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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
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1967 Mason Williams Edward Ruscha Patrick Blackwell | 2000 Corinne Carlson Karen Henderson Marla Hlady |
In 1967 three sexy smart artist guys threw a Royal Typewriter out of a Buick Le Sabre and carefully recorded the results. In 2000 three sexy smart artist gals threw a Macintosh Plus Computer out of a Ford Econoline and recorded the results in exactly the same fashion.
The Royal Road Test had a major impact on me when I was a student, and my copy of the book is probably the third thing I'd grab in a house fire (after the two cats). Three guys take on technology, using a flash machine (car) to wreck a clunky one (typewriter). A personal mobility machine to wreck a personal expression machine. Their 'test area' is a piece of roadside in Nevada that looks like US nuclear test sites. Governments throw atoms around and blow stuff up, create mushroom clouds, wreck the lives of millions, and threaten the planet with extinction. We little people can get in our cars and throw typewriters. The captions are wry and the whole 'test' is conducted with poignant, deadpan humour. The epigraph reads:
"It was too directly bound to its own anguish to be anything other than a cry of negation; carrying within itself the seeds of its own destruction."
As our technological equipment supersedes itself, it is perfect that Carlson, Henderson and Hlady redid the Road Test. And I love that it was girls this time who threw the damn machine and watched it smash.
Indulge me in a Dave Hickey-esque hiccup. Why is it still the case that the classier the art, the harder it is to spot the gallery from the street?
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Before: Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, 778 King St. W, Toronto, ON, Canada |
After: Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, same location, after I zapped it with my people-are-smart-so-let-them-see-the-damn-art supersonic ray gun. |
A lot of the best art shows I've ever seen were in this place. So I feel pretty lucky that I know where/what it is.
Vandals! Buckingham Palace's head gardener reportedly in tears after Bush's "choppers" wrecked the joint. (thanks to rick for the link!)
City Beautification Ensemble started colourizing urban fixtures a couple of years ago. Lately they seem to be concentrating their efforts on bike parking. I like them because they really are trying to make things look nice. At first they were pretty slap-dash, and there'd be big messy overspray around everything they did. They got some complaints and then fixed up their methods! Very responsive and responsible for a gang of lads with buckets of paint. Apparently their website is 2% complete.
I like yellow bikes because for a small annual fee you can have access to these plucky little well-oiled one-speeders whenever you like. I picked one up the other day while out on errands. The hard part is bringing them back to the hub on time, cause they are so much fun to ride.
QUIZ: Hey all you who went to art school! Remember this crazy shit?
name that author...
"The painter is concerned with representing solely what can be seen. These points, if they are joined one to the other in a row, will form a line. With us a line is a figure whose length can be divided but whose width is so fine that it cannot be split. Some lines are called straight, others curved. A straight line is drawn directly from one point to another as an extended point. The curved line is not drawn straight from one point to another, but rather looks a drawn bow. More lines, like threads woven together in a cloth, make a plane."
Mouchette is a really successful online persona: a sad, creepy little girl based on the 1967 film by Robert Bresson. The website has been around for years and years and as far as I can tell the identity of the people behind the persona is still unknown. My favourite thing about Mouchette is the email. There's lots of places to make comments on the site, and having done this I periodically receive email such as the one below:Dear Sally McKay,
Last time we met in private, on a page that I made for you alone. We shared that brief moment just once in our lives, never again will you see that page. But now I made a new private page for you only:
http://mouchette.org/to/you?Sally_McKay,4e45bf9966bd2cc144256fd0e74f33b9
Look everywhere, the page has some secrets inside
I can't wait to have you click on me again,
*bisou*
Mouchette
The page I was taken to was incredibly disconcerting. Too-close-up pink skin, panting little girl breath, and a bar you could pull that showed an image of raw muscle tissue underneath. When I tried to go back a second time I got the message:the page you are looking for is not hereI'm not comfortable with the child suicide, sexuality and violence. But being comfortable is not what Mouchette is about, she's provocative and she knows it. There's a forum for sending Mouchette hate mail that is also unnerving in it's brutality. But panning through the random painful angry posts, made me think about the genuine challenges of free communication in public space. People ain't always pretty.
you won't ever see it again