justinfiske

Lemniscate-35

2010-03-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

So I made a speech and an art commission for the annual open day at Graduate School of Business. It was wildly pressured for timed, which put me up at 02h00 this morning trying to nail it. But it came out sweet. Thanks to you all... These are some grubby pics of the work and below is the text of the speach as promised... it the working draft and I'll update the post and add the speech as I gave it when I see the recording.

Thanks to all involved... particularly, Elaine, Jenny, Garreth, Sammy, Justin, Bill (for right at the beginning... which is where it all starts) , Pauly, Danielle (?), Nathan

...& here's how she moves:

Hey, next post will have a picture of my new baby! Jeez.... my most ambitious collaboration to date.

working draft of speech text below to be updated.

What is Curiosity? There’s a good question.

Thankyou Elaine. Hello everybody, it’s nice to see you all sitting there…. I’m Justin. I’m a fine artist amongst other things…. Or rather I should say I have been many thing but for the last couple of years I have been focusing fulltime on my fine art process.

My work deals with mathematical things almost engineering and scientific enquiry, but it is fine art, so it is presented in the realm of the poetic. So I am partly a scientist and partly a poet and perhaps in a slightly more obvious way to the general populus but I would maintain that we all have to do this. Whenever we use metaphore and when we distinguish between denotation and connotation which all of us do all the time, hopefully, we all have to tell the difference between meaning and reference to meaning. There are times when we need to call a spade a spade, and there are times when dry equivilancy doesn’t quite cut the mustard, so….. you refer to the word “truth” with the word “spade” and you refer to experience of adequacy with the act of cutting the mustard….

Now, what the hell am I talking about? There’s a good question.

I’m talking about the mechanics of how we understand things, and choose meaning in how we experience and communicate. Where does that leave the concept of agreement or common understanding? These would be important questions to understanding the strange language of fine art and to learning in general. & here we all sit in an institute of learning…..

I’m starting to sound like a lecturer and I’m not that I can assure you, In fact I have a string of unfinished degrees, which I’ll come back to. So let’s have a look at what I do, which is make kinetic sculpture. The best way to do this would be to show some films. There’s an irony attached to that…. Which I’ll come back to

Play Head Wrap short (3min) & Suspension short (1min). Continue talking over Trans-show (2min).

Ok so there is my work. Or more accurately there are some parts of some documentaries about my work. You will see a real work of mine shortly, which will be a different kind of experience. It is precisely this difference that is a central theme if not the root of my artistic process to date. It’s also what makes my showing you these real works, that exist at various locations around the world, in the virtual, so “ironical”. But this is how we live. I think of these strange little machines as experience machines… viewer makes a simple input, machine converts it to a complex output, machine and mechanics are visible, so there is an obvious question: How did it do that? And that, is the great classical enquiry, and to my mind that is the actual work. For many viewers there is a moment of non-comprehension to which it seems there is a prevalent human response, which is enquiry. These works encourage if not force a classical enquiry onto us because we live in a time which makes it so difficult to interrogate our experience. I should also say that they are primarily a residue of my classical enquiry. I obviously have to ask the question, “how does it work?” before I make these things. I also ask other things like, “Is it beautiful? “, “Is the solution as simple and ingenious as it can be?”, and critical to my experience of expressive arts,“Is it mine?”, or “Does it belong to me?”

All that aside, within the realm of an audience, these works are about one thing, a question: How does it work?

So. What use is a fine artist who’s repeatedly fallen shy of the textbook version of a “diligent student” talking semantics, linguistics & philosophy to an audience of highly educated professionals (I assume…) at a tertiary institution? There’s another good question. I don’t suppose I have too many answers for that, But I can tell you I have learnt some things in my time and I have had the most privileged and spectacularly satisfying if unconventional education, so far. So let me tell you abit about that.

It seems to me that education is about learning and central to that is curiosity and enquiry and central to that is the question.

The notion of the Guru/teacher in Indian mysticism is of interest to me, not that I’ve ever met one. It often comes with the convention that you only approach the teacher when you have a question as a starting point. Maybe that’s to do with being in the mode of the learner, and starting from the humility of: “Here is something I don’t know…… yet”?)

