Truth and Infinity
I will have 3 pieces, including one self generating sound piece, in a group show during the Carrigallen Arts Festival. The Prism Artists Group, working under the theme of 'Mask and Illusion', will be exhibiting their work to the public between 2 - 9pm each day from 29th July - 1st Aug 2005 at the Cornmill Theatre, Carrigallen, Co. Leitrim. The official opening will be held at the venue on Thursday from 8.30pm.
An ongoing internet project was started during June 2005. 'Things In My Bin' is an attempt to build a virtual trash pile for the archaeologists of the future. Watch daily as scans of real life trash from the artists bin collect as virtual trash in cyberspace. The contents of this site will never degrade; the design, packaging etc forever preserved for future study.
http://www.thingsinmybin.blogspot.comAnother ongoing internet based project was begun in May 2005. ‘Trail’ is the setting up of a trail across cyberspace. This is a series of web sites connected by secret links, email, hidden clues in source code etc. I am hoping, amongst other things, to explore the democratic concepts of free web space, the ease with which you can amass multiple email accounts and the accuracy of search engines. In this age when the World Wide Web is increasingly used for covert activities by terrorists and by any number of other clandestine groups, there has never been a more topical time to explore how far you can stretch such a trail and test the resourcefulness of those who try to keep up. The starting point is Truth and Infinity. You will have to find the first clue there yourself.
25/8/05:Truth and Infinity is no longer the starting point. Go to the start of Trail
here.
One last art based website I have put into operation is called ‘Signed From Hell’. The site is about context of image. I have been taking images from a variety of sources and linking them with only a single line of text into the same quite narrow idea. The idea being that we are listening to the unfolding story of a madman, Jack the Ripper. Inspired by the Alan Moore graphic novel ’From Hell’ and also the Hollywood adaptation of same. I am doing some image manipulation to make them fit the scenario, but it’s proving remarkably easy to completely change their context and meaning. Perhaps more of a working process than anything, but already I have come up with some striking imagery which I may use or more fully realise in the future. Watch my progress at
http://www.freewebs.com/signedfromhellI will be sending out a separate mail detailing more music related stuff, save to say a new Secret Society album and single will be available by September. Still best to check Truth and Infinity for latest news. On a personal note I recently moved from Dublin to Carrick-on-Shannon in Co. Leitrim.
Just launched a new website dedicated to The Wormholes and bands closely related to them. Namely E+S=B, Amygdala and Memory Cells. It's called Ringsend Blues, I think because all this music is made in the hope of chasing their blues away.
Ringsend Blues
“There’s a hidden message in Shaver’s work, one that’s often overlooked by both enthusiasts and detractors. Quite simply: We are the dero. To Shaver, we have virtually unlimited potential. Within us is a huge untapped capacity for wisdom, strength, vitality, and beauty. We could be like gods. Instead, we’re a stunted, perverted bunch: we kill one another, poison our planet, stultify ourselves with mindless jobs, cut down forests to put up ugly boxlike cities, vilify intelligence, and condemn sexuality. We think backwards and embrace everything that’s vile, nasty, and foolish.”
Doug Skinner
"I shall never forget that night in September in which the veil that concealed from me my own incredulity was torn. ...Anxiously I followed my thoughts as they descended from layer to layer towards the foundation of my consciousness, scattering one by one all the illusions that until then had screened its windings from my view, making them at every moment more clearly visible. Vainly I clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailor clings to the fragments of his vessel, vainly, frightened at the unknown void into which I was about to float. I turned with them towards my childhood, my family, my country, all that was dear and sacred to me; the inflexible current of my thought was too strong - parents, family, memory, beliefs - it forced me to let go of everything. The investigation went on more obstinate and more severe as it drew near its term, and it did not stop until the end was reached. I knew then that in the depth of my mind, nothing was left that stood erect. This moment was a frightful one, and when towards morning, I threw myself exhausted on my bed, I seemed to feel my earlier life , so smiling and so full, go out like a fire, and before me another life opened, sombre and unpeopled, where in the future I must live alone, alone with my fatal thought that had exiled me there..."
Jouffroy
The fatal thought referred to could be the realisation that human beings are here simply to survive and everything we have built up to go with society is meaningless. We existed before law, religion, country and family and we would go on without it. To look for meaning or purpose in life simply makes life easier to live as we'd all much rather have a reason to live beyond staying alive and reproduction. Alas, any close inspection of the numerous definitions of meaning or purpose in life will ultimately ring hollow and betray its human origins and leave us feeling like the French philosopher quoted above.
Of course our instinct is to care and nurture, some have this in abundance for all or reserved solely for their immediate family. Human beings dominant precisely because we are so adaptable, most of us can easily operate and thrive within this manmade structure. What we have succeeded in creating is an environment for more abundant life, I would only be concerned with the quality of that life. The danger being if these man made things like religion, country, money etc become more important than the drives of our essential nature. Maybe we have gone too far in some area's, arguments could be made on both sides on many issues. This paragraph is here only to acknowledge how enormous this subject is, as ever I’m trying my best to be all encompassing in the briefest way.
But on a practical and personal level, when things get too much we would do well to remind ourselves of our essential nature and how meaningless the constraints of society ultimately are. That’s not to say we can avoid its penalties but we can at least see the bigger picture and laugh at it, be less of a victim or even find ways to use this manmade system to turn things to our advantage.
Yes, its still a shocking realisation to make, but only fatal to the lie. The sombre and not completely unpeopled life is where truth lies and that can’t be all bad, there is light here too, just a different kind.
I am currently creating a trash pile in cyberspace for the benefit of the archeologists of the future. Check on its progress
here.
The website covering the 'Life is a Scream' film project has just been created. It features the newly completed full length film script and in time the downloadable mpeg version of the original short, 'Life is a Scream is the Face of a Bright Madness'.
Enjoy!
