DC's

* (restored)

Official

‘Originally formed in 1970 by Los Angeles brothers Ron and Russell Mael, Sparks’ music is often accompanied by intelligent, sophisticated, and acerbic lyrics, and an idiosyncratic, theatrical stage presence, typified in the contrast between Russell’s wide-eyed hyperactive frontman antics and Ron’s sedentary scowling. Starting with their masterwork, Lil’ Beethoven in 2001, the band began performing their albums in their entirety. 2008 saw the band perform all 21 of their albums in successive nights at the Islington Academy and Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London.

‘Though the band’s long career has seen them successfully pioneer many different musical genres; including glam pop, power pop, electronic dance music, mainstream pop and most recently chamber pop, Sparks have created their own unique musical universe. While achieving chart success in various countries around the world including United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the United States, they have enjoyed a cult following since their first releases. Sparks have been highly influential on the development of popular music, in particular on the late 1970s scene, when in collaboration with Giorgio Moroder (and Telex subsequently), they reinvented themselves as an electronic pop duo, and abandoned the traditional rock band line up.

‘Their frequently changing styles and visual presentations have kept the band at the forefront of modern, artful pop music. They are held in esteem by such peers as Morrissey, Kurt Cobain, Franz Ferdinand, Arcade Fire, MGMT, Sonic Youth, Ramones, Bjork, Depeche Mode, New Order, The Pixies, Ween, Suede, New Pornographers, Morrissey, and Radiohead, who all cite Sparks as a major influence.

‘On August 14, 2009, the band premièred the radio musical The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, commissioned by the Swedish public radio (SR) and featuring the Mael brothers themselves and Swedish actors Elin Klinga and Jonas Malmsjö, both of whom worked with Bergman in his lifetime. The musical, partly in English, partly in Swedish, tells the story of Bergman’s supposed relocation to Hollywood after his breakthrough with Smiles of a Summer Night (1956), and the surreal and discomforting encounter with the movie capital. The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman is currently being adapted as a feature film by Canadian avant-garde director Guy Maddin.’

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Personal

‘Early on we thought that what we were doing was something unique, and that the term rock wasn’t essential to what we were doing. It was just we had a special way or viewpoint of pop music and music in general. So we always had the kind of aspiration not to be going down the straight and narrow path of pop music. We’re concerned with creating something that is less specific and maybe harder to figure out where it’s coming from. It’s something we are proud of, the fact of being able to create music that doesn’t really fit neatly into any specific genre.’ — Russell Mael

Sparks is indisputably one of my two or three favorite bands and makers of music in general of all time. They have an excellent official website, including streamed chunks of all of their videos, mp3s, games, galleries, shops, a members only fan club, and a worthy recounting of their 35 plus years of existence.

Five favorites

‘The Rhythm Thief’ (2002)

‘At Home At Work At Play’ (1974)

‘Music That You Can Dance To’ (1986)

‘Happy Hunting Ground’ (1975)

‘Mickey Mouse’ (1982)

 

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There are certain countries in the world where Sparks are appropriately considered to be major artists. One of these countries is France, where they’ve had a number of huge hit songs and albums, and one of its many cultishly loved pop stars who owe Sparks a huge debt is Lio. Ron and Russell Mael rewarded her devotion by writing the lyrics for the English language version of her first album.

Les Rita Mitsouko & Sparks ‘Singing in the Shower’ (1987)

Lio ‘Le Banana Split’ (1984; lyrics & music Sparks)

Gran Popo Football Club ‘La Poesie cést fini’ (2000; music & lyrics Sparks)

 

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Sparks w/ fan Desi Arnaz

‘Igor Stravinsky was always such a big fan of Sparks and our use of tonality. Especially in the later albums.’ — Russell Mael

Hardcore Sparks fans tend to have high IQs, poor or overly developed social skills, and suffer from bouts of bitterness and agony that the band has never been sufficiently appreciated by mainstream audiences and critics. Typical in some way of these fans is this guy.