So allow me some tangents, some anecdotes that flesh out this topic of “the question” and illustrate some of the diversity of the learning experiences or sources that I’ve constructed my rather rickety world view on.:

Benjamin Jack as the 4 year old guru teacher(the question and the mode in which he asked it)

The big Fat Texan Cosmologist at Wits University (the power of the discovery and choking on his own metaphor)

The Amazing Mr Feynman… (the fearless interrogator)

Joseph Campbell and comparative Mythology. (The universal enquiry)

Parcifal and the question…(The question as the cure. Parcifal as the traveler. Interesting to me that parcifal has the wisdom after his travels)

Zen and the art of Motor cycle maintanance. (the refuge of abstraction)

kafka

The world will present itself to you for its unmasking,

it can do no other,

in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

But unmasking implies questions. So, how do you learn something without asking questions?

Let’s agree, within a specific enquiry, with out the right questions, only with great difficulty. How do you find the right questions?

How do you know what it means? How do you look past the abstraction and denotation and find the essence of what that thing means to you. I’m not a terribly good businessman…. Yet.

Apparently there’s a course here for fine artists. I would say that money is the ultimate manifestation of our powers of abstraction.

What did we achieve? So much profit. Yes but what did we achieve?! What did it cost us? So much running costs. Yes, but what were the realities of the cost?! Money at the level of the note assigns a finite value; not memory of past not intentions for future. There’s an inadequate definition that shows an inscrutable face to curious interrogation.

How do you find the right questions?

Maybe that depends on how good you are at that subject? So, how do you find a subject at which you will be good?

My experience has been that you have to really want to learn that subject. How do you learn what you want?

Jeez, now there’s a good question!!!

What do I want to learn? That seems to come back to the central existential question

What do I want?

…Who does the grail serve? Whatever that means , and I can’t help you with that.. That’s an intensely personal question, which we all ask and answer with varying degrees of curiosity and to varying degrees of success in our personal processes…

Once that question is answered or even just formed properly, you are on a path of fascination and curiosity …. It is the nature of human enquiry.

Now I’d like to wrap up now, and leave you with all these strange thoughts. I don’t know how cogent or useful they were for you, but one of the possible functions of a fine artist is to speak from a position of inspiration and authenticity, that is to express something that they feel belongs to them personally and originally. And that can be used as a lens by others to provide a new and hopefully further reaching perspective….

This address is published on my website on the blog, if you want to follow up on any of the references I made. You can also direct any questions there, that you have on what I’ve said or made, and do my best to answer those.

In the movie Man on a Wire, A crazy abrasive French aerialist pulls of a death defying act of artistic expression between the tops of the former World trade Centres… It’s a poetic gesture of self-actualization that even on film gives one access to some of the sublime elements of the human experience. Now under arrest and on his way down the stairs, a reporter shoves a microphone in his face and asks, “Why did you do it?”

And he gives an extraordinary answer.

If you are curious I invite you to seek that movie out and find out what he said.

Thankyou for your time.

I invite you to go and inspect the work that I made for the Business school that is down in the foyer….

2010-02-21T04:36:00.000-08:00

Frame of Reference

There are days

when water feels like cream on your lips

& others when you have to try so hard

feeling only follows blood

or chipped tooth.

& it's not just a question of money

or love,

or ....how the light falls

as if those would be easy to accept an answer from

even if they offered

but it's in the line & the cadence & depth of the gasp;

how much slack the strings take for themselves

before life takes it up

wrenching us back into orientation

& dragging us deeper into memory

j.f.

2010

love to you all

Upcoming open Studio..... In Basel

2010-02-16T08:22:00.000-08:00

“Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup.” Crowded House 1986

Which is to say that if your first trip to mainland Europe comes at age 35 it can be a fabulously overwhelming experience! I think of it as a positive culture shock. From an african perspective there is almost no way to explain the size of the differences we have socially, financially, morally and even philosophically. The volume of fine art, the wealth of the art collections have been an eye opener. This Basel residence made many inspiring meetings possible and many enlightening exchanges too. The challenge becomes to leave enough time in 10 weeks to focus some of this inspiration through one's sculptural process with out missing any of the spectacle. Some very promising creative relationships have been started for the future, and I have been given a thorough look into current Swiss fine art practices with all their successes and challenges.

