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Jeppe Hein Smoke Chair (2002)
‘A large mirror hangs on the wall with a small bench positioned in front of it. Upon taking a seat on the bench, visitors observe their own reflections, only to find themselves enveloped in smoke moments later. A small trigger activates a fog machine within the bench, releasing smoke from small holes that surround the seat. While contemplating their reflections in the mirror, visitors see themselves disappear in a cloud of smoke.’
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Johannes Vogl Untitled (Swing) (2010)
‘Steel, car tire, fire’
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MARCK Tank (2014)
‘lcd panel, iron, video loop’
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Valie Export Smart Export (1970)
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Superflex Burning Car (2008)
‘Burning Car is a work by Superflex in which a car is being set on fire. The empty car starts to burn, the cabin is filled with smoke and fire, car-paint is bobbling, tires explodes. Towards the end the car is burned out completely.’
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Lorna Simpson Cloudscape (2004)
‘The solitary image of the black male figure whistling and enveloped by smoke appears to be a song of departure from the charnel house of the racial sublime.’
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Graham Durward Various (2009)
‘Though Durward’s Untitled paintings appear abstract, they are actually representations of burning incense. Durward chose to paint incense because of its immateriality and association to ritual. These ideas are echoed through his painting style. In Untitled, the billows of smoke are retraced with the artist’s brush, the gestures replicate both what the vapour looks like as well as its ‘real’ properties of non-physicality and movement.’
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Amol K Patil BURNING SPEECHES (2025)
‘Burning Speeches (2025) consists of a radio playing a continuous conversation as it dissolves in clouds of smoke – radio was a way to protest censorship in India through the power of underground networks. ‘Dalit artists have this art form called Powada, which they used to perform in public spaces, for protest. Now they can’t, because they can get arrested,’ he says. ‘I use this space to show that people can meet underground and share with each other. A lot of people are part of my projects now: electricians, carpenters – the relationships make the work possible.’’
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Tom Wesselmann Smoking Cigarette #1 & Smoker #10 (1980)
Oil on wood and masonite, formica base
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Rosângela Rennó Experiencing Cinema (2004)
‘In “Experiencing Cinema,” a better use of atmospherics, Brazilian Rosangela Renno revives an early 19th century phantasmagoria practice of projecting still pictures onto veils of smoke. Photographs, gathered from found family albums, cohere briefly on the smoke screen; then both image and screen dissipate, mortality again provocatively aligned with ephemerality.’
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Ho Tzu Nyen The Cloud of Unknowing (2011)
‘The Cloud of Unknowing—which the artist created to represent his country at the 2011 Venice Biennale—is set in a deserted, low-income public housing block in Singapore and incorporates eight compartmentalized vignettes, each centered on a character who is met by an unexpected ethereal smoke cloud permeating their immediate surroundings. Additionally, four screens envelop the viewer in a dense, theatrical atmosphere that further enhances the sensorial impact of the installation. The artist even used smoke machines in the 2011 Venice Biennale installation.’
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Unknown Various (?)
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Jeroen van Loon An Internet (2015)
‘An Internet by Dutch artist Jeroen van Loon questions how the internet would look if all data were temporary and ephemeral. Visualising the flow of information in the form of glass tubes filled with smoke signals, the installation is based on the complex system of glass fibre internet cables that run across the ocean floors and continents.’
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Anthony McCall Split Second (2018)
‘Split Second is among Anthony McCall’s most recent ‘solid-light’ installations, a series of pioneering works begun in 1973, in which a volumetric form composed of projected light slowly evolves in three-dimensional space in a hazefilled room. McCall regards these works as occupying a space between sculpture, cinema, and drawing: sculpture because the projected volumes must be occupied and explored by visitors; cinema because they rely on the filmic image and change over time; and drawing because each work begins as a two-dimensional drawing. Split Second consists of two separate points of light projected at different heights. The two projections – one elliptical, one flat – meet and combine to form a single slowly changing line-drawing. The projections expand to reveal a flat blade and an elliptical cone, which combine in space to create a complex field of rotating, interpenetrating planes. This uniquely atmospheric work inducts the spectator into a three-dimensional field where forms gradually shift and turn over time, creating an active and immersive experience, one in which the spectator truly completes the work.’