‘The Story of Little Russ’

THE ALMABOOBIES – This Town’s Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us

Sparks – Russell Mael Interview (Generation 80)

 

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Jacques Tati w/ Sparks

‘We were supposed to be in Tati’s film Confusion, a story of two American TV studio employees brought to a rural French TV company to help them out with some American technical expertise and input into how TV really is done. Unfortunately due to Tati’s declining health and ultimate death, the film didn’t get made. If we had to pick the greatest disappointment of our entire career, all thirty-seven years, with all its ups and downs, it would be not doing the film with Jacques Tati.’ — Ron Mael

Just before he died, the incredibly great French film director Jacques Tati was in talks to collaborate on a film with Sparks tentatively entitled Confusion, a project so theoretically perfect and mouthwatering that its demise is still painful. Tati may be dead, but he has a wonderful website.

Reconstruction of Tati’s ‘Villa Arpel’

 

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‘Sometimes people tell us we could have a career in litigation. We could sue Queen for copying my vocal style on Bohemian Rhapsody and The Pet Shop Boys for, oh … almost everything. They say that so we don’t get the law-suit against us, but I have to agree. We once thought about pursuing a class action against the entire New Wave movement. It would be: ‘Sparks versus The New Wave your honour’. All of the bands would have to answer the charges. I josh.’ — Russell Mael

In their early years, Sparks were contextualized within the Glam Rock genre where, at least in the eyes of the public and some rock critics of the day, they functioned as a kind of thinking person’s Queen. But they were much more.

Sparks in Concert 1974, part 1

Sparks in Concert 1974, part 2

Sparks in Concert 1976

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‘In retrospect, Ron’s moustache was probably another mistake. He probably regrets it. When he did it, he was quite naive – he thought he was copying Charlie Chaplin. We went to France to do a TV show and the presenter refused to go on with us so we had to pull out. At that point he changed it to a pencil-style one. We like controversy and provocation but not in that way.’ — Russell Mael

Sparks’ work and publicity have always made much of Ron Mael’s Hitler-esque moustache, including this slight, somewhat diverting, amusing, flash-requiring little visual puzzle.

Ron Mael shaves his moustache

Ron Mael tap dance

Ron Mael’s snowglobe collection

 

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‘Working with Giorgio opened up new ideas for us. For one thing it showed we weren’t tied to the guitar, bass and drum format and it showed you could work in other ways in a non band context. Although it was commercially fulfilling and we really liked the album, it was critically tough at the time cos people thought it was puzzling for Sparks to be doing what they perceived to be Disco. We saw it as an electronic album where the synths had replaced the aggression of guitars, and really that album was about the songs.’ — Russell Mael

In the mid-70s, Sparks coopted Euro Disco for a short time, producing the excellent and groundbreaking albums No. 1 Song in Heaven and Beat the Clock with the cooperation of disco schlockmeister Giorgio Moroder.

‘The Number 1 Song in Heaven’ (1979)

‘Beat the Clock’ (1980)

‘Modesty Plays’ (1982)

 

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‘We were always more accepted in Europe than the US. Maybe, maybe it was because of the art rock side of our work, but also things are transmitted around Europe in a more centralised kind of way and things get disseminated in Europe much easier. In America it’s more fragmented, there’s no centralised radio to cover the whole country so it has different things.’ — Russell Mael

Sparks has never had the popular success and critical acclaim in the US that they have achieved in Europe and Asia, but they got the closest with a string of albums in the early 1980s including the great Whomp That Sucker and Angst in My Pants, and the less great Sparks in Outer Space, the last of which, thanks to guest vocals by a member the then-hugely popular Go-Gos, launched their biggest American hit, the subpar (for Sparks) song and music video ‘Cool Places’.

‘Tips for Teens’ (1981)

‘Upstairs’ (1981)

‘I Predict’ (1982)

 

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‘Our recent music has been a reaction to everyone else’s lack of adventure. Everyone else is very safe and very reflective. It’s all too tame. We wanted to do an album that is for the people who like Sparks and new fans that would be jarring and genre-defying. We hope it elicits a reaction from people – even if they don’t like it. We’re tired of people following pop conventions and clichés. You listen to songs and after two bars you know where the song is going because it follows so many conventions.’ — Ron Mael

I defy anyone to name another musical artist or band who have been putting out records since 1970 and are doing their best work now as evidenced by 2002’s brilliant Lil Beethoven and the superb more recent albums Hello Young Lovers and Exotic Creatures of the Deep (2008).