I will show some previous kinetic suspensions I made in Japan, some maquettes for ideas Basel has given me, and works in progress of an entirely new kind for me. I hope to see you, and show you what I have made. Bring whoever you think might be interested in examples of visual art practice from deep in the southern hemisphere.

www.justinfiske.com

Arrive spontaneously if you like – but if you know when you might come, let me know by email please – just to help me with catering thanks!

justin.fiske01@gmail.com

Time: Sun 28. Feb – all day from 10am to 10pm and Mon 1. March – from 5pm

Place: The ‘iaab ateliers’, are located in “Gross Basel”, near the Rhein, between “Gasthof Zum Goldenen Sternen’ and the Youth Hostel, two steps away from “Museum für Gegenwartskunst’. iaab atelier N° 4 St. Alban-Tal 40a 4052 Basel +41 (0)61 271 11 43

They are melting cheese in my honour....

2010-02-15T07:05:00.001-08:00

Some kind lasses are doing this for me (This is not an open invitation I'm afraid):

Dear All

In honour of Martina and Justin let's have a wonderful Fondue dinner : )

It woud be great if you can come!

Best Patricia and Janine

This is kind of like a knighthood here for beginners to Swissness.

Sorry about the blog silence I've been busy..... numerous days of cultural immersion....... in a row.

I've sucked up so much culture this week I could pop

Show opening after show opening after party after play after dance performance.. not just trivial socializing either..
Caining it...
Just started working yesterday.....ideas coming out like popcorn....

http://vimeo.com/9156606
is the one thing that I saw

Loosely translated: perfection is not sexy....
Jimmy is a Dancer.
I watched him perform ( please don't convince yourself that vimeo experience conveys any of the calibre of a real performance)
He has no legs.
He drove me to a party after.
In the Snow.
It was in that strange room on the Die Antwoord site. (Not sure if you've been privy to their recent stellar climb to fame.... www.dieantwoord.com http://www.dieantwoord.com/secret.html )
He was one of 5 different people than spun me that evening.
You should meet him.
You know when you see an ant sukkeling with something 3 times it's size.... being around him's a bit like that would be if you were 5mm tall.
Once again I felt like I was in Ghostwritten. In all the narratives at the same time.

Friday went to an opening, then for a birthday drink with James the dancer in the wheelchair which turned into dinner at a German club and dancing at a Funk night....
Was a bit tiring, and full of cigarettes got to sleep at 4. But had a good skank.
Did it all on my bicycle which was intrepid as I had to cross the city 4 times in heavy snow fall....
When you invade a Swiss dance floor with professional dancers in 2 wheelchairs and one with a stroke you got yourself an evening to remember

Saturday I saw this: http://www.kaserne-basel.ch/Gesamtprogramm/130210

which was Robert Palmer on mescaline meets the Thomas Crown Affair.

and then two shite bands.

& last night missioned to Zurich to see this guy: www.hidetoheshiki.com

Very Japanese meets very Swiss, but some very resonant moments and I'm not easily won by expressive dance.

I have set a date for my open studio, & I'll post the invite for you all tomorrow.

I'll of course also have to knuckle down and try to knock something memorable out... it's looking promising

Wish me luck

Colour from the day....

2010-01-30T15:16:00.000-08:00

...Saw a baroque orchestra playing Violino Italiano in a 500 year old cathedral (many of the instruments were very different : www.capricciobasel.ch)

May I introduce to you the:

Theorbe:Violoncello: & Cembalo:

which was pretty special.....

ok let's bring out the sublime word while we have a reason, for a change: it was actually quite sublime. There was one tear (on the left side). Afterwards, I swooned about in the heavy snow fall skidding my bike through the cobbled streets to get a celebratory beer on my way back, at Hirschenek (that's a famous anarchist's bar). Then, I folded and rode to the station to get a pack of fags. Came back for a late night helping of my potatoe and leek efforts from earlier in the day (laced with very old Italian Blue cheese).