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Marina Gadonneix Crime Scene (2015)
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Richard Friedberg Various (2014-17)
Materials: Aluminum, Aluminum Screening
Fire Storm
Oil Fire
Black Cloud
Explosion
Twin Fires
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Wyatt Burns 100 Cigarettes Machine (2014)
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Ariella Pahlke Burning Rubber (2009)
‘Burning Rubber is a provocative re-framing of burnouts and rural car culture a filmmakers search for meaning in a disregarded and often maligned form of self-expression. Based primarily in rural Nova Scotia, Burning Rubber weaves a predominantly male car culture together with artists and the curiosity of outsiders, ultimately stimulating larger questions about identity, creativity, gender, freedom, and how we decide what is valued and given meaning as art.’
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luzinterruptus 25 Minutes of protest in the smoke (2013)
‘The night of January 31 we took to the street to “perpetrate” an intervention that we’ve wanted to carry out for some time and that night it made more sense than ever. At that time, people had taken to the streets in a spontaneous manner, to protest against the scandalous political corruption that had been uncovered by a national newspaper and which implicated, with names and surnames, the entire leadership of the Spanish government. While the powers that be were entertained, trying to “control” public order at the headquarters of the PP of Madrid, we chose a central street, close to Gran Via, and there we carried out our light/sound, 25 Minutes of protest in the smoke. The action was very simple, only a few completely harmless, small, homemade smoke bombs that are placed under 9 powerful lampposts, in order to totally obscure the most illuminated street in the area, under a dense cloud of smoke. This environment, belonging to a post-conflict zone or of a church during the hours of mass, was inviting to stay and watch as the smoke materialized the beams of light from the lampposts, forming imperfect cones in space, within which the smoke evolved in hypnotic movements. To improve the scene being staged, the smoke managed to activate all the fire alarms on Gran Via which rang for a long time, contributing significantly to the general malaise that reigned on the streets at that time.’
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Mark Tennant Various (2016-2018)
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teamLab Massless Clouds Between Sculpture and Life (2020)
‘A giant cloud floats between the floor and the ceiling within the confines of the space, as though transcending the concept of mass. Even when people push through the floating cloud and break it, it naturally repairs itself like a living thing. But, as with living things, when the cloud is destroyed beyond what it can repair, it cannot mend itself, and it collapses.’
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Ron English Cloud (2009)
‘Billboard liberator and Popagandist, Ron English, was responsible for hiring the skywriting plane that spelled out the word “cloud” five times over the city this morning. In an interview earlier this year, English said “these actual clouds will be for sale,” but there’s still no word on pricing for the artistic condensation.’
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Yang Yongliang Cigarette Ash Landscape (2011)
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Frederico Surace Explosion for War Film (2017)
‘For this project i create a 3D simulation for Visual Effects Explosion rappresentation.’
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Judy Chicago A Purple Poem for Miami (2019)
‘Chicago began her Atmospheres series at the end of the 1960s but halted its production in 1974. The artist reignited the series in 2012, but on a larger scale. A Purple Poem for Miami is her sixth Atmospheres performance in seven years.’
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Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr Explosions (2011)
‘In these photographs by Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr, the artistic team captures a single, exciting moment in a mundane, domestic surrounding. For this series Explosion, the team synchronized a camera with a custom-built detonator to snap a photo at the exact moment of explosion.’
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The YES! Association SMOKING AREA (2012)
‘We installed a sixty-square-foot Smoking Area inside the Hessel Museum of Art, which shows a possibility for changing, or disrupting, the legal structure within an institution. The floor is painted with solid yellow lines the color of traffic signs and the cordoned-off space (modeled after such areas in train stations and other semi-outside public spaces across Europe) boldly reads SMOKING AREA in large font, complete with graphics of two lit cigarettes. The museum had to reevaluate. “Do you actually intend to have people smoking in there? Or is it just a painting?” There’s no way to really answer that. Visitors are activated; they are asked to make a choice: to smoke or to not smoke. We borrow from Hannah Arendt when we say: There is no doubt that the ability to act is the most dangerous of our abilities and possibilities.’
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Eyal Gever Large Scale Smoke Sim (2013)
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Kristoffer Myskja Smoking Machine V2 (2016)
‘The fact that the real “smell of fear” was given off by Smoking Machine tends to disprove the most commonly traded trope about fragrance: that reactions to it are purely “subjective” and “personal”. Few people would have reacted to the smell of cigarettes as though it were the very reek of the Antichrist during the Mad Men era – or even the 80s. The aversion is an acquired, cultural reflex.’
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Otto Piene Dynamisches Volumen (1961)
Oil, smoke and fire on canvas.
