Required field must not be left blank

34

2011-06-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

33

2011-06-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

32

2011-04-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

31

2011-02-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

Like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like.

Like this.
Share.

30

2010-12-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

029

2010-11-13T18:05:00.000-08:00

028

2010-11-10T14:46:00.000-08:00

Shit
Also shit
Bad
Crapola
Sux
In quotes
Art sucks yo
Really sucks
Also blows
I need answers
Funding jokes
Andrew Bolt is largely full of shit

Etc, and so on. (Vonnegut).

027

2010-10-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

I have changed the picture-title of this blog. It used to be think of everything at once all of the time forever. There are too many words around here. Words have a habit of meaning much the same thing years after the time they were written, by which time the original intent might be untrue. Although this problem seems to be okay with tattoos.

026

2010-10-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

In Japan you cannot smoke on the street unless you're in a designated smoking area clustered around a bin or enclosed behind smoky glass screens. You can smoke in restaurants and cafes though.

025

2010-09-22T07:17:00.000-07:00

024

2010-09-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

023

2010-09-04T01:10:00.000-07:00

Oh, and in case nobody noticed (being too busy as we all apparently are with worrying about the ECONOMY and BOAT PEOPLE and watching MASTERCHEF), now's the time for revvvolution. This is just one of the downsides to living in a prosperous developed nation, one so totally hypnotised by its own ability to subsume dissent: there are no armed cells camped up in the hills waiting around for governmental liminality so they can wrest bloody control and give us back the remote. No wait, what?

022

2010-09-04T01:01:00.000-07:00

Once an aesthetic style has become ubiquitous in architecture, art should already have moved onto something else.

021

2010-07-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

Knitted extension cable. Knitted power cord. Knitted power cable. Knitting Nancy power cord. Knitting Nancy power cable light. Cable light knitted. Cord power night light. Extension knit cable light. That should do it. Huh, internet?

020

2010-07-11T03:43:00.000-07:00

019

2010-07-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia. Theobromine, also known as xantheose, is a bitter alkaloid of the cacao plant, found in chocolate. It is in the methylxanthine class of chemical compounds, which also includes the similar compounds theophylline and caffeine. Animals that metabolize theobromine more slowly, such as dogs, can succumb to theobromine poisoning from as little as 50 grams of chocolate for a smaller dog and 400 grams for an average-sized dog. The same risk is reported for cats as well, although cats are less likely to ingest sweet food, having no sweet taste receptors. Birds, again due to their smaller size and more rapid metabolism, are even more susceptible to its toxic effects. Complications include digestive issues, dehydration, excitability, and a slow heart rate. Later stages of theobromine poisoning include epileptic-like seizures and death. If caught early on, theobromine poisoning is treatable. Although not usual, the effects of theobromine poisoning, as stated, can become fatal.
[edit] See also

* History of chocolate
* Theobromine poisoning

018

2010-06-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hey America! Let's all throw stones at a convenient scapegoat rather than take responsibility for participation in an economic/political/military/industrial system which actively encourages the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else. In a parallel universe where everything is exactly identical to this one, we're giving Tony Hayward a big fat medal in the form of massive monetary compensation, precisely for doing the things we're now saying he shouldn't have done. But it's just so much more pleasurable to embody total blame for bad things in the total body of one single bad person and then burn them. Maybe Tony did blow up the well, but most of us helped him do it.

017

2010-05-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

I have a show opening in 8 days. Here is evidence I have been working. Not real work obviously, but working nonetheless.