An evening of certifiable luminous anonymity.....

Once again I may show a passing resemblance to gaunt brit-pop proponents.... almost identical. The swiss ladies will be hysterical to know:

that's a huge relief to me, gaining 10 years in 10 minutes... it's a pic-me-up I cash in every 4 months or so as you know.

Time well spent, you'll agree.

Back to Zurich wednesday.... have numerous galleries to see there, so we'll call it research..... or process.... or something.

Have a small showing of my progress so far (yikes!) the night before here at The Dock. and then swiftly on to the Tanguely Museum opening... so unless I'm mistaken I'm unlikely to see Zurich before mid-morning looking for a greasy fry-up.

But I'll have to go hangout with a dude I met in Soloturn the other day. He's a Canadian poet Moez Surani (of Palestinian extraction I think) who's supervisor at University of Toronto is my Auntie from Kalkbay's brother in law. What are the odds on that!?

By the way it was a hell of a day in Solothurn.

They had a big film festival on, but I had a full day of meetings and exploring so I only saw one right at the end called Winter Silence.

Also, I ate horse........ !

They made me do it.

Lovely Swiss Pinot Noir, celerac, fennel..... and a piece of horse.

Jeez!

Actually it was completely delicious, but I did sit through the movie feeling a bit like a jakals with carrion on his breath.

Haute cuisine in a lovely existential sauce.

Apparently the muscle fibers are different and shorter, so it doesn't get tough.... Hence the butter knife.

They've been chowing them since the middle ages.

I'm off to taste some buro, tomorrow!

That's where salami came from originally, and if you know a certain Italian on Markplatz...... it still does.

chuckle

Anyway, this is bordering on virtual diarrhea,

... which is taking up your time.

Ciao!

love to you all

Like a big pendulum.....

2010-01-11T02:02:00.000-08:00

So they have this ingenious system of ferries here in Basel that you can use to cross the Rhine River. They have no engine, but they are clipped to a static cable that spans the river. When they push their nose out into the current they kind of waterski across magically. They have no engine and are half wakeboard half foofy-slide. They are very cheap and a quaint tradition. Very ecological too. Here's a little time lapse vid of the one that shuttles people to and from just below Meunster Cathedral:

Of an evening you can see them candle lit and moored a little way off shore, and I am told that they are rented after hours to practice the secret Swiss ritual of Fondue. Oh, my..... I look forward to that!

Yesterday my "coach" (as they call her), Martina escorted me out to Schonental to look at the old monastery there and stomp about in the snow in welly's looking at the collection of art in the sculpture park. What a dream venue to leave your work at. It being in the Swiss countryside there is a little farmstall with a coffee machine that you can buy local fair at; like mutton salami, cheese and preserves. It's in a wendy house on the road, but nobody mans it. It runs on an honesty system. You serve yourself, add up your own bill write it all down and leave the money in a draw and take your own change. Pah!

Martina is turning into somewhat of a guardian angel, what with unforgettable trips like this and repeated fabulous meals with her and Rolfe in her extraordinary apartment. She makes sure I don't miss any crucial culture in the city and there's lots of it and also helps me access anything that is particularly of interest to me and my work... advice about glass artisans, carpenters, a stream of Jean Luc Goddard movies and the odd sneaky train-fare evasion lesson etc etc. She knows every single person on every single street and as she is a lecturer at the University she can be provoked into a very erudite address on the history of Land Art..... of a ramble.... in a snowy Sculpture park. Lucky, lucky me. It's so nice to be this old, this interested and this ignorant all at the same time and suddenly get all this access.

Take care all

Well that's just aswell, because something bad just happened to me.

2010-01-07T06:23:00.001-08:00

My friend just sent me a mail in the nick of time (I'll paraphrase):

I hope you are doing well in the distance, that you started your year crisp and unrestricted.

Jack Johnson line: people are only lonely animals with too many tools that can built all the junk that they sell (oh sometimes it makes me wanna yell....)