‘My Baby’s Taking Me Home’ (2004)

‘Sherlock Holmes’ (1982)

‘Waterproof’ (2006)

‘Perfume’ (2006)

‘Lighten Up, Morrissey’ (2008)

‘Photoshop’ (2008)

Sparks’ 10 favorite songs
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p.s. Hey. ** ⋆˚꩜｡darbbzz⋆˚꩜｡, Hi. I did recognise it as Tetsuro, and, I agree, the tattooist did an excellent job. She’s gifted for sure. How great about the Portals magazine club! I was one of the editor of my high school literary magazine, and it was both fun/instructive and somehow helped cement my identity as a writer for me. Just being around and working with other young writers or people who were interested writing made a huge difference. That’s very exciting! And that’s supportive teacher too and maybe even most of all, needless to say. I had one of them too. You’re in a great position to cement your writing and build a world around your writing and creativity, and that’s everything you need really. I’m so happy for you, my pal. No, I hope/plan to go to a furry convention here in Paris the next time it happens, but not yet. ** Alice, Hi, Alice! I’ve been pretty good. Sounds amazing: your new abode. Congrats! I’ve never played a ‘Final Fantasy’ game even though I’ve always wanted to. I think that’s because I’ve always been a Nintendo system only guy, and ‘FF’ games weren’t available on that platform for a really long time. Time to catch up, clearly. Excellent that you found good system to help you focus on your writing. Journal -> prose and how that limbers you up, that makes sense. I’m anticipating the new Boards of Canada too. Good to get to speak with you too. Carry on, and enjoy London. ** _Black_Acrylic, I like Schütte too. There was a big show of his stuff here recently, and he seems to still be firing on all cylinders. ** Bill, That’s true: doing ghosts on May Day is kind of like respecting the work stoppage, I guess? Interesting that there’s so much butoh happening there. I can’t remember the last time there were any butoh performances here. I wonder why. The French are usually pretty hungry for poetic spectacle. Enjoy, obviously. ** jay, Hi. I like the flowy but precise look of ghosts, but I don’t believe in them. So I guess I just skim that world. There was a gay porn film back in the 70s called ‘Ghost of a Chance’ where the set-up was that some twink died and he had lusted after his friends when he was alive so his ghost came back and fucked them. Which involved a bunch of twinks bouncing around on beds trying to act like they were being fucked by invisible tops. It was unsurprisingly quite ridiculous, but, also unsurprisingly, it still has a little following for that reason. Yes, Tony Tulathimutte and I were interviewed onstage at an event at the Los Angeles Festival of Movies. He’s super nice and cool. His last book is such a viral thing, it’s interesting. He’s a very good writer, and the book is well worth reading. I do think he’s a little verbose, but it’s worth the occasional schlep. ** julian, Me too. I thought I saw a ghost when I was a teen, but in retrospect I’m sure it was because I was very stoned at that moment. My mom believed in them. She believed a giant ghost shaped like pumpkin used to hover above her bed at night and tell her stories about the world of the beyond. She was … eccentric. What’s the project where you’re transcribing those interviews? Or is just to do that and see what happens when they’re isolated and in print? ** Steeqhen, Me too, but the idea of ghosts is just completely implausible to me, and I can’t beyond that. Thank you re: ‘GJr’. xo. ** HaRpEr //, I took your use of that word as complimentary for sure. That adjective is always a positive to me. Amazing about your realisation of the framing device! That’s big. I haven’t read ‘Circus’. I need to. He’s very good: Wayne. And an Ashbery blurb no less. And presumably an actual praising one. Ashbery did a lot of tricky, backhanded blurbs in his time that seem positive at a skim until you actually parse what he wrote. ** Laura, Hi, Laura. I’m so sorry to hear that about the symptoms onset. May they die in the crib if not even in the womb if it’s not too late. As always, I’m so chuffed that I don’t remember my dreams. Gosh, I’m happy that ‘Try’ is having that particular effect. Have a very healthy weekend on every front possible. ** Carsten, Hi. It didn’t lead to a beef at all. I probably misphrased the interaction. It’s very good that you mentioned that because I might not have found out for a while. The producer in question is not our monstrous ex-producer. He was legally removed from the film, and we have nothing to do with him anymore. This was our good producer who we really like. He just made a mistake, no big. I hope you get to see the film before it dies, but if not, c’est la vie. Have a rich weekend. ** Okay. You lucky people get to spend the weekend with the masterful Sparks. See you on Monday.

