our room

blonde on blonde the whole way

B & C

1934 Bonnie Parker



You've read the story of Jesse James--
Of how he lived and died;
If you're still in need
Of something to read
Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang.
I'm sure you all have read
How they rob and steal
And those who squeal
Are usually found dying or dead.

There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
They're not so ruthless as that;
Their nature is raw;
They hate the law--
The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.

They call them cold-blooded killers;
They say they are heartless and mean;
But I say this with pride,
That I once knew Clyde
When he was honest and upright and clean.

But the laws fooled around,
Kept taking him down
And locking him up in a cell,
Till he said to me,
"I'll never be free,
So I'll meet a few of them in hell."

The road was so dimly lighted;
There were no highway signs to guide;
But they made up their minds
If all roads were blind,
They wouldn't give up till they died.

The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
Sometimes you can hardly see;
But it's fight, man to man,
And do all you can,
For they know they can never be free.

From heart-break some people have suffered;
From weariness some people have died;
But take it all in all,
Our troubles are small
Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.

If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
And they have no clue or guide;
If they can't find a fiend,
They just wipe their slate clean
And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.

There's two crimes committed in America
Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
They had no hand
In the kidnap demand,
Nor the Kansas City Depot job.

A newsboy once said to his buddy:
"I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
In these awful hard times
We'd make a few dimes
If five or six cops would get bumped."

The police haven't got the report yet,
But Clyde called me up today;
He said, "Don't start any fights--
We aren't working nights--
We're joining the NRA."

From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
Is known as the Great Divide,
Where the women are kin,
And the men are men,
And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.

If they try to act like citizens
And rent them a nice little flat,
About the third night
They're invited to fight
By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.

They don't think they're too smart or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
They've been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.

Some day they'll go down together;
They'll bury them side by side;
To few it'll be grief--
To the law a relief--
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.

surreal scans

Oh Percy

THE FREE MUSIC MACHINE

http://120years.net/machines/free_music_machine/

Grainger was a vegetarian who was not particularly fond of vegetables, and lived variously on nuts, boiled rice, wheatcakes, cakes, bread and jam, ice cream and oranges. Grainger was a sado-masochist, with a particular enthusiasm for flagellation, who extensively documented and photographed everything he and his wife did. His walls and ceilings were covered in mirrors so that after sessions of self-flagellation he could take pictures of himself from all angles, documenting each image with details such as date, time, location, whip used, and camera settings. He gave most of his earnings from 1934–1935 to the University of Melbourne for the creation and maintenance of a museum dedicated to himself. Along with his manuscript scores and musical instruments, he donated the photos, 73 whips, and blood-soaked shirts. Although the museum opened in 1935, it was not available to researchers until later. He was a cheerful believer in the racial superiority of blond-haired and blue-eyed northern Europeans. This led to attempts, in his letters and musical manuscripts, to use only what he called "blue-eyed English" (akin to Anglish and the 'Pure English' of Dorset poet William Barnes) which expunged all foreign (i.e., non-Germanic) influences. In Grainger's writings, a composer was a "tone-smith" who "dished up" his compositions and a piano was a "keyed-hammer-string". He hated Italian terms in music scores; "poco a poco crescendo molto" became "louden lots bit by bit". This bias was not consistently applied though: he was friends with and an admirer of Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, and also gave regular donations to African-American causes. Grainger eagerly collected folk music tunes, forms, and instruments from around the world, from Ireland to Bali, and incorporated them into his own works. Furthermore, alongside his love for Scandinavia was a deep distaste for German academic music theory; he almost always shunned such standard (and ubiquitous) musical structures as sonata form, calling them "German" impositions. He was ready to extend his admiration for the wild, free life of the ancient Vikings to other groups around the world, which in his view shared their way of life, such as the ancient Greece of the Homeric epics. Other departures from the common norms of the time included never ironing his shirts and wearing the same clothes for days. He once said "concert audiences can't tell the difference". While in America, he was twice arrested for vagrancy due to his dress. In his later years, when he scavenged in rubbish bins in the middle of the night for parts to make musical instruments, he dressed in his best clothes for the task. Grainger was a stout believer in natural forces and felt that the summer months were meant to be hot and the winter months were meant to be cold. Thus in winter he slept naked with his bedroom windows open, while spending the stifling summer evenings adorned in heavy wool.

- Wikipedia

word of the day

HETEROGLOSSIA

"the base condition governing the operation of meaning in any utterance."

"The term heteroglossia refers to the qualities of a language that are extralinguistic, but common to all languages. These include qualities such as perspective, evaluation, and ideological positioning. In this way most languages are incapable of neutrality, for every word is inextricably bound to the context in which it exists."

Thank you Mikhail Bakhtin, 'Problems of Dostoevsky’s Art: polyphony and unfinalizability'.

Video/ Experimental Film/ Interactive Art- worth remembering

Paul Sermon
Telematic Dreaming

'Telematic Dreaming' (1992) turns a bed into the support of high-resolution images that might show a partner, intimately alive although being thousand kilometers away. The light-intense projection of the other results in a remarkable suggestion which turns the touch of the projected body into an intimate action. Sermon aims at expanding the senses of the user, while it is obvious that the other cannot really be touched but that only swift, decisive, possibly tenderly reactive movements can experience the suggestion of touch—a moment of contemplation, as many users observed. The synaesthetical, sensual impression lets the hand and the eye fuse, and it is this effect that characterizes this work as well as the works to come in the following years, in collaboration with Andrea Zapp.
Oliver Grau



Rafael Lozano
Pulse Room
Pulse Room, a sensor records the pulse of the public and converts it into light flashes shown by incandescent light bulbs. At any given time the room shows the heartbeat of the 100 most recent participants.



Eye Contact


Sam Taylor-Wood
Third Party

The video installation is about the tensions and erotic entanglements arising between persons in a closed environment, realized with professional actors and the British rock star Marianne Faithful. The 10-minute film sequence, shot with 7 cameras simultaneously, is accompanied by an elaborate sound installation. The simultaneous presentation in the installation space asks the visitor to individually synthesize the scenario.

(Source a.o.: Württembergischer Kunstverein online)



Gary Hill
Viewer

In the multiple-channel video projection «Viewer,» blatant watching becomes the sole activity. While during the act of watching, the viewer adapts to the confrontation with performers, and tests their presence from various perspectives; on the «other side» of the screen, and from the very beginning, the action of the performers amounts to seeking direct eye-contact with the viewer. People wearing everyday clothing, representing different social backgrounds, stand arranged in a line as though in a team. But 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.



Tall Ships



Daniel Rozin
Weave Mirror



Michael Snow
Wavelength



La Région Centrale
"In La Région Centrale the frame emphasizes the cosmic continuity which is beautiful, but tragic: it just goes on without us." (Michael Snow)


Ernie Gehr
Serene Velocity

"The rapidity of the alternation of shots and the sense of increasing distance between represented spaces create images of superimposition. The disjunction between the structure of the film as discrete units and the appearance of superimposition make the viewer conscious of the distorting illusion which causes the transformation. Just as the film object is filtered through a distorting mechanism, so all perceptions of the exterior are mediated by the individual's consciousness."-
http://wuemme.hp.infoseek.co.jp/Event_doc/USIS_TEXT_eng.htm




Hollis Frampton
Nostalgia