I do have problems with the pleasure and (I suppose it is) business crossover. This was never a problem working with computers. . !

To elaborate, when me and my girlfriends artistic desires and tendancies collide. . . . . . . . there can be fire.

Bed time now.

Outside The Astoria. This is my lovely girl friend, Caiti. One of the few photos I have taken using a flash that actually looks good. I must do more work on improving this skill. NB- this was taken after walking out of an ‘Animal Collective’ (http://www.myspace.com/animalcollectivetheband ) gig in London. Although amazingly creative recording artists, their live performance was a terrible mess. Just too much experimentation (with music and/or drugs, I suspect).

Focus on reflections
Hear the dimensions
Twisting the light rays
Turn around their vibrations

Focusing on reflections but still deep and
Deep-still, in tensions
That across my temples extrapolate
Unfortunate thoughts and now
Times are gone

Fred & Matt by a Tree, on a trip to see a Installation de Feu at Platt Fields park, Manchester. It was an exceptional event, virtually all of the installations (it was like a mini-festival, with many different things to see) being based on fire and involving fires of all different types. The best art event I visited last year (2006). The picture brings back good memories of that for me. I’m really pleased with the way it turned out, it was semi-posed but basically taken on the spur of the moment. I chose this image because I think the ghostly effect is sympathetic to the words above.

Artistically I’m kind of inept in many ways. I’m a novice at having to look at things from an artistic angle and then having to critically analyze it. I do enjoy it though, even if I (well I think I do…) end up at rather cynical and negative mutterings towards a lot of the populist (I presume its populist) work I’ve seen in commercial and non-commercial galleries I have visited.

Recent exceptions are a furniture exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery of Joe Columbo‘s work and Ben Hall’s Wild Britain exhibition at the Manchester Museum. Joe Columbo’s embodies the swinging sixties. Eccentricity flows throughout his work and designs that have now become some modern design classics. Without going to heavily into it right away the exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery comes highly recommended. Ben Hall’s exhibition in contrast is a straight up photography show. I’m not an expert in the field, but his are some of the most evocative and inspiring photographs I have seen in a gallery recently- vibrant colours throughout and thoughtful composition. I was also slightly ‘chuffed’ to see that all of his work exhibited here is from a digital camera. See http://www.benhallphotography.com/

I’m particularly impressed with the technical skill required to take this shot, as well as the photographer’s patience and vision for getting the shot. After having watched all of the BBC & David Attenborough’s Planet Earth documentaries I’m even more in awe of the wildlife film/photography brigade. Maybe key to his success, Hall studies the animals he photographs extensively prior to attempting a shot. I wonder if this is possible with humans?

My tendency in art appreciation, is toward enjoying and liking pieces that (deliberately or not) evoke some kind of emotion in me. Sometimes it is explicit, and you can see what the artist is trying to do. Other times its not and everyone will come away with a different feeling. This withstanding it is definitely what I look for in art works, of all kinds, and also what I aspire to produce myself.

Bob Dylan, Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright:

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
You’re the reason I’m trav’lin‘ on
Don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in turnin‘ on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An’ it ain’t no use in turnin‘ on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin‘ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin‘ anyway
So don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in callin‘ out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain’t no use in callin‘ out my name, gal
I can’t hear you any more
I’m a-thinkin‘ and a-wond’rin‘ all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

I’m walkin‘ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin‘ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

These words, in combination with a beautiful piece of acoustic guitar playing, make probably my favourite of Bob Dylan’s songs. Its not a protest song, its not political – and I’m not trying to say Dylan’s more political works are better or worse songs – but for some reason, this is always the one to make me feel the most. I’m not even sure what the feeling normally is, but I always know it’s there.I took this shot on a day when I went to visit Crosby to see Anthony Gormley’s “Another Place”. I was interested in the piece after its extensive coverage on television. The timing of my visit meant that it was an extremely windy, wintry day and the tide was up so few of the figures were accessible – however I think this probably added to the experience. I really like this photograph and feel that even though I am ‘bouncing’ off Gormley’s art it does have its own merit autonomously.

“journal – a daily written record of (usually personal) experiences and observations” – according to WordNet Search on princeton.edu - http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=journal

That is what I am meant to have done. For the last, say two months, at least.

This is a shot used in a film me and Bryn made during the early part of the University term. This is the sex-pest “Abu” who featured in the film, as played by Bryn. I think the blurriness of the photograph compliments its devil-like qualities. Since putting the film online I have been contacted by an American TV station (Localpoint TV) who are hopefully going to broadcast it. You can see the film (at rather degraded quality) here; http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=josephlindley

On the whole I have tried and failed to write my journal, so far, but I have cultivated an amount of determination from my procrastination.

