive categorisation of the images.
Or else, one becomes tired of trying to make sense of the work..."surely that's the artist's job"

Also, if you're interested, here's a slightly annoying video tour of an exhibition in NYC

2008-12-09T11:35:00.003Z

"Many men have tried to grasp their lives in the full spiritual and intellectual context, and those who have succeeded will never grow old. I wish that some men would also record the leaps in their lives. It seems that the leaps belong to all people; anyone can easily take whatever pertains to oneself. The loss of a superficial unity, inevitable in such an enterprise, cannot be regretted, for the true unity of a life is secret, and it is most effective when it unintentionally conceals itself."
-Canetti

miaow

2008-12-06T17:35:00.002Z

You can never have enough cats, right? The first three are high art (courtesy of the Chapman brothers) and the last one isn't, but probably should be.

Okay, I'm really sorry to do this...

2008-12-05T09:32:00.002Z

but back to cats for ONE SECOND (and never again), my friend sent this to me and I needed to share it.

Kitty Wigs

Friday films - a mélange

2008-12-04T21:57:00.002Z

Dear friends,

The basic plan for this Friday afternoon's entertainment is as follows:

Dekalog 10: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Goods (1989)
Krzysztof Kieslowski, 57 min.
In the absence of Terence Stamp, we find this week a tale of sexy stamp collecting. As Robert Opie might say, 'it's not as exciting as it used to be and other people are doing it, so what is the point?' This film knocks Opie into a cocked hat.

A Walk Through H (1978)
Peter Greenaway, 41 min.
More madness with Tulse Luper and the gang, as they guide us through a museum of cryptic cartography, replete with Nyman's atonal sonics.

If there's the time and the inclination we may also indulge in object fetishism via a pair of Jan Svankmajer's 'shorts'.

This business will take place in MAL251 shortly after 2.03PM. See you where? MAL251. See you there!

Jon

Tulse Luper

2008-12-03T16:54:00.002Z

I had this name running through my head all day ... so in the name of procrastination and for all those Vertical Features Remake fans, a few suggestions to aid you in your collecting research:
Tulse Luper the game, the sordid history, and last but not least, the phantom stocking fetishist facebook persona.

What's screening this week?

Busy busy...

2008-12-02T15:21:00.002Z

These are all links I pulled up DURING CLASS. You can measure my attention span in bits per second:

Henry Darger's room: http://www.art.org/HDRC/dargerRoom.htm
1.9 million dollar dime: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/27/DIME.TMP
The fate of MUXTAPE: http://muxtape.com/
cassette collection: http://www.tapedeck.org/index.php

enjoy!

a romantic evening with Sir John

2008-12-01T21:33:00.003Z

Yeah yeah, I'm getting off topic, I know. I like cats as much as the rest of you evidently do. But I did just notice that tomorrow night (Tuesday) is the monthly candlelit opening of the Soane Museum. (We're supposed to go before next Tuesday). I propose to join the queue from about 5.30pm, and I don't think our usual Hari Krishna foodline tactics will be well looked on. Anyone else up for it?

I don't know...

2008-12-01T13:35:00.003Z

I've always been a fan of this kind of kitty.

A piece of you....

2008-12-01T12:04:00.004Z

As I am feeling a bit left out in this collecting malarkey (I have been in a selling, not accumulating, mode for a few years), I have decided to ask for contributions from yourself. So far I have a chipped tooth, a used tissue and various hairs and nails (and the promise of a contact lens). Basically, anything wth a DNA strand will do. The more abject the better! Please help me get the Consortium set-I will supply sealed and labeled bags for your hygene and comfort!
Cheers
Mark

Purred Reich

2008-11-30T22:27:00.001Z

A more, ahem, specific cat collection.

Oh please

2008-11-30T17:26:00.002Z

You people are so immature.

Arthur

2008-11-29T23:47:00.000Z

Speaking of cats ...

2008-11-29T16:31:00.003Z

Ok, Tim, if you want more cat pictures for your collection -- your post reminded me of MOBA, or the Museum of Bad Art, an 'institution dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.'

Here are 3 cat-inspired examples: Peter the Kitty (which was reportedly acquired at the Hyde Park Salvation Army); In the Cat's Mouth (I would recommend reading the commentary that accompanies this one on the website- museumofbadart.org); and a new acquisition, He Was a Friend of Mine. Enjoy.

Did I mention I have a collection of cat pictures?

2008-11-28T16:41:00.002Z

Ensuing conversation: What constitutes spam on the Consortium Blog? Can we somehow block Tim? The cats say: why doesn't anyone else give this a try?

Aphorisms

2008-11-27T15:05:00.003Z

From Susan Sontag (in the essay, Mind as Passion, regarding Elias Canetti)

"The notebook is the perfect literary form for an eternal student, someone who has no subject or, rather, whose subject is 'everything.' It allows entries of all lengths and shapes, and degrees of impatience and roughness, but its ideal entry is the aphorism."

Thus, one of Canetti's aphorisms, oddly appropriate to our course:

"'culture' is brewed up by the vanities of patrons. It is a dangerous love potion that distracts attention from death. The purest expression of culture is an Egyptian grave, where everything is gathered about in vain – utensils, jewelry, food, pictures, sculpture, prayers – and still the deceased is not alive."
- from The Human Province