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James Benning Twenty Cigarettes (2011)
‘In Benning’s “Screentests” we watch 20 individuals, each of them smoking a cigarette. James Benning is well-known as the structuralist and documentarist who introduced the dimension of cinematic time into the landscape. One take lasts exactly three minutes, or the time it takes for a train to pass through a Californian landscape. This time round it’s people who determine the length of the takes by smoking a cigarette. They stand among walls and shelves and only their movements, which they try to control, and the movement of the smoke, which they can’t control, stipulate the coordinates of the filmic space. Benning makes a screenplay out of this and surprises us by once again creating something entirely new out of little more than smoke.’
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simtec CFD simulation of fire and smoke propagation in the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens (2012)
‘The health and safety system of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens was studied by SIMTEC, to evaluate the effectiveness of its standard and emergency HVAC systems. The building is a former industrial brewery and many of its art exhibits, were created with flammable materials. The basement, ground and second floor constitute the three major exhibition rooms and were modeled along with the lobby, the restaurant, the museum shop and the escalators. The network of fire sprinklers was modeled at their exact locations on the ceiling and the walls. The risk associated with their failure was estimated, considering three cases of sprinkler water capacity: (a) nominal, (b) partial and (c) empty.’
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Daniel Schulze For Those Who See (2010)
‘For Those Who See is a 2010 installation by Berlin-based artist Daniel Schulze that relies on a 7×7 grid of audio speakers to generate rings of fog that shoot upward from the device. The vortices appear for only a second or so, but are distinct enough that Schulze could then translate digital signals into fleeting visual patterns. The installation was a jury recommended work at the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival and won the audience award at the Create10 Student Design Competition.’
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Tony Oursler The Influence Machine (2000)
‘The Influence Machine is a multimedia installation which is staged outdoors. The work is comprised of seven video projections, each with its own audio track. The videos are projected onto a building and the trees that surround it. In addition, smoke machines are used to create a mass of smoke, onto which a video of a medium is projected. This medium speaks a garbled set of sentences in which it attempts to contact the technological pioneers Edward Gaspard Robertson and John Logie Baird. The other video projections include a talking light, a chorus singing and a technician’s hand.’
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Olaf Brzeski Something terrible stirs (2009)
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Yao Chung-Han Electronic Monster #3 – On the Hour (2017)
‘Electronic Monster #3 – On the Hour combines real time mechanical sounds and music produced by the artist. A mechanical smoke machine has been rigged to trigger every hour, filling the space and creating an image of a beast that changes in scale – an experience designed by the artist to draw attention to architectural framing that holds the image.’
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Claes Oldenburg Fagend Study (1975)
Lead and Cor-Ten Steel filled with Polyurethane Foam
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Olaf Breuning Smoke Bombs (2012)
‘Swiss visual artist Olaf Breuning places no limits on his medium of choice, expressing his artistic vison through peformance art, sculpture, drawing, photography, installation and film. My favorite of his work are these precisely staged photos of various smoke bombs, fireworks and other colorful objects arranged on a loose framework. The pieces have occasionally been lit as part of a “happening” such as his site-specific smoke installation at Station to Station in New York.’
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Laurent Grasso OttO (2018)
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Liz Magor Humidors (2004)
polymerised gypsum, tobacco
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Gwenessa Lam 368House Fires (Reverse Image Search 2015-16) (2016)