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Darja Bajagić Mollys (2016)
UV printed aluminum-brushed Dibond with motion activated liquid mechanism and shaped MDF frame container / acrylic paint, canvas

 

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Lu Pingyuan Ghost (2016)
‘A pub’s owner is requesting the return of a ghost, after its famous specter was captured by a Chinese artist. Lu Pingyuan claims to have captured the ghost of James Stanley, the seventh Earl of Derby, who is said to haunt the Ye Olde Man and Scythe, in Churchgate, Bolton, Greater Manchester. A sealed metal canister supposedly containing the spirit went on display this month at the Center for Chinese Contemporary Art, unbeknown to the pub’s owner, Richard Greenwood, after the artist became captivated by the story and traveled from Shanghai to Bolton to catch the ghost.

‘And after discovering that the town’s oldest pub is now missing its favorite phantom, Mr Greenwood is determined to have it returned to its rightful home. In a letter to Mr Lu, he said: “I would have liked to have been privy to your actions and indeed to the exhibition before the ghost of James Stanley was taken out of Bolton, his ties to the town and to Ye Olde Man and Scythe run very deeply. “I feel very strongly that James Stanley’s ghost should remain in Bolton and at Ye Olde Man and Scythe to preserve the natural order of things. That said I do believe that your exhibition should travel and be seen by many people around the world and I would like to contribute to this as long as at the end of your exhibition it returns home.”’

 

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Korakrit Arunanondchai GHOST:2561 (2019)
‘“The starting idea for ‘Ghost:2561’ came from my feeling of always wanted to start some kind of platform to do research in Thailand, where I’m from,” Arunanondchai told me. “I wanted to work with this idea of ghost-host and possession, a kind of animistic framework that is very present throughout different layers of social fabric there.”’

 

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WOH & CO Ghost of a Chair (2010)
‘The Ghost of a Chair is handmade from a single 4mm transparent polyester sheet. Each sculptural free-form chair is unique and created using a combination of high- end technology and craft. Each piece is a one-off. The unique translucent effect creates the illusion of the chair disappearing beneath a hidden sheet.’

 

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Natasha Tontey The Cautionary Tales (2015)
‘The Cautionary Tales is a performance by non-actor and actor located in public area of Sie Kee Gie Junction on 6th and 7th June 2015.’

 

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Christophe Berdaguer and Marie Péjus Gue(ho)st House (2017)
‘The artists transformed an existing building that was once a prison, then a school and then a funeral home into a “ghost house” using a cloak of polystyrene and paint.’

 

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Ryan Gander Tell my mother not to worry (ii) (2012)
‘As an absolute muse, Gander’s daughter – who inspired Tell My Mother not to Worry (ii) – becomes the leading actress of a game, frozen and replicated in marble thanks to the medium of sculpture. Not just a phantom of blindless actions, the little girl is an unrevealed subject to whom Gander entrusts all the ghosts in his wardrobe.’

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Angela Singer Ghost Birds (2007)

 

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Gary Hill Viewer (1996)
‘In the multiple-channel video projection «Viewer,» blatant watching becomes the sole activity. The installation is neither interactively conceived, which would allows us learn more about the performers through their actions, nor does it allow the presentation mode to refer to either a context or story. The juxtaposition of those watching and those being watched—just as easily understood in the reverse—refers to a zero point unable to be bridged with any narrative content.’

 

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Adam Fuss My Ghost (2001 – 2007)
‘« My Ghost » is the title of a series of photographs Adam Fuss began 8 years ago. All of them express a feeling of silent grief and loss. Rising smoke suggests the trace of a beloved person, who is not part of our life anymore; whose body has been retrieved from the earth but still remains present on an emotional and spiritual level. The intention of the artist is personal and references to his own past.’