This, I do believe, is one (possibly the sole) advantage of procrastination.

I must have a genetic disorder, to suffer from the condition as badly as I do. Rarely does a day pass when I don’t have pungent desires teasing my senses, seemingly whispering at me to get on and do some of the number of tasks that I internally classify as “work”.

On our first University outing in the Science & Industry museum. Focusing on reflections; to describe the photo but also just a rather satisfying flow of words. Maybe I will use it in a song.

At the moment those work tasks are split between my various artistic activities directly spawned from my degree course, producing an album which is already late for a small Swiss record label (www.creakedrecords.com the Director-of-which, incidentally just called to arrange a meeting in January- exciting!), on-going photography and some cash-cowing (so to speak) designing a couple of websites for my cousin and her friend (who are both journalistic-types on the larger than life, upper class, Hampshire equestrian scene – an amazing beast). My University work is top of my priorities but as I have only newly been forging out my own methods of working artistically for the last few months, it is sometimes the hardest to gather momentum. Having said that I often only start proper work on such projects, as with the music or the websites, if I have been cheered up by other successes, and vice-versa. That seems to be the key for me satisfying my urges and overcoming my procrastinatic (is this a word?) tendencies – balancing the success and momentum of different projects with each other, to achieve overall progress. Having written that down, I think has turned a pattern of disconnected and unrelated thoughts into a tangible philosophy. Hopefully for people other than my self, if said others, can scramble through my occasionally scrambled prose.

Photograph of scratches whilst working on “Scratches” project (see below for more information), (vintage) macro lens borrowed from University.

Current University projects include:

1. VJ Project, evaluation of VJ software that is available (including learning how to use the software and understanding the principles) and also building a ‘visual library’ to be used for VJing. Includes many sub-projects.
2. Time, this has spawned from the VJ project; work exploring representing and simply showing time passing through photography, video & animation pieces can become part of the visual library for the VJ Project.
3. Classic photography, experimentation with printing and framing (or other presentations) of my digital photographic work that I have been doing since becoming a camera-owner half way through 2006. As well as having gotten promising results and feedback so far, I have been working on both subtle and severe digital manipulation of images to create dramatic effects.
4. Websites, I have various interactive websites that I either have in development or would like to produce at some point. These include an online version of the paper-and-pen game of consequences, my website about scratches. Scratches was a “one word” project given to me in the first few weeks of University. The piece of work I presented was a sound-based piece with many noises playing simultaneously – all of which were scratching noises. I also took some macro photographs of the many scratches I see in the world around me. But my final piece of work for this project is the website. The website will just display the progress of a mail-art based thingy, where-by an object is mailed around. Each recipient scratches the next story (or not-story if they don’t want) into the object which is then mailed on again. At each point a digital photo will be uploaded on the website for all to see, also a map of where “scratches” has been. Eventually the object will be obliterated and cease to be, but will be preserved digitally. The idea was to represent human life on earth, its evolution is slow, but has taken us far in artistic, social and technological progress – which is what allows us to create and appreciate projects such as this. Eventually however, we will destroy our habitat. In terms of the whole of human history that time is very close to us now. That is why I want destruction to come eventually, but to celebrate our progress by saving it on in digital format for anyone connected to the web to see. Unfortunately, I have (again) procrastinated! I have created a website, with some horrible drivel written on it (which if I ever take the project further I will change) this can be seen at http://scratch.name
5. Sound and Music projects; as well as independently (from University) working on my music, I would like to explore further sound-art based projects. I was intrigued and interested by an artist who came to present his work and talk about himself at one of our lectures at University – his name has eluded me presently. He had several sculpture works that involved an element of sound, from scratching a record to amplifying the sound of a pin-dropping- all very inspiring for me. I think I probably wouldn’t focus so much on creating noise-touting-sculptures, but maybe it will be something to experiment with to test the water. I would definitely like to refine my scratches sound project to a point where it could be performed with some visual element as well as the sound (and without pushing near-by lecturers to complain about the noise!

So that’s all of me at the moment. I know its the wrong thing to do (starting at the end. . . ?), but at least for the sake of writing this I have written the present first and next time I write I will write about the past.

Sign Parody; I like the sentiment, I took this shot in a squat in the Northern Quarter of Manchester’s City Centre. The people living there were operating a gallery, where anyone could go and exhibit their work (often the canvass they’re working on is part of the building itself). Also hedonistic parties, DJs and so on and so on. A cool thing, in my opinion. Unfortunately I wasn’t really affected by any of the work I saw, the biggest impact on me was what the squat stood for and the fact that (at that time, at least) it was working and existing. Everybody there has now been evicted. Until next time. . . (both the squat, and me).