016

2010-05-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Nothing was a recent show at West Space curated (very well) by Kelly Fliedner. Aside from a slightly pesky reliance on the expression 'post-minimalism' in the catalogue (in order, I assume, to lend the show some internationally recognised terminological gravitas)*, the vast majority of the work was really good. Damiano Bertoli's video of empty Miami Vice interiors was beautiful; void foreboding moments of hand-held faux-dread. Lou Hubbard's playful alien is what it is, and what it is, is funny. Which is nothing to shy away from. Matthew Shannon's recreation of a video that may or may not exist was an exercise in the pointless, but that was the point. Indefinable and re-manifesting that which may never have been manifest in the first place, it positioned history as an empty vessel. But the standout for me was Deborah Ostrow's television sets playing videos of work sites roughly framed with faceless cardboard office workers. It was as much everything as it was nothing, a meditative acknowledgement of the binary nature of a term like 'the nothing'. Although a sense of despair pervaded the work, it wasn't an abject one; it's use of honest materials (rather than an honest use of materials) and its humour saved it from desperation. A great show.

*Probably this is my problem, not the catalogue's.

015

2010-05-16T05:30:00.001-07:00

New art crush: Rachel Harrison (top three).
Plus: John Stezaker (bottom three).

014

2010-05-08T22:32:00.000-07:00

Today I went to a birthday party for a twin set of pint-sized three year olds who happen to be the embodiment of 'cute'. It's the 9th of May. Also having a birthday on the 9th of May (if he wasn't already dead) is a guy called Fuzzy Knight. According to the absolute first and final source of mid-level and middling knowledge, Wikipedia, Fuzzy Knight was an "American film and television actor" who was born in 1901. I assume that's long enough ago that the description "american film and television actor" could actually distinguish you from everyone else in America.

I think pretty soon there is going to be a reality TV show where the contestants have to watch TV. There is bound to be plenty of hooting.

013

2010-04-27T17:13:00.000-07:00

012

2010-04-18T05:25:00.000-07:00

011

2010-04-06T00:05:00.000-07:00

I wish I could credit these properly, but I pinched them from some Russian tape blog which barely gives credit to the musicians and tapes themselves, let alone whoever produced the covers... but yes, in case you're unsure, they are awesome. AWESOME.

010

2010-04-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

On the weekend, at a friends farm, we met the farmer from across the road. After a few beers and a lot of talk, we got on the back of his ute and he drove us through his property, at about 11pm, past llamas and vertical mineshafts, past giant river gums and flocks of sheep, with everything fleetingly lit by two sweeping torches. Eventually we arrived at a 100 year old gold mine, tunneled deep into a hill. Welcome Swallows flapped out, welcoming us. Welcome Swallows fluttered around our heads all the way into the mine. At the end, we turned the torches off and Welcome Swallows landed on our hands and shoulders and everything went quiet.

009

2010-04-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

Just in case anyone has missed the symbolism, Tony Abbott is prepared to do whatever it takes – purely in a physical sense and hopefully with his shirt off – to distract you from the fact that he's a backward little weasel.

I'm sure there's a lot more of these out there, but I found these within a couple of minutes and didn't have the, ummm, stamina for much more.

Oh, and just in case I'm mistaken for some kind of kruddophile:

He's always struck me as someone who's pretending. An actor, and not particularly good at it. Like even he thinks he doesn't really deserve the job.

008

2010-03-29T04:26:00.000-07:00

"On the Day of Declaration we will see his face on television, but he will not actually speak. Instead, each of us will hear his words telepathically in our own language as he simultaneously impresses the minds of all humanity". Also, the Space Brothers are due around about the same time (they make crop circles).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/19/raj-patel-colbert-report-benjamin-creme
http://www.share-international.org/background/miracles/MI_main.htm
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread537758/pg1
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTruthIsFromGod

007

2010-03-26T20:33:00.001-07:00

So what's with the neo-cretinism? Does a renewed stupidity in culture (and by that i mean dumb, not fun) have to be reflected in art? Should we* be maintaining an intellectual stance a rung up from Australia's Next Top Dancer? Or do we exaggerate the imbecilic in the hope of pointing a finger at it? Does that work? Maybe we just shrug our shoulders and grunt dismissively in response to the question 'but what does it all mean' with the vague hope that a nod toward Brand Power ads or KFC Family Buckets or Herald Sun reader comments or Lady Gaga will fatalistically, nihilistically, conveniently explain it all away? Even further, should we just embrace all those things and call them AWESOME because to rally against the stupid is just too difficult and anyway the current is so warm and welcoming and gently flowing and low in fat and full in flavour? And do we love and embrace it genuinely and with real feeling rather than the old skool way with all that too-knowing and boooooring postmodern irony? Ya dumb bastards. Yaaay! And anyway, aren't we all sick of that language-driven superiority art likes to lend itself when it's talking about itself? Isn't that kind of intellectual fascism essentially un-democratizing? Does it even matter? Duuuuuurr. Should we be sad that the internet has ended up 90% junk and that only 49% of that 90% is at least funny while the remaining 51% is scary as shit? The spectacle's not a spectacle anymore, because it's everything and everywhere. And who wants to be a hater of everything?

*I don't mean to infer that there's an 'us', it's just easier that way.

006

2010-03-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

I've only really spent a couple of days in the new studio so far - apart from the moving-in of stuff. But it's good to have somewhere to go. And to go there.

005

2010-03-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the opening of New 2010 at acca. I really enjoyed it and although I need to go back and see a few things a little better (didn't get to watch arlo mountford's video), I was really taken, as often happens, with Susan Jacob's work. But the thing I really noticed, the thing that really got my attention, was Agatha Gothe-Snape's slogan tshirts. Because many of them said something very similar to the title of this blog, mostly completely opposite to the title of this blog, but using pretty much the same words. Which is just a strange and possibly unfortunate coincidence, given many people will be familiar with her tshirts but not with this blog. And virtually no one will be familiar with the various works I titled 'try to think of everything at once all of the time forever' in the early 90s. And I say 'possibly unfortunate' because I wouldn't want anyone to think I was biting her style, which they might not think anyway especially since there seems to be so much similarity and convergence around, all the time, forever. Coincidence and parallels. Parallels and serendipity. The other day I was riding my bike around fitzroy looking for studios and had just seen one which sucked pretty hard and was feeling a bit sad about the whole process when i rode past y3k just when Chris and James were coming out. I asked if they had any studios and they did and so this week I moved in. Serendipity and coincidence. Convergent timelines and different things which are the same. Plus also: same things which are different. Anyway, so I can't really even remember exactly what Agatha's tshirts said. Maybe it was something like this:

Which obviously isn't completely identical or anything, although the general concept is the same. But I'm ok with that. Are you okay with that? I hope so, but it also doesn't matter too much if you aren't okay with that. Everything's problematic or everything's easy, depending on how you squint.

004

2010-03-15T00:37:00.000-07:00

These photos were taken in 87 or 86. I was in high school in PNG and this was a photography trip to the highlands. I remember we smoked a lot and traded cigarettes with the locals. Our photography teacher wasn't too effectual with enforcing law and order, although we were mostly good. I don't remember taking these specific photos, but I do remember preferring that map image in reverse, with the backwards writing and the little back to front australia and those cheeky kids. Actually, in the back of my head ever since that time, this picture has been that way round and when I dug these out the other day to look at them and take photos of them, I discovered the other way round was the 'right' way round, but the right way round looked weird and wrong.

003

2010-03-13T23:12:00.000-08:00

002

2010-03-09T21:08:00.001-08:00

I've been working on some things for High Life at the Rooftop bar. It's been curated by West Space and involves four Melbourne rooftop bars. Dell and I are at the Rooftop Bar, Curtain House. Hotham St Ladies and Natasha Frisch are at Sarti. Andy Hutson and Kirsten Bradley are at The Order of Melbourne and Tai Snaith and Carl Scrase have Madame Brussels.

This is a not particularly indicative picture of my work. Or rather, very indicative, possibly.

001

2009-08-22T07:01:00.000-07:00