 

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Valerie Hegarty Ghosts of History (2017)
‘ Valerie Hegarty builds to destroy. Her process involves copying recognized paintings and then attacking them, forging ruins; As if the canvas, eaten away, ragged, had been abandoned, over the year…’

 

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Hans Richter Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928)

 

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Alice Könitz Ghost (2008)
Polycarbonate panel and plaster

 

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Tom Palmer Ghost Mirror (2018)

 

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Apichatpong Weerasethakul Fireworks (Archives) (2014)
‘In Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Fireworks (Archives), we see sculptures of mythical creatures from the Buddhist and Hindu cosmology in a garden in northeastern Thailand—a location believed to have been a communist hideout—illuminated by pyrotechnics and strobe lights, inducing a vision that violently teeters between impermeable darkness and blinding flashes. Projected onto a panel of glass, this vision seeps and oozes, with moving images leaking and refracting across the room’s seats and floor. By provoking the viewer’s senses, Apichatpong establishes a correspondence between technological media and the spiritual world, inducing visions that are disembodied or even menacing.’

 

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Ángela Jiménez Durán Sleeping bag ghost (2019)
‘I find it very beautiful to be able to approach something that is different and scary with a welcoming gesture. How would you talk to a ghost? In the end, the question becomes how do you meet someone or something that is not like you?’

 

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Duncan Mountford Ghost Library (2018)
‘At the rear of the gallery, on the top of a wall 260cm in height, is the Ghost Library. An empty library that speaks of the loss of knowledge, or the unreachable nature of arcane information. Lit only by the light from an exit sign, and the occasional momentary illumination of a window in one of the three doors, the library is barely visible, fading like a ghost seen by only a few.’

 

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Bernhard Willhelm Women (2004)

 

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Vincent Ceraudo Paris City Ghost (2015)
‘After I discovered by pure coincidence in the suburbs of Hangzhou a replica of Paris as a utopian post-modernism architectural project, I decided to live for a week in this urban simulacrum, located more than 11,000km away from the French capital. Using the drone camera technology that reminds the typical surveillance and control systems, I experienced the physical and psychological architectural limits of the place. The video documents the exploration of this ghost city, as if I was going through a double existence, in an deserted future of my own life.’

 

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Tianzhuo Chen G.H.O.S.T. (2018)
‘G.H.O.S.T is a new video work filmed in December 2016 in the streets of Varanasi, India, immediately adjacent the sacred Hindu spot where every year, millions of bodies are cremated and their ashes delivered to river Ganges.’

 

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Abbas Akhavan Variations on Ghost (2017/2018)
‘A monumental sculpture by Abbas Akhavan fills the Vide gallery at Bluecoat. Variations on Ghost makes reference to artworks destroyed by ISIS over the last decade, in particular the ancient sculptures depicting the Assyrian protective deities called Lamassu – half man, half lion. Using a technique called ‘dirt ramming’ Akhavan has recreated the claws of the hybrid deity with soil and water. Over the exhibition period, the physical appearance and smell of the sculpture will change, its surface appearing more stone-like as a grey crust develops.’

 

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Philippe Parreno & Pierre Huyghe No Ghost Just a Shell (2000 – 2002)
‘»No Ghost Just a Shell« was initiated by Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe in 1999. They acquired the copyright for a figure called ‘Annlee’ and her original image from the Japanese agency »Kworks«, which develops figures (almost actors) for cartoons, comic strips, advertising and video games of the booming Japanese Manga industry. ‘Annlee’ was a cheap model: the price of a Manga figure relates to the complexity of its character traits and thus its ability to adapt to a story-line and ‘survive’ several episodes. ‘Annlee’ had no particular qualities, and so she would have disappeared from the scene very quickly. “True heroes are rare and extremely expensive …” (Parreno) Buying ‘Annlee’ rescued her from an industry that had condemned her to death.’

 

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Kunlin He Ghost face cun (2017)
‘This video work come from I climbed mountains with my friend and family in my childhood memory. In China, There have a lot of strange stone and tree named by people in many famous national parks. Most of there names are associate with local history, myth and, fairy tale. When I came to the Bay Area, I traveled to the city and landscape to evoke my childhood memories of mountaineering and topophilia. I was searching for stone and tree that shape resembled like human figure, organs, and animals in the period of three months, shooting and naming them, recording my movement by GPS and editing them for a video.’

 

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Olaf Breuning Ghosts (2003)

 

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Dorothy Cross Ghost Ship (1999)
‘Cross painted a retired light ship with many layers of phosphorescent paint and moored it out at sea within sight of the esplanade of Dublin Bay. Every evening just before dusk the boat’s sides were flooded with strong ultraviolet light.