I was at a overcrowded christmas market of utterly pointless human creations, each creator convinced their decorated brick, cement shoe cactus pot, knitted coat hanger was what the world and its dwellers had been waiting for. I left heavy hearted with a red shwe-shwe mouse, that I couldn't bear to leave amongst such hopelessness. Later as I found myself alienated in some or other chrome and marble mall the thing I kept thinking about were those graceful wooden spoons that you made for christmas presents.

I hugely value the fact that I can write my ramblings to you after having met you for.....5 minutes?

They seem clear crystals on streets paved with politeness. And I'm grateful!
Have a beautiful time!
Y

She's Dutch (which might come with congenital madness) and a honey.....

Emails like that really help me...

I don't know, something along the lines of make me believe.

I'm tired and it's a bit cold and lonely here in Basel at the moment. Mainly because I worked really hard last night trying to make something beautiful, so I got to bed at 2, without much joy. But also because something really bad just happened to me.

You got to make beautiful things. Particularly if you know how. Or you got to die trying.

I wanted to bring some work over with me to Switzerland as I've only sold one thing from my Japanese residency exhibition 2 years ago. and I've showed them a bit in Cape Town, but unless you're one of the chosen you can't really reach the commercial galleries. Besides people in Cape Town don't really collect art in the way that would help me (It's the work you can see on my website, which is a joke, because you can't see f%ckall on my website because I make little experience machines that you have to touch to understand properly.) So this work has been sitting in my lounge, and up about my flat for years now, and it's a privilege for me and I show it to people, but it doesn't sell. I packed three in a crate to bring over here rather naively hoping I could get them here and present them to an economy which is lucky enough to be be able to spend five or ten thousand euros for something special and/or for advancing an artist's career. I was hoping to maybe find someone who would show them and then if-so leave them here, as otherwise I'm afraid they are destined to live in my lounge.

So I opened the crate just now which is always a bit nerve wracking as they are fragile and sometimes take some untangling, this time it was worse:

They're all pretty broken.

I'd like to say I know I can fix them, but it's a bit of a train-wreck...... & a bit discouraging.

It doesn't look reparable...

A pale sorry memory of how fragile and engaging these works were can be seen here:

http://www.justinfiske.com/portfolio/stretch-108/animation.html

here:

http://www.justinfiske.com/portfolio/helix/animation.html

& here:

http://www.justinfiske.com/portfolio/oblique/animation.html

"Der kampf geht weiter" which is what Google Translate would have me believe is....

"The struggle continues."

spent most of the day moving to my new studio apartment .... in the snow,

love to you all

Pyrrhus

Water Water....

2010-01-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

So there are lots of little water features about Basel. Dragons spitting water, little alcoves with water piddling into a puddle. Yesterday I saw this wishing well type pond. No coins, just the odd rust shadow

On closer inspection there was the shadow of a pair of kids scissors. I wonder what they wished for? Perhaps another pair of scissors?

Then there is a pond in central Basel that has numerous kinetic sculpture/creatures by Tinguely. The colder it becomes the more burdened with ice they become until belts slip off of drives or they just choke up.

Yesterday was chilly...... last man standing in the Tinguely pond was this little hot-stepper:

Love to you all
Justin

Some Things I Made This Last Year

2010-01-02T12:19:00.001-08:00

It occurred to me that there are numerous things that I have made this year that haven't seen the light of the internet. All for private people. All kind of out of the scope of my fine art practice. I love these distractions and they help me, .....er, distract myself and try new things and buy new tools and often throw more time and care at a present or commission than is entirely prudent,....... just to see what comes out. Normally if you're concentrating, for long enough, it's gonna be pretty. And just sometimes,

You might find....

Ya get what ya neeed!

This little snakey number went out to my baby, Gabrielle for her birthday . It's Jap-cedar because that always sounds posh to me,

& for 2 days.... I had to whittle it real good. Maybe even 3...?! The time sure flies when you're making things. Hangs next to our bed now.

Then this little sharky-number went out to my babe's godson Roberto:

And she moves like so:

And last one for this evening while we are dealing with wood, I made this for the ever patient Mike Edmunds to reach his law books. It had to be made with care with wood that had a story....? I found a couple of old salvaged Teak (railway wood) beams and a million examples of library ladders and then shot for this Naoto Fukasawa-esque goal.

