Strange Links

I had a very odd occurrence several weeks ago.   A brain blip.  It's rather scary what your brain can do - what it can present you with, out of the blue.   I suppose it might be to do with pressure.  If you feel under pressure it can make you say, or do, the most unlikeliest things.  I'm not talking in medical terms at all, no medical professional has been consulted and neither will they be.

The Towner Art Gallery is in Eastbourne and it has moved from its old location to a purpose built fabulous space - it really is worth a visit.  The lift, the lift I fell in love with at first sight.  It has an open back which as you rise or descend gives you a glimpse of a fairly ordinary scene but through a long oblong window.   Bits of the view are slowly revealed.   I suspect every artist will want to exhibit in the lift.  Their collection is awesome and their vision is, well, visionary.  I am a total fan.

However, when coming back from the Towner,  I pass a HUGE new estate.   Full of gated little palaces.  This estate has to be seen to be believed.   And I am trying to remember what author it is reminding me of.  The problem is that one author keeps popping into my head and won't leave - Cyril Connolly - but he is not the one I am thinking of.   Annoyingly it's on the tip of my tongue.

The next name that arrives in my burdgeoning brain is Alistair Cook, whose letters are absolutely brilliant.  But that is still not who I am trying to think of. 

Is it Aleister Crowley?  I can understand that link but No - for goodness sake it is not.   It is J.G. Ballard and for the life of me I can't remember why, you can find out for yourself.

Interestingly (to me) when I got home I googled Cyril Connolly, he did in fact go to school in Eastbourne and I never knew that.

One might be forgiven

for wondering what the o and dots were meant to mean or to whom or what they were referring.   I can tell you they weren't a reduced form of homage to John Baldessari whose work I do admire.    I've always had a liking for circles.  And ever since art school and reading Roland Barthes' text The Death of the Author I have tended to think quite a bit about ambiguity and the audience.  Intention vs Perception/Reception.  Not that that was specifically why I included them.

Clearly I meant what I wrote in the last post otherwise it wouldn't be there, I'd have erased it (Erasure is something that interests me) or never written it in the first place.   But it was something that needed expressing and you can make of it what you will.

Today I was reading an old interview with J G Ballard written by Simon Sellers in The Internet in Print  that referred, among other things, to people's particular interest in the dust in J G's house.  Then I happened to finally spot a BBC News article on the Turner prize nominees (this had completely passed me by) and Roger Hiorns dust piece.   It occurred to me that perhaps my dots could be perceived as specks of dust which would be topical, but rather odd to say the least and completely co-incidental.  I am including an old image of my own intentional dust for comparison purposes.