‘As the sun faded the lights were turned off. The boat remained visible as a luminous, ghostly presence between the shore and the horizon. The original purpose of the light ship as a marker of reefs and dangerous waters brings to mind the many ships that foundered in spite of every precaution. Each evening crowds of sightseers would come to the cold waterside to watch this mystery unfold and speculate about the history of the sea and of this boat in particular.

‘Cross braved the windswept channel in a dinghy one night to make a video of the glowing boat from the sea. A projection of this video was screened at dusk each night along the edge of the Mersey in Liverpool, where boats from Dublin used to moor.’

 

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Asta Gröting Ghost (2015)
‘This series comprises life-size casts of the artist‘s immediate family members since 2010. The ensemble of figures morph and change with the passing of time, some growing larger while others disappear altogether.’

 

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Miguel Angel Rios The Ghost of Modernity (2012)
‘The video Untitled (the ghost of modernity) by Miguel Angel Rios filmed on a deserted plateau high above a distant town in Saachila Oaxaca Mexico, features a set of outlined cube structures built on the site and a transparent cube that floats through the landscape with a will of its own, as if magically suspended. The moving camera establishes a dialogue with the floating and rotating cube choreographed to music composed by John Cage in 1947 for the feature of Marcel Duchamp’s roto-reliefs in the surrealist film by Hans Richter “Dreams that money can buy”.’

 

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Letha Wilson Ghost of a Tree (2012)

 

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Thomas Schütte Grosse Geister [Big Ghosts] (1996)
‘With his characteristically critical reassessment of the figurative traditions in art, Schütte here transforms the mythological hero associated with the grand sculptural tradition into a more complex character by evoking a range of figures from popular culture. As Quinn Latimer has observed of this series, “Melty, molten…figures evince both menace and levity: part Darth Vader, part Pillsbury Doughboy. Outsized, they put the viewer at a disadvantage.’

 

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Antony Gormley Blind Light (2007)

 

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Daichi Sato Ghost Advice & Ghost Hug, 2019
‘Daichi Sato paints nostalgic and surrealistic scenes which are inspired by images randomly found on the internet, casual photographs and stories heard from his acquaintances. By adding some imaginary objects to the original surroundings, the images he creates engender a timeless and universal atmosphere thus familiar to everyone, and waver between reality and fantasy.’

 

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Ed Atkins Death Mask 3 (2011)

 

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Marike Schreiber Setup with ghost (2013)
lab stand, two high accuracy laser devices, blanket, pedestal, photo background

 

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Wendell Castle Ghost Clock (1985)
‘At first glance Ghost Clock appears to be a grandfather clock hidden under a white sheet. However, a closer look reveals a masterful deception: this entire sculpture was hand-carved from a single block of laminated mahogany. With its meticulous detail, Castle re-created in wood the contours of soft, supple cloth, then completed the illusion by bleaching the “drapery” white and staining the base of the “clock” a walnut brown. This work is the last in a series of thirteen clocks the artist created in the 1980s; like the others, it has an inner mechanism.’

 

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Thomas Demand Ghost, 2003
Colour coupler print, Diasec mounted

 

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Rachel Cox Shiny Ghost, 2016
‘In Shiny Ghost, Cox has documented the final years of her Grandmother’s life as she was suffering from a degenerative brain disease. The images were made during moments of conversation, gesture, and experiences of death. The variety of photographic approaches towards the subject are representative of a frantic need for the artist to record all aspects of existing knowledge of her Grandmother (whether performative or candid) in a hopes that these moments could be pieced together again after her death.’

 

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Chulayarnnon Siriphol Ghost Orb (2007)
‘It is believed that when humans or animals pass away, they are turned into spirits lingering and drifting in the human world unseen to the human eye. However photography has been a mysterious medium that could capture more than we see. Photographs sometimes display traces of orbs on them, ranging in many shades of colors from white, red, blue, purple to green where many believe that these orbs are traces of the spirit’s entity and would often have a relationship or a special bond to the subjects in the photographs. This phenomenon is known as Ghost Orb.’