The pictures don't really do it justice. It's a sturdy and beautifully proportioned reincarnation.... Anyway, more memories from last year's labours at another stage. Tomorrow more about Basel.

love to you all

Gepetto

Rapidly Approaching Planet Fatherhood

2010-01-01T06:37:00.000-08:00

So we all know that a baby is coming, yeah? Me and the missus have been pregnant on an off for 18months now, but by the look of things there will be no more setbacks, reprieves, extended adolescences or such. With a bit more miracle the end of march will bring a new flat-mate wriggling out into the light with it's attendant bodily functions and needs, a vocabulary of.... "Waaaaah" and a long list of arcane and very precise expectations that it won't explain very clearly. A whole new world of parenthood will need to be navigated. Okey dokey, so this is what all this baffling heterosexuality has been about. I'm ready...... er..... big lie!

I'm.... I'm looking forward to this. Um.... this is happening to me, I out of time.

Here I am doing paternal warm up exercises with Jasper S. the exquisite boychild of my friends t & j. He very kindly invited me to his party and got me drunk on champagne, which will warm me to a man. I've always been warm to Jasper and if you have an ounce of humanity in you, you will be quite able to see why, mainly 'cause I'm a boy and in a slightly narcissistic way small beautiful boys make me ....... understand. I can't really do better than that for you. Something along the lines of literacy... Of course in return I've been granted a full 3 years of surly Southwood restraint of emotion. Clearly a withering "Stranger Danger until amply established otherwise", is the rules.....

Anyway, here we are winning a small victory in boyness together. Me drunk and tieing knots in fine cotton (dejavu!), him conducting me with a teaspoon ... it seems. Actually I'm giving him a small solar-powered car for his birthday (why didn't I think of that a year ago) which is a hit. Actually, it's my solar car (I'm 35 now I think) I bought it recently, which I'm giving to Jasper.

Are you getting all this...? Understanding, literacy, magic & light, small overwhelming victories? Solar powered cars?

That's not to say that Universal "snotklaps" being what they are, haven't tucked a little babushka doll princess up my princesses jumper. Our odds are decided, but we have only 50% chance of guessing what they are. 100% chance of being pleased as two little witogies, though, when it comes out and reveals it's gender. Come on MA BOOOI!

So I'm looking forward to all that. And here it comes:

Tucked under that jumper is my new house mate of soon to be revealed gender; Gabrielle and my most ambitious collaboration to date. We've listened to one another's heart-beats with curiosity, we've had Glen Gould play us some Bach, we've had repeated games of kick dad in the face, which is nice. It doesn't sound nice, but I assure you on various existential levels a nudge on the cheek from your unborn child is reassuringly .....nice!

I wouldn't mind a kick in the face from "ma booi", now..... but sadly I'm in my apartment pictured here across the Rhine,

missing them.

All systems go for the 24th of March 2010.

love to you all

(but especially to my creature)

Justin

The privilege, the privilege.....

2010-01-01T04:01:00.000-08:00

I find myself up a certain European river. It's a torrent, that you can only just keep pace with on foot. I feel some empathy to old Kurtz in the Congo, being far from home and all, but in many ways this place is like a home coming. I am living here for the next couple of months, for a start. At the moment my very lovely apartment studio looks straight out onto the Rhine:

That's the view from my bedroom window that I'm currently blogging next to the radiator beneath..... which is ok by me. (Well, if you take enough mescaline that would probably be the view from my window). So, home in that sense, and home too, in that (I was trying to explain this to the missus in a mail last night):

"all that stuff I moored my young understanding of culture, progress, civilization and achievement to, well it's here. I don't mean it came from here, I mean it's here, people have put it here. They are living in it riding on it, guarding it, lighting it beautifully. It's like I've been holding my breath, or looking through a gauze for 35 years.

just in the last 2 hours I saw all these and beyond:

Yesterday in the Beyeler Foundation I stood 200mm away from this:

Last night I went out on my own ( popped past a famous anarchist bar called Hirscheneck) and then filtered into a million drunk swiss teenagers in luminous anonimity. Drank some beers quietly to my self with a big smirk on my face and then the new year's fireworks went off above my head. It was a cadenza and a spectalce.

