(i) I look through poems reading a few lines here and there, then give up. I was looking for one I’d write myself…
(ii) At some point a text makes sense or makes little sense of tangled production stills (are they production stills?). Then much later it’s telling a story, which amounts to telling you I’m writing a story. Something is kept in reserve or has another place.
(iii) Has another place? I go to bed and turn the light off with every intention of putting it on again. Sleep doesn’t interest me. I turn to first of two websites, mixing new set of one liners - and video’s there somewhere.
Is there more? The rest possibly remains an exhibition potential. U n w o r n c l o t h e s was a proposition and first idea and showing something is part of a trajectory.
(iv) I want to say something about so called production stills but this trajectory grabs my attention. Let’s say there’s a point of engagement and it’s a moment when something should happen. There are ruins everywhere in forgetful museums and galleries, but the work is triggered somewhere and at some time. Something draws you in.
I count production stills (and will call them stills in future here) and move away from saying too much to saying too little with stills and video somewhere along the line.
(v) Along the line?
For about four months, it was as it was. It wasn’t remarkable and had something to do with starting somewhere, but something changes with a second take. You might say a second take involves looking again. There’s a text, stills and something else. It flickers sometimes in a dark room.
(vi) Sound is often an afterthought.
I anticipate getting used to the sound of my own voice, but know this is impossible. I’ve tried everything. Ruth’s voice, two dictaphones and social media. With video, isolation is costly.
(viii) I always think I come up with something else and valorise that something else. At the same time something happens to old work. Slipping into an unmanageable archive, I rework it or put it away, but there’s something else and somehow I’m always working on the same thing.
(ix)Something escapes me. I set off in one direction, then another and (in this case) it was always a film in two parts.
The other day I wrote, A bird flew through an open window and out again - without leaving a calling card and all the time my eyes were closed.
(x) I’ve come some distance in three years (or eight years) but then again haven’t moved at all.
(xi) Most days I work hard and have nothing to show for it. It seems different day by day but something is lost in time. I’m preoccupied with current work and current work turns into an archive without coordinates. I imagine something else is possible with video.
(xii) The catch with writing (in my case) has to do with monotony. After a while I think I should know what I’m saying or have some idea and have imposed a limit. With video I’m all over the place. Preparing this text a few days ago, I wrote: There’s a young woman where your mother would have been.
(xiii) see proposition page
(xvi)) In earlier texts I referred to a possible installation called unworn clothes. We wear clothes to occupy a space and exhibition space works best distanced from a digital platform.
There’s a proposition (see page) and it’s simply a proposition for a proposition. It makes reference to two dimensions and bemoans a tailing off downloadable world cinema. It doesn’t make a case for storytelling as video, but for trajectories that move away from text and video.
(xv) I came here with Ruth and can’t afford to move on or if I did carrying on would become problematic, so something else should happen, which probably amounts to making a stand. But moving on or making a stand also seems irrelevant and sooner or later I’ll fall at the next hurdle. The prospect is bleak and prompts one of two proposals. It suggests an unlikely community and a more unlikely guarantee alongside market driven guarantees. (text prompt for october17 part 2)
(xvi) I like small moments or moments preceding something shown. It’s a bit like falling in love. A small moment becomes a big moment and something should be shown. It’s a little demonstration that has nothing to do with a Japanese woodcut stuck in Jersey storage, but I’ll go there when the weather’s better. The woodcut was one of a few items left in the Jersey house prior to it being sold and foxing should be treated. I’m sometimes in the wrong place.
(xxvi) Coming to the end of a story that underpins l i m b o, there’s following on. Writing about Ruth was next to impossible for a long time and perhaps it still is - and one difficulty leads to another. One distancing forces another and my father can be part of the picture.
In this instance, telling a story is telling an impossible story and it’s the space of a preoccupation with testimonies. Following a translated Gerard W a j c m a n text from 2008 it’s paraphrase and impossibility.
I could start with the twenty six year old story of a shirt and tie one item of clothing to Ruth’s unworn clothes and the story of an impossible 2015 exhibition proposal. A few paragraphs may go on to unpack a project that can be an online project - and one that takes up something like exhibition space.
(xxv) I came here with Ruth and can’t afford to move on, or if I did carrying on would become problematic. So something else should happen, which probably amounts to making a stand, but moving on or making a stand also seems irrelevant and sooner or later I’ll fall at the next hurdle. The prospect is bleak and prompts one of two proposals. It suggests an unlikely community and a more unlikely guarantee alongside market driven guarantees.
(xxvi) Coming to the end of a story that underpins l i m b o, there's time that follows on. Writing about Ruth was next to impossible for a long time and perhaps it still is and one difficulty leads to another. One distancing forces another and my father can be part of the picture.
In this instance, telling a story is telling an impossible story. It’s the space of a preoccupation with testimonies. With a broader project (following a translated Gerard W a j c m a n text from 2008) it’s paraphrase and impossibility.
I could start with the twenty six year old story of a shirt and tie one garment to Ruth’s unworn clothes and the story of an impossible 2015 exhibition proposal. A few paragraphs may go on to unpack a project that can be an online project and one that takes up something like exhibition space.
(xxvii) Early morning light suggests another place or time seen from a train. I take photo noticing light inside carriage and after a while it’s horses, houses and birds and somehow the beginning and end of time.
(xxviii) I spend all my time looking for a second opinion and have long since forgotten what about, but this morning found one of Ruth’s rings
(xxiv) Silence set in this morning between cracks, taking longer, making a pact. Time spread out and the effect’s surprising. Sentences stopped running and time catches cold. It’s over but not over between cracks.
(xxv) I thought about you three years after you were you, looking at screen and second version of Brompton and immediately forget whatever it was I wanted to remember, moving from laptop to iMac.
(xxvi) I wonder what I’ve been doing. I describe time with Ruth and say something about time since or talk about having a body that’s not always well or a body of work.
The first part of all this has to do with Ruth, who isn’t here and will never be here again. If the story resonates with other parts of l i m b o - it starts with a collaborative story. We made something up and the rest is a text and project for other people.
Wanting to say something about someone who isn’t here forces a direction that turns subject into object and object into subject, but coming up with something stops halfway (in the first place) and I’m still three or four years old hiding behind my mother when infrequent visitors turn up. I’m not comfortable putting something out there.
(xxvii) The place of this work is unrecognisable - and who’s going to commission something that curves back on itself? I mentioned setting something up the day after tomorrow, but will have to think about what to take tomorrow. The rest has to do with money and turning money into exchangeable work.
(xxviii) My mother’s there when I tumble out of sleep. There and gone in the twinkling of an eye, but there long enough to be there in the twinkling of an eye.
Here one off pieces amount to nodding off and getting older moves in the direction of a point of no return. My mother came back briefly and my family name suggests a grainy desert(ion)
(xxix) Writing and not looking at something again for a while seems important and perhaps there are two constants. I remember sitting up in bed, reporting a dream and a long version quickly becomes a short version.
The taste of a dream lingers and not just the taste. A bad taste in my mouth, rotting wood and stagnant water. It prompts going back and looking at websites. It could be this dream and it could be another and adding to websites involves working backwards through l i m b o.
(xxx) Fragments accompany stills that have something to do with video - and reworking website titles begins working backwards.
L i m b o has four parts and presently looks like the text of a book with stills. It underpins websites and possible projects and projects sometimes include video.
If the trajectory's too short I risk running out of steam or money, eventually. Life and psychoanalysis are costly and psychoanalysis, life and art involve Tarkovsky’s warning that turns cost into sacrifice.