 

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Tom Friedman Ghosts and UFOs: Projections for Well-Lit Spaces​ (2017)
‘Usually, the minimum condition for projecting a video is that the room is dark or at least in semidarkness. Not in Tom Friedman’s case. The videos in this exhibition—the American artist’s first works in the medium—are conceived to be displayed in fully illuminated spaces. The projected images are mostly simple outlines of light in motion, white on white walls: an ovoid that slowly rotates on an axis (One Minute Egg, 2017); the silhouette of a man—the artist—walking (Guardian, 2017); a simulated blazing sun (Sun, 2017). Friedman contrived the unusual approach after he witnessed squares of sunshine refracted by a window onto a wall in his home. One of the most alluring works in the show, Shaky Window, 2017, reproduces precisely this phenomenon, to unsettling effect. Observing what appears to be slanted daylight, one’s first impulse is to look around in search of a window that isn’t there.’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Jay, Yeah, that was a keeper alright. I’m going to go find someone who’s playing Tomadachi and allowing the world to watch over their shoulder today. Day of days, buddy. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yes it was quite the pleasant, bright day here as well, and I spent a bit of it eating a bagel cream cheese in the sun, and now my face is pink. High hopes for good electoral news. Following that from afar, the prospects seem awfully confusing. ** Carsten, That Yoruba festival sounds like your best bet to me. I may have thwarted your RT viewing, but I guess you’ll find out. I happened to see your comment last night, and I was livid because the producer has no right to make the film viewable outside of France. The led to a firestorm of texts between him and Zac and me, and he subsequently closed that account. Sorry for the possible problem, but he was not supposed to do that. ** Laura, Yep, I was giddy when I came across that tidbit. A Blanchot/Wittgenstein mashup … that could work. Huh. All the luck getting them married. That actually does sound pretty ghastly. Proost! ** Steve, Hm, I don’t think special effects makeup in particular was a big interest. I think it was just one of the ingredients to me. Luck with the new track and high five for the reminder that it’s Bandcamp Friday as I never seem to remember. I’m in the peeing multiple times a night phase now, and, well, you get used to it. Could be worse, and probably will be. ** Hugo, Yes, I had an ‘Animal Crossing’ problem. I don’t remember the villagers. It was the first incarnation, and it was long ago. I did like the guy who showed up every once a while to sell stuff. I don’t think the Wild Child thing is overdone. It was kind of a thing at one point, but that was decades ago. Proceed apace, I say. ** rewritedept, I guess between those two I would go for buttpussy: the band. Everyone, rewritedept wants some input on whether it would be better to name a band buttpussy: the band or asbestos factory. Thoughts? I would need to dig deep into my notes to answer your ‘TMS’ question, and that would take some time. The playroom thing is correct. The different spellings is a piece of one of the systems, but it’s not a major part. ** julian, Yes, me too about worriedteen. I hope that he and Shinyman_MUC hooked up because that seemed like a possibly ideal, mutually beneficial match. Me too, I suppose, on the ‘had I made some different decisions’ front, but I would have ended up in the comments section. Failed ambition is at the center of my work, it’s true, most especially the films. Oh, sure, any fake gore interest must completely play into that, absolutely. When porn was relegated to theaters, attendees would have full-on sex in the theaters, not just jack off. The theaters often had these little side rooms where guys could go do that. I always felt like a weirdo because I just went there to watch them like they were real movies not to get off sexually. And I’m actually maybe a rare person who watches porn quite often without even getting hard much less jerking off. I like studying them to see how and why porns work. And any resulting titillation is just part of the research. But again, I’m a weirdo. ** HaRpEr //, Sure, the slaves are advertising themselves, and I assume at least a bunch of them do try to calculate how to annunciate their self-styled appeal. And maybe slaves trying to come off powerful ups the tops/masters’ conquering instincts. Anyway, yes, the machinations of that negotiation is very interesting, to me at least, obviously. Back when Gass and Gaddis were both alive they were often points of comparison due their names’ similarity and their high positions in the metafiction genre. Gass was kind of the friendly, fun one as opposed to Gaddis who was kind of the chilly, nerdy one. Something like that. And, yeah, the androgynous thing plays into that, although back then I don’t remember people in that less binary friendly time referring to his work in that way. ** Okay. I’ve brought a new gaggle of ‘ghosts’ to the fore for you today. See you tomorrow.