What a way to start a year...... a happy new one to you all.

The privilege, the privilege......

love

Kurtz

The Reddam House Art Opening

2009-11-05T05:05:00.001-08:00

My friend Candice asked me to open the Reddam House School Art Exhibition with an address. It was a great show....if poorly attended.... (It seemed as though some of the artists weren't present!! Confounding.) Many hours of hard work have clearly been spent and some outstanding individuals had put out work. Thanks for the invitation and the bottle of red that will be quaffed with relish shortly I assure you.

This is what I said:

Evening everyone, my name is Justin. I am an artist and it is my privilege to be able to open your exhibition for you….

Primarily I want to talk to you students, I feel like I have advice that is more pertinent to you than your parents. Some of it might in fact seem like dangerous advice to your parents but maybe it will effect how they support you…

The Ideas I want to present to you are two disparate to present coherently in the “less than 5min” I have to present them, so I’d like to curate a couple of statements from people who have effected my out look and encouraged me along the way:

Let’s start with Jesse Martin

When I came into contact with him he was being broadcast on world television at the age of 14 saying (in a broad Auzzie accent),

"Ah, it wouldn't have been a tragedy if I'd died, a tragedy is when you get to 75 and you're not satisfied."

Now, I’ve given away the end of my address, which is to say that I want to repeat this to you at the end and leave you to dwell on the idealism of that philosophy, and the notion that one might show signs of wisdoms like that at the age of 14 …

He was saying this on the eve of becoming the youngest solo round the world sailor, an 11 month trip without setting foot on land with the brave facilitation of his mother..

I assure you at that age I had no such wisdom.

In fact, in a rare act of humility for me, I’d like to own up to something rather self-depreciatory about how I remember myself at an even later age (more or less the age of you matrics). I, much like you, had had all these great teachers private school offers….. I had been given a gift of literacy of the level afforded maybe 3% of the world population. At that stage I was as blissfully unaware (probably much like you) of the level of privilege I had been granted. You will learn gradually how lucky you are….. and how useful a lever that can be to you in the task of self actualizing yourselves or put another way in becoming realized…. A task you will have to try to do before you get to 75.

And my greatest ambition was to be……

Just like the guys on “30Something”, a trashy 80’s show about advertising.

It took me precious years to learn what a sham that goal was.

It did lead me to one of the greatest lesson about gaining knowledge at university: ironically through several failed degrees. It is:

Anything that you learn… you have taught yourself.

University is an exercise in self-education….. You will have to negotiate various lecturers and curriculums to exercise your own choice….

I had totally discrete careers in industrial climbing, bicycle couriering and production management before I made art. I had totally separate educations in Science and art. My world-view falls somewhere between Poetry and Science. That is to say I’m mired somewhere between metaphor and fact at any given time.

That brings me to my next hero, a local Cape Town Poet called Gus Ferguson who says:

Truth is the shadow left by metaphor.

Now if I had given this address last week when I was invited to, I’m afraid I would have struggled to bridle my vitriol for the task of being an artist…….

I’ve just spent the last month at the inner sanctums of where my faith in art buyers was meant to be restored, becoming disillusioned. On their invitation to install some level of the poetic at the airport and one of the countries largest investment funds, I discovered that at least these two South African buildings, an airport, and a corporate head quarters were devoid of the poetic, and show little experience in buying art. That was a disappointment.

But a friend changed my mood a bit for me…by telling me this:

Life is bigger than art…

Franz Kafka Might have meant something similar when he wrote:

It is not necessary that you leave the house.

Remain at your table and listen.

Do not even listen, only wait.

Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone.

The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

So maybe it is possible not to make art. Art is a contrivance and next to, for instance, the baby growing in my girlfriend tummy the sculptures I’ve made pale abit even in terms of creative process.

And that has been a relief to me, a shift in perspective that has ironically let me regain some of the original idealism that made me try and make things in the first place…

Art and poetry and music and human expression, in all it’s abstraction and metaphor can break through all the logic and the reason and build a rickety bridge to a fabulous view of the sublime, the ineffable and that is a power worth having.