‘Lam’s video loop, 368 House Fires, presents repeated “still” images of a house on fire as flames transform the two-storey structure into a blazing inferno. The fire is advanced enough to be dramatic and reveal the house’s architectural form, but not so far along that the structure is unrecognizable. The animation, composed of 368 flashes of the same image in different sizes, spans less than two minutes and mimics the quick, glancing views of a digital search while simulating the flame’s flickering, burning assault.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** Adem Berbic, Hi. Well, I’ll never read the original French ‘Tomb’, but I will stand up for the English version however inappropriate its finessing might be because it’s great as heck. Unfortunately Guyotat’s greatest books are basically untranslatable, so they’ve been translating the more direct, more autobiographical ones like ‘Coma’, which are certainly worthy but not him exploding his genius. Apparently the new, last novel of him just published here is basically impossible to understand clearly even in French. Yum. My thanks to Pierre too. ** Steve, ‘Teenage Sex …’ isn’t here yet, but I assume it will be. Curious indeed if that’s true about ‘Frisk’. I haven’t heard that before. Yes, RT’s distributor is setting up the US streaming for the film right now. It’ll definitely be on at least one of the big, accessible platforms, but I’m not sure which yet. This weekend … seeing some art with visiting pal Bruce Hainley and Zac, Thomas Moore arrives for a visit tomorrow, maybe see a film, not sure which. Looking forward to the ep. ** _Black_Acrylic, Summer has a lot to answer for, that’s for sure. The 22nd will be here before you know it. That’s my look-on-the-bright-side side in high gear. Yes, you and ‘RT’. Keep your ears peeled when you watch the intro video we just recorded yesterday. Good, be our ‘Shards’ on Netflix pioneer and spread the news. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Mm, no, from the ones I’ve visited, Japanese parks tend to be smaller. More packed. I mean excluding the two Disney parks. They’re, of course, giant. So many reasons not to go jogging. That’s beautiful about the new discovered door, wow. Is it also useful? Not that it needs to be to be charismatic. Love making my next lit cigarette a work of art, G. ** Hugo, Hi. Well, my blog is ravenous when it comes to comments. NYC, so soon! Wow! And happy birthday slightly in advance, I’m assuming. 23 is an excellent starting gate. Everyone, Anyone out there have some NYC recommendations for the soon to visiting Hugo? Have a blast if I don’t confer with you before. ** fish, Hi, fish, welcome back! Oh, I have a kind of personal problem with generalisations and that includes collective identity. I mean I’m as gay or queer as you can be, and that certainly has a strong effect on what I choose to write about, but other than that my being queer doesn’t feel overly important to me. It’s just one of the things I am. So that’s what I mean, I guess. I have total respect for people who find value and power in seeing themselves as part of a collective identity. It’s just never worked that way for me personally. Does that help? You doing good in general? ** Thom, I think you won’t regret taking a Guyotat plunge. But nothing is certain in this life of course. Ooh, lovely about incorporating R-G’s writing into your drone piece. The idea is savory. I hope the zine launch goes extremely well. Please let me how that went if you feel so inclined. Otherwise, yeah, rest up. A chill weekend seems to be in the offing on my end. ** Fionn, Hey! Welcome, and thank you for de-lurking. Sherberty is such a good description of ‘EEE’. I’ll quote you the next time that book comes up. I don’t know know ‘La Chatte à deux têtes’. I mostly know Nolot from his acting. Interesting, I’ll see if I can find it. Huh, I had read that the last Cine X in Paris closed, but I just checked and you’re right. There’s one in Clichy. And it’s even been renovated and enlarged. Wild. I’ll go mosey around there. Nice to get to talk with you. Obviously come back and share whatever you want when/if the mood strikes. ** laura w, ‘Eden Eden Eden’ is a lot shorter than ‘2066’ for one thing, thank goodness. ‘Four Nights of a Dreamer’ has finally been restored after ages, but I don’t think it has gotten around very much. It’s among my favorite Bressons. Festivals like to premiere films or at least show films that are both new and seem destined for buzziness amongst the general population, and we don’t qualify anymore. Oh well. Early happy birthday! I hope something special comes up. I guess you have two days to find that. I always do as little as possible on my birthday. Zac’s birthday is next week too. We’re just about at the moment when Parisians empty out and go to their summer homes or whatever for the rest of the summer. So it’s still lively-ish. But next week the stores will start closing for their vacations, and I have to remember to stock up on cigarettes this weekend. Thanks for making me remind myself. ** politekid, Hi! Before I forget, is there any way you could seen me a pdf or its equivalent of your book? The physical book still hasn’t arrived, and I fear that the always unreliable French mail system might have eaten it. Can you? I’m dying to read it. I don’t what a&e means, but I assume it’s not a good place to spend hours. I hope sleep is starting to break your door down. Sucks, sorry, pal. I don’t think ‘Tomb’ is going to get a new translation, and I swear to god it’s totally excellent in its current English form. Come over and go to Parc Asterix with us in October when they do their Halloween makeover. It’s actually really good with haunted houses and everything. I wait anxiously for it every year. I agree that you need to fucking write, so get your life and finances or whatever in order, sir. My weekend should be somewhat solid and nice and maybe not more than that, but that’s just fine. I’m not sure that I’m interested enough in Charli xcx to listen to her when she’s not doing high energy dance/pop music, but I guess I should find out. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! I did see Guyotat do a reading at the Pompidou when I first moved here. It was dreamy. I’m way around and read to hang and do whatever as soon as you’re ready! Safest trip! xo. ** sal, Hi! Oh my god back to you. That’s amazing: those downloadable Guyotats. I think you just saved some lives. Everyone, Rather huge news: Kindly and wonderfully nefarious sal can hook you up with free pdfs of Guyotat’s ‘Tomb …’ and ‘Eden Eden Eden’! Quite possibly the only way you’r going to get to read them unless you already have them or have big bucks to buy the o.o.p editions. Here’s ‘Tomb …’. And here’s ‘Eden Eden Eden’. Grab them, seriously! Thanks a billion, sal. Spectacular weekend to you! ** HaRpEr //, Me too. ‘Tomb …’ is significantly greater than ‘Idiocy’ if you ask me and if you’re setting priorities. I mean teaching the English language. Or that’s the gig my friends have. I’ll ask them or at least one of them as soon as I see them. Enjoy trans pride. Do they celebrate it in the usual way with a parade and speeches and, I don’t know, dancing and stuff? It sounds promising. Have so much fun and empowerment and all those necessary things. ** Ezra, Hey, Ezra. Well, it has a lot of Algeria in it, that’s one thing for sure. I’ve never been to either Morocco or Algeria. Weird. I think I’ll wait until it’s not hot there, if it ever is. Don’t like heat. Wow, that’s quite a party. I hope they don’t trash the place unless you want them to. All the luck winning over the young cokehead’s heart. Sounds worth the old college try. Wow, if you survive, let me know how it went. Your Saturday is definitely going to wipe the floor with mine. ** voskat, Hi! Please tell Laura I miss her too if she isn’t directly reading those words. I’m guessing you were listening to ‘Horse Rotorvator’. My favorite Coil. Sweet. ** Okay. Smoke ’em since you have ’em this weekend. See you on Monday.
Now available in North America 
Hello,
Smoking’s cool, but nicotine just leaves me with vertigo. Something magic to summoning a cloud from up out of you though. I like Fagend Study, chewed up like a piece of artillery, lol.
I’ll check out that cinema next I’m in Paris too, I’ve been wanting to explore much more of France in the autumn, having hung around the Basque Country for a couple months last year. Immensely grateful for the €20 flights from Ireland lol. There’s a seaside resort, La Grande-Motte, that’s got this kind of honeycomb architecture to the whole place. It’s captured super gorgeously in a music video I’ve been enamoured with – Malibu’s ‘So Far Out Of Love’. So a sort of pilgrimage is in order.
Love this collection and would be remiss not to add to it-
artstudioreynolds.com/burn/
Reynold Reynolds an experimental film maker who studied under brakhage
Hi!!
Joschi Herczeg and Daniele Kaehr’s Explosions look so good! Thank you for all the smoke art!
The newly discovered door is actually very useful. It basically provides access to another apartment building—one I thought was completely separate from ours apart from sharing a wall. The whole layout of our building is crazy; no apartments are directly above one another, and the door numbers aren’t in order either. I’ve never met as many confused and lost delivery people as I have here, haha.
Love telling/showing you the solution to an unsolved mystery—either from your own life specifically or from a broader context. What would you like to know? Od.
Thinking of Jason Simon’s photos of Moyra smoking, xoxo
@HaRpEr //: As part of the club of artists who survive by teaching languages I can only back up Dennis’s suggestion. I used to wing it job-wise until I became a teacher, taking whatever gig I could find, & that is obviously quite a stressful way to live. When I got back to Germany I enrolled in this one-month intensive course to obtain a CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) via Cambridge. It’s a tough course but worth it. Once I passed I immediately got job offers left & right. Now I worked mostly in community colleges, teaching actual classes to adults, but later with Covid I transitioned to more online teaching. Unfortunately I’m not much help when it comes to giving you advice on where/how to find clients. I got mine through word of mouth & my work network. But I’m sure Dennis’s friends will have suggestions or a quick search online will yield some options. I only wanted to assure you that it’s definitely worth pursuing, & (in my experience) easy & reliable work for us artists. You don’t even need something like the CELTA anymore, people are desperate for native English speakers to teach them. Doesn’t even have to be China. Spain, where I’m at, has a great shortage of English teachers. So does Italy.
Thanks! It was very helpful to take this all into account. I honestly don’t mind the unreliability of random gigs because being tied to something for a while can be a bit depressing for me, but reliable money obviously creates less stress, which is ideal.
Oh I hear you, I don’t like ties either. But teaching (especially online) is usually no strict 9-to-5, plus you can always pause to do other things, as I frequently have.
