Three Strange Angels

The Controlled Experiment

SUBJECT A: “Do you remember who you were?”

SUBJECT B: “No. That’s why I kept the journals.”

SUBJECT A: “But now you’ve gone and lost them. Haven’t you?”

SUBJECT B: “I never was any good at keeping things.”

SUBJECT A: “Who will you be now?”

SUBJECT B: “Anyone I want to be. I guess.”

SUBJECT A: “Do you remember what you used to write in your journal?”

SUBJECT B: “Not really. Words though beautiful are a poor replica for the fluidity of thought. Thought has its own mercurial quality. Rising like a wave from the depths. Traveling through a sea of consciousness to break away from a world of wateriness and become one distinct wave that departs. Leaves everything it knows to become unique with the sole purpose of crashing into a shore of meaning.”

SUBJECT A: “If words are so confining, how could your journals be your template for becoming?”

SUBJECT B: “What else is there? You’ve got to make do with what you’ve got. And all that I had were the words in those old moleskin books.”

Roasty toasty

Posted my first post for Thought Leader this week. Eish. I am being roasted and toasted. Thought Leader attracts high traffic with a strong, opinionated crowd. The first instinct is to write for the crowd, but I've never done that. I've always been a firm believer in Steve Biko's: "I write what I like". I think the minute you start shaping yourself to curry favour because of negative criticism, you're in a lot of trouble. But there's always something to be learnt from even the most difficult, negative comments. So I'll take what's useful. Bin the rest. And move on to the next post.

Don't be a Twit!

My new column premiers on Tech Leader today for the launch of this new Mail & Guardian site. If you have a moment, take a look. I would love your feedback. If you do pop over, please leave comments for me there.

Tech Leader aims to provide a platform for thought-provoking opinion from Mail & Guardian journalists and columnists as well as other writers, commentators and opinion makers across various industries and political spectrums. Tech Leader is all about debate, offering readers the opportunity to comment and discuss issues raised by contributors.

Late night conversations

HIM: Freedom is another word for nothing left loose.

ME:  I hate that song.

HIM: I knew you would say that but think of it. Strangely we only have one word for freedom, yet Eskimos have many words for snow. There’s a word for sleet, for horizontal snow in a blizzard. Wet snow. Dry snow. Compact snow. So many different words for snow yet we only have one word for freedom, and one word for knowledge. Even the Greeks had two words for knowledge. One for experiential knowledge and one for academic knowledge to separate the difference between learning through doing and learning through the intellectual pursuit of studying. Two separate concepts, they called the knowledge acquired through experience is Gnosis. We only have one word for freedom and that is not enough.

ME: I hate that word.

YOU: You hate that word because it doesn’t give you enough granularity in your expression.

ME: What do you mean?

YOU: Imagine you are driving a car that only goes at 100kms an hour and stops. The granularity is too gross. There are not enough fine grains. What do you do when you hit a 60km zone? Or if you want to slow down to 40 to soak up the view? It doesn’t have that fine control.

ME: What are you saying?

YOU: We do not have the freedom of the word freedom. It has become an oxymoron in one word. One of the things that people talk about when they get married is that they lose their freedom. However it is a chosen surrender of freedom. You cannot use then use the word freedom then because it is more about choice.

ME: Freedom from chains. Freedom from fear. Freedom from choice.

YOU: If you enjoy being chained then it is your freedom of choice to lose your freedom. That is one of the traps of language. It does not enable us to be free. Language is not freedom.

ME: I want to be an Eskimo. I have never seen snow.

Show & tell : Concept art gets practical

The amazing Andrew Miller and his wife artist Robyn Field have opened their new gallery in down town Johannesburg, and if you haven't been there yet you've got to go.

The opening exhibition is Show and Tell which showcases work from three diverse South African artists to explore the crossover between decor, design and art. It features a body of work that collectively shows the aesthetic power of utilising dramatically varying mediums, including waste items. Very often 'found object art' sacrifices aesthetic value at the expense of a supposedly strong concept (mounting a barbie doll and giving it strange name qualifies surprisingly often as a strong concept), resulting in art that is less than pleasing to the eye and that often shows an alarming lack of actual technical ability. Show and Tell reverses this paradigm with its diverse subject matter and range of mediums.

Robyn Field, has created her range of art and jewellery using the ring pulls from tin cans, old records and mahjong (a traditional Chinese board game) pieces. Her jewellery begs to be worn while her paintings are created using complex layers of colour and pattern. Field has developed a reputation over the years as one of Joburg's foremost proponents of the crossover between art and craft with her ring pull designs and art, which focus on a strong mix of utility and beauty.

Kirsten Miller is prominent Durban-based writer and artist and recently featured at the Time of The Writer festival, alongside names such as Emmanuel Dongala, Breyton Breytenbach and Angelina Sithebe, amongst others. Apart from being the author of Children on the Bridge and All is Fish, Miller is also an increasingly prominent and diverse artist. On the one hand, she creates amazingly complex quilts that have compelling stories threaded into sophisticated design techniques. The result is a body of craft work that is not only functional, but offers an extremely nuanced insight into her fascination with dreaming. Her paintings also address this fascination, but in a more direct way. Featuring symbols and vivid colours, Miller paints in a kind of 'stream of consciousness,' where the intention is to unearth the part of herself that is concerned with secondary processes. Through dreaming, or creative processes that draw on the dreaming state, the different fragments of the person are put together.

Patrick Mabena, a full time craft artist at the Unity Gallery for the last five years, is steadily establishing his profile as an artist in his own right. Mabena will be showing his gorgeous beaded panels and other decor products, such as trunks. Fascinatingly, a lot of his work is created using nails – the sort of nails most people use for DIY or construction work. The result is a series of decor products that literally shimmer with innovation and an edgy urban style.

Fittingly, the Show and Tell exhibition will take place at the Unity Gallery in Marshaltown, in the Johannesburg CBD. The gallery has developed a strong reputation over the years for its ability to transform urban spaces into a hive of creative activity, and its new premises in the CBD offers art lovers a totally unique and dynamic viewing context.

Show and Tell is on from 19 April to 9 May 2008 with open days on 19th April and Sunday 20th April. You can find Unity Gallery on the 2nd Floor of Kruis House, Cnr Harries and Kruis Streets, Marshaltown.

For more information on the exhibition email andrew@unitydesign.co.za or call him on 072 119 5004.