This is the third in this series or season of the Polite Podcast. It's being published at 8AM on the 16th of July. There is one more podcast in this series, which will be published at some time in August.
These days, I try to cite any influences and inspirations on bits of work I make. So I thought I'd a make a list of some of the biggest influences on my work, practice and ethics. There are plenty of others but these ones keep on coming back. Dischord Records | Ian Mackaye Learning about the way Ian Mackaye set up and ran Dischord Records made me realise I could do things myself without having to compromise my principles. Fránçois.and the Atlas Mountains
I saw Fránçois play in the Polish Club in Bristol in about 2005. I was 17 and starting to play music. We burned lots of CDs at home and coloured in paper CD sleeves. Francois had amazing hand made CDs and played music like I imagined must exist. It gave us the confidence to continue doing things in this way and also was the first time I learned about Stitch-Stitch Records and all the great stuff that was happening in Bristol at that time.
Simon Armitage We learned his poems in school and I always remembered them. I love all his reworking of old English poems and folklore and I often stick references to his poems in songs. Kimya Dawson I love Kimya Dawson's words. Listening to her music has encouraged me to be braver and to be more forthright in songs, which is something I used to be embarrassed about. Jeffrey Lewis Same deal here really. Jefferey Lewis is another example of an artist surviving doing things his own way. I think his songs can be totally profound and I love his morbid humour. Kathleen Hanna | Bikini Kill | Le Tigre As well as being in some of my favourite bands and generally taking no prisoners, Kathleen Hanna is a great example of someone who has decided to be the change they want to see in the world. She provides a fantastic role model for young women as well as people in general and is determined not to let generations of feminist theory and practice get buried in the noise of modern life. She provides hope for people, and especially women. Phil Elverum When I was building my website and setting up as a sole trader, I took a lot of influence from the way Phil Elverum ran his record label, P.W. Elverum & Sun. His combination of music, photography and graphic design is obviously very close to the combination of things tat I get up to and he does them all so well! Lizzie Ridout Lizzie was one of my University tutors and her aesthetic and and the way she uses graphic design as a medium for her art is a huge influence on me still. Daniel Eatock A confirmation that an Idea can be as beautiful as an aesthetic. I've always been better at having ideas than I have been at making them look nice. While I try to reach a happy balance, Eatock's work allows no compromise for aesthetics in the execution of a concept. He also said he felt 'punk rock' sitting up front and working hard at university'. Me too! Headfall Stars Don't Shine to Noise is still one of my top five albums of all time and is also one of only a few examples I can give of a perfect album. Their recording style is as much a part of their sound as their playing and they make use of silence, the spaces between sounds and sounds as textures to create a collage-y atmosphere. I always think of this atmosphere when I'm recording. I will always put on gigs for Headfall if I have the chance.
Yesterday I went to Plymouth for a symposium, organised by Message, a research group including several of my former tutors at the University of Plymouth. It was an excellent day filled with exciting talks and two brilliant exhibitions.
The theme for the day was 'text + image = message n', the power of combining text and image in visual communication.
Speakers
Rob Mason – Illustrator and senior lecturer Norwich University College of the Arts
I've finally started work on my artist book for no-isbn. I've chosen the title the object and eternity. It's a little pretentious maybe but the subject matter will be fairly academic so I think it's fair enough. This Dissertation will form the basis of a series of exhibitions i'll hopefully be holding in the new year.
A friend of mine was telling me about Lo-Fi architecture and how he’d like to learn more about it. The outline he gave was that it has to do with the re-interpretation of an existing space that has had a previous function. This made me think of a few things: Lo-Fi culture in general, John Ruskin and the Tate Modern.
When I visit the Tate modern, I am struck by the beauty of the shell of this old power station. Something about the fact that it is made of brick and is at the same time so enormous makes it extremely powerful, even aw inspiring. This enormous, utilitarian structure is perfect to hang the new glass fittings and pure, white art gallery walls, seemingly just squatting in the huge space.
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Then I think of Ruskin’s criticism of these old factory buildings: De-humanising, impersonal, vulgar affronts to art and architecture. Ruskin’s architectural philosophy valued the natural growth of structures as they adapted to fulfill their latest requirements. He heartily disapproved of the Victorian building practise of hastily fabricating the grandest structure possible, always looking ahead at the next rung on the ladder, without ever glancing back at what has been left behind. This Attitude, I believe, is in agreement with the Lo-Fi philosophy.
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Lo-Fi is a combination of the use of any available resources to create (among other things) art, film and music that is accessible and attainable to all and the deliberate use of low-tech solutions to creative problems. The latter principle is, in many ways, a protest against the exclusivity of cutting edge software and technology. However, it is also, in its own right, a celebration and appreciation – a ‘rediscovery’ if you like - of the technologies humanity has developed and discarded in the name of progress. It is a re-humanising of formerly impersonal tools of industry.
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This is why the Tate is so beautiful. It is a perfect example of Lo-Fi architecture. What was once a faceless, uncaring, industrial monolith has been reincarnated as a housing of art and culture. It is a celebration of humanity, rather than a destroyer of it. In agreement with Ruskin’s arguments, this building, though at the time it had seemed ready made for its ultimate purpose, has grown into a new structure. One I think he would have been most pleased with.
In an article I wrote for food chain, I made an assertion about time that I would like to expand upon here. The assertion was that, with the globe all but explored and linked in communications networks, allowing anyone to effectively 'be' anywhere, the past is the only unexplored continent.
Time before, say, the twentieth Century, though accessible is far more remote that time after it. The information is not necessarily the click of a mouse away. A plan of research is often required to find specific data. The preparations made to retrieve a piece of information start to look a lot like those made by arctic explorers. Time is an intellectual construct and researchers are the new, intellectual explorers, trawling through archives and museums and censuses. The information is generally housed in single locations that, though physical, are designed and archived in much the same way as a digital network but sometimes this exploration even bleeds into the physical with the excavation of archaeological sites.
I argue that, to an ever-increasing degree, objects and customs we are presented with from distant historical locations appear far more alien to us than any of those presented to us from distant geographical locations.
I have started a new blog project calledfood chain with Oliver Watson. It will hopefully grow into a broad collection of research pieces that we will take, edit and publish in some, more refined form in the future.
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