Hey there, Dennis, Oh yes, indeed, I know all about Mark E. Smith and Pavement, which is why it was so funny when Malkmus dedicated ‘Conduit for Sale!’ to the fall season. But I’ll tell you right now: I love Pavement way more, but Mark E. Smith was crazy innovative. I looked into Parc Asterix and I think my oldest is still too young. She’s barely graduated from the small loop-d-loop at Oaks Park in Portland. Eventually, yes, she’s a thrill seeker and she’ll love Parc Asterix. Maybe next year? She’s in French immersion school and I believe we’ll be heading back for her school trip sometime soon. Naturally, she’ll be ordering for me at restaurants. I’m about to send you an email. Pls look for it! Take care, Don
Hi Dennis! I’ve been a fan of yours for quite a while, and a blog-reader for just as long, but this is my first time commenting.
I’ve always thought there’s some hidden essence to smoking that makes it, aesthetically speaking, more than a mereological sum of parts. Deep breaths cannot replace the catharsis of a cigarette, and the alternative forms of nicotine (patches, pouches, gum, &c.) also don’t provide the same sort of mental relief so much as they do staving off withdrawals and stimulating a person. The psychologists of the future will have to go beyond Freud in explaining this unique appeal. Quitting cigs hasn’t stopped me from appreciate a nice pull of weed as it hits the back of the throat. Truly one of the 21st c. biggest mysteries.
I sent an email a few months back, but I suppose it didn’t reach the right address. I had a diagnosis of bipolar a long time ago and my pseudo-partner at the time saw some sort of cohomology between your works and our relationship, hence my getting into your works. Although, now, I appreciate them on their own merit.
Sort of floored again, stepping out of the silent majority (I am just going to join the vocal minority already, way more fun).
The Mark Tennant paintings were just incredible. How much you can do with just a black line as shadow, makes everything two dimensional and three dimensional at once. Trippy. Love it.
Graham Durward reminds me of my brother’s stuff (my twin, Nick Farhi). I remember him just studying Dan Colen’s candle paintings forever and ever. These would be after those are extinguished.
The readings went well! My brother came to the one at the KGB and that was pretty significant for me (as you know Sapsuckers is about two brothers fictitious, but there are certainly recognizable scenes that only he would know, and he hasn’t read it yet). On theme with today’s post I’ve been wearing a Lego cigarette pin my friends make (Ricky and Dee, another shameless plug) because I realized there is quite a lot of smoking in my writing! I don’t know, probably because I was a terrible terrible smoker before.
So I quit smoking (weed and cigarettes) about seven years ago, but it was pretty copious before then. The GIFs of the bowls in this post are pretty great, it is quite an aesthetically interesting past time (at least it can be). I remember thinking back then “What other plant grows like this, man? Like buds like this?” and the answer is quite a lot of great herbs are also super beautiful and bud up like that and I was just stoned and a little too urban to know any better. Lavender is fucking amazing (though it smells like soap). Anyways!
Hope all is well with you, I am going to dig into your archives for some poets. I decided it’s much better to carry around and check a slim volume of poetry every two seconds as opposed to a phone, so that’s what I am going to do.
OK gotta go work on this little “trailer” see ya! Have a good week!
I love the Smoke Chair. And what I can see of the Oursler looks great. I’ve only seen one or two tiny works of his in person. Hope I get to catch one of his bigger pieces sometime, but I know better than to hold my breath.
I went through this brief “smoke period” in the early teens when most of the new video pieces I made had things dissolving in smoke, or smoke congealing into stuff. Kind of hard to control for what I wanted to do at the time, but maybe I should look into it again…
Bill
Unknown – Various (?) = would that be crack or some other illicit substance, I wonder? Cannot say I have much experience with these types of smokeables. My dalliance with nicotine was only very brief during my Dundee days. That and my MS did not really compute.
Hey Dennis. Smokers: cool. I’ve tried assiduously and thankfully mostly successfully to avoid getting into smoking, as much as I do love smokers, or at least smoker hangouts, because for some reason the little balcony outside the party always seems to have more interesting conversation than the rest of it. I know you smoke, and that it is possibly the last drug you still do, I think. Been occupied with the goings-on here over the past week. The protests were somewhat successful, and the minister actually resigned, which is a huge slap in the face for this government, but nothing they can’t recover from, unfortunately, but hopefully it’ll leave something of a crack in the mirror. Pretty brutal: tear gas, water cannons, batons with nails on them, pellet guns, actual guns (thankfully the latter were never used). I avoided the worst of it, but then got into it with a policeman who I upbraided for catcalling a passing girl and then, because I know they’re trying to provoke you to violence so that they can respond even more disproportionately, had to sort of grimace and bear it as he pushed me into barricades, etc. A large autobiography I’d picked up, as well as my Armistead Maupin from a decade ago (I do find him funny, whatever that says about me), were good at saving my back from the worst of the effect, leaving nothing more than a sprained ankle and the lightest of a stripe-y bruise running the length of my ass. What times we live in, so unordinary and dreary in their violence!
So the housewarming was absolutely phenomenal. It’s 21:41 sunday, and I still haven’t slept. The last people left around 6:30am, and my hubby and I took relaxed for a while, and then I had the brilliant idea to buy ketamine. So when they cute dealer arrived, we took all the blankets off the bed and took them into the living room and laid them in front of the fire (cos it is the middle of winter here) and put on some music and spent the day going into K holes. Then a couple of friends came round after attending a friend of theirs living wake, and we had some dinner, and some ketamine, and strawberry milk tequila. Now, I am getting ready to go back to my blankets in front of the fire and relax. Thankfully, I don’t have to work tomorrow. I do have an online uni lecture, but not til 3pm, so I can just enjoy myself until I eventually pass out. I am so glad that the party was a success, and I am definitely going to find another excuse soon to throw a party.
A very validating post, although perhaps that’s a bad thing. I’m still trying to upskill to social smoking. The results are middling, but I guess middling results are better than no results.
I did a reading last night at an event which I thought was pleasantly, maybe surprisingly sweet. I mean, and I want to phrase this carefully because those people all have good intentions, but I think it’s still a crowd which places the accent on who’s reading more than what’s being read. Not that that isn’t slightly inevitable, but there are degrees to it. And I’m not sure about the sum total of it and what it might actually allow one to put forward when a lot of the work there strikes me as very carefully wedded to and tailored for its social existence. But it was sweet.
Anyway, London in general seems to place a massive premium on the act of reading now, as a sort of glossy, socialised token of literary prowess or something. I’ve essentially exhausted my reading-friendly material. I think that second story in the pamphlet relies too much on there being a closed loop between the text and its reader to work out loud. Probably similar for the next thing, if I can pull it off right.
Erp, I didn’t mean to put a bunch of people off the ‘Tomb’ translation. I mean, I stand by what I think — especially on its potty mouth, I can’t get over that — but Guyotat’s Guyotatness still comes through. Maybe it does just leverage the sort of specific jankiness of French in a way that’s, whisper it, untranslatable.
I’m typing this in a little breadcrumb of rest before I go see Justin Broadrick in his JK Flesh incarnation. I hope to be smothered. I can report back on the degree of smothering tomorrow.
thanks for the early birthday wishes! some of the best people have late july or early august birthdays, but i’m biased of course. allegedly we’re leos, but astrology is bullshit.
i think, big think, that criterion may have gotten the distribution rights to four nights of a dreamer? but they haven’t done much with it yet. i assume there will be some expensive but fancy 4k bluray whatever will be coming out for it eventually. i have some very serious film friends who are big collectors and have a lot of thoughts and opinions about whether it has been less envelope-pushing than i guess it used to be. i am very clearly not a very serious film person and don’t own a single one, but i enjoy discourse.
i am probably going to get barbecue tonight and then do ??? tomorrow. i am feeling the itch to spend a lot of money. i don’t smoke myself but i think it looks cool so this was a delight. i love the lamp with the smoke billowing out under it and the paintings of incense smoke. i saw some things about wildfires in bordeaux and i wonder if that’ll keep some people around this summer… all the wildfires going on everywhere makes me want to revisit that joan didion article about fire season.
i hope you did in fact remember to buy cigarettes!
Climate change is turning us all into smokers.
Did you end up seeing anything over the weekend?
I’ve got a new “Radio Not Radio” episode, with jazz, metal, queer Latin bluegrass and child improvisers: https://www.mixcloud.com/callinamagician/7252026-radio-not-radio/. This one features Henry Threadgill, Miles Okazaki, Akusmi, Philip Golub, Ornette Coleman & Prime Time, Bobbi Humphrey, The Afrofuturistics, Kalia Vandever, Deafkids, Pylar, Psycroptic, Devourment, Bolt Thrower, Alkuharmonian Kantaja, Cain Culto, Ray Barretto, Celeste Mendoza, Kenny Vance, D Juno, Bonobo, Kelela, Syd, Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra and Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited
I love smoke—in general, in art, in the sacred charge it carries, & in the kind I produce. Smoking is honestly more than just some habit for me. At its best, each cigarette is a mini-meditation, & I could never count the number of times I got a great idea or line for a poem or deep insight during one of these.
My favorite “celebrity” smoker: Harry Dean Stanton. He made an art form out of it. Who’s yours Dennis?
Which reminds me: how the fuck can anyone afford to smoke in France? When I was in Marseille I was shocked to discover my Pueblos going for 10€ & change per pack, versus half of that over here in Spain. Are all brands in the double digit region?
argh bastard French mail. absolutely i can send you a pdf. is your email still denniscooper72 at outlook? if so i’ll try to send it your way tomorrow morning before work.
okay, Tomb is back on the menu. and Halloween Parc Asterix sounds a blast!! i’d love to come. i don’t think i have any October plans, bar checking out local trick or treaters on the big day itself.
no good smoker stories to contribute i’m afraid. i got pathetically addicted to second hand smoke at university. all my friends and all the people i fell in love with were smokers and i didn’t fancy sitting on my own inside while they went outside. (smoking does make people incredibly attractive to me. something to unpack sometime, maybe.) otherwise i’ve been blessed with a chemically non-addictive personality, it seems. plus i’m too lazy, i’d just give up the first time i ran out of cigarettes and couldn’t be bothered to leave the house.
how was your weekend? mine was just work — thankfully quiet, so i’ve been reading and doing bugger all else, but that also means little to report. a woman came into the bookshop today who had lived in the same house as Jean Rhys and with her old landlord. i also found a second-hand copy of Jane Bowles’s short stories. sleep hasn’t managed to break down the door, but the few snatches i’ve managed have at least come with good dreams. last night’s featured a bus which, as i clambered over the seats, slowly transformed into the Frank Lloyd Wright Unity Chapel, albeit with the bus’s metal handrails and seat furnishings and still driving down the road.
Maybe you’ve seen it already, but today’s theme reminds me of Ed Templeton’s Teenage Smokers series: https://ed-templeton.com/photography/teenage-smokers-2/
I’m doing alright. Lots of interpersonal complexity and general confusion in my life, but I guess that’s what your 20s are supposed to be about. And yeah, makes sense on the collective identity thing. I’ve gotten less and less fond of labels as time goes on, though the people around me frequently care a lot about them.
Hey! I’m part of the smoking section in this comment section. The one time I quit nicotine cold turkey to save money I started hallucinating and convinced myself I had murdered someone and threw myself down a flight of carpeted stairs in anguish and then spontaneously went out for a run that was so intense that I had aches and pains for a week. So as of this moment I have no intention of quitting until some vague point in the future. The first cigarette of that relapse was the greatest of my life. I try to avoid using cigarettes as props in things I write because in this day and age they’re loaded with superficial artyness and metaphors for holding the thing that’ll kill you in your hand blahblahblah. I was once smoking with a friend who told me that every time they smoke they think about death, and I responded that they probably don’t smoke very often then.
Trans pride was fun, I met some cool people. There were the typical pride things like speeches and partying, yeah. I think I walked past every major trans and queer public figure in the UK. Joe Locke from ‘Heartstopper’ was probably the most famous. All the people in the streets going about their day were dumbstruck with awe, because for once they were the weirdos, and that was cool. I’m not the kind of person who cares about being ‘proud’ of being trans. I don’t know why, probably because I’ve never felt overly understood in a lot of spaces that are labeled queer, but seeing so many different kinds of people there was definitely beautiful.
Horrible about what happened in Berlin. In London I definitely saw a lot of bullshit from bigots and it was palatable that there was a lot of anger and tension overall.
On my birthday, I went to the Baltimore Museum of Art and watched this wonderful video piece called “Capture and Sequestration” by Josh Kline. It was a four-screen production where each started with smoke billowing from a stack before following with the reverse process of the burning of four different items that each plume of smoke was making: a carton of Marlboros, a pair of Levis, a bag of Domino sugar, and a jerry can. This blog post really brought that piece back into my mind as most of it was four screens just filling the frame with smoke while the droning soundtrack (by Miho Hatori!) played on.
Anyway, hope July’s treated you well as it goes out. It’s Bugs Bunny’s 85th today, and I just finished the staged reading run that I was performing in. It went very well, and people really enjoyed my work in it. Definitely giving me thoughts on pursuing more acting in the future so I’d say it was a success.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro – Blur Building