It turns out that for those of you that take the process of fine art out in to your adult professional lives with you,

to really be of benefit to society will not only have to build that rickety bridge, but develop some skills in helping others to climb on it too.

Let’s come back to Jesse Martin

At the age of 14 saying (in a broad Auzzie accent),

"Ah, it wouldn't have been a tragedy if I'd died, a tragedy is when you get to 75 and you're not satisfied."

It is my pleasure to declared this collection of hundreds and hundreds of careful hours of work in searching for beautiful and meaningful work, which is this Reddam House school art exhibition officially open.

So far this year.... things I made.

2009-02-12T04:48:00.000-08:00

It's been a strange start to the year with the customary financial pressures.

I made these patterns at Dangers Beach with Muscle shells. I had some delightful scantily clad assistants who kept arriving offering handfuls of shells and assistance. It was heart melting..

I could get into this land art milarky....

Also I made this origami Scorpion for money (still to come) for an insurance company.

Eventually it came out pretty scary and looked even better when they had had a go at it with a computer.....

Finally, talking of things scary, it may interest you to know I've been growing a beard of late. Some like it, some don't. The long suffering Gabrielle is unconvinced. I'm ambivilent myself.....

I realise I can look rather derelict ( In fairness I can take a good poke at that clean shaven....) but I can also see what I would look like as a caveman or even just "before we had the strange contivance of saftey razors and the bizarre social convention of shaving....

Anyhoo. I present his woolly, Bukowski-like, "feared-&-revered........... beard!"

Handmade christmas prezzies....

2008-12-29T09:22:00.000-08:00

Finally.......!

Handmade christmas presents. I managed to knock out these mahogany spoons for some lucky recipients. They came out beautifully & very satisfying. I made 6 so far and they came out slightly quicker each time, but still around 2 hours a spoon.

Each one is slightly different, obviously.

4th one out of the Oven!

2008-02-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

This is Helix-51

01h00 this morning.

pleased as punch!

love to ya

Look what the Tanuki dragged in....

2008-02-21T17:37:00.000-08:00

Clinty Baby! He turned up! Made his way over here to give me a hand with making my work! At his own expense! There were lots of distractions but lots of late nights and early mornings (for a change). There's been quite a lot of low level narcotic abuse involving dangerously strong esspresso and enough sake to choke a Ninja. Sadly he's off to Kyoto on his travels now, leaving me with a sty, lots of work to do and a tricky caffiene dependency, but I sure did apreciate the company and the help. Nice one Bokkers. Last night we threw an impromptu farewell knees-up for him in Studio1 to show off his numerous and exceptional photo's in a slide show. I made a tray of onegiri's (rice cake triangles to be wrapped in seaweed and scoffed) and it turned into a show and tell of amazing talent and good cheer. Truly memorable. Some scenes:

As you can clearly envy, The "Good Doctor" Michael Fowler, sound-scaper and performer extraordinaire gave us a very generous performance on my piano; a piece his old piano teacher wrote. In fact he's kept some exceptional company having worked with Stockhausen and Steve Reich. Several bottles of sake later the evening ended up in the salon listening room with the good doctor giving me a masterclass on how to listen to Glenn Gould's final Goldberg variations recording ("Best performance ever recorded") Morizio Pollini "nailing" Stravinsky ("2nd best performance, ever"), and Steve Reich's music for 18 musicians (a mind bending musical journey such as I have never experienced!!!) Domo....., proper domo. Video, press play

That's a glimpse of my latest greatest work called Torusknot-91. It was hard.... Did my back & my brain in. 12 hours of staring at this with your hands above you head and you can feel the edge!

A while back I promised to show you all some crazy dancing & violin, well I've waited this long in the hope that my in theatre piracy will pass un-scolded now that the whole thing's cooled off a bit. Ladies and gentlemen a small snippet from an evening of very inspiring and avant-garde Japanese contemporary dance:

Actually Susuki & Yashemi (tossing papers and teeth clenching violin) practised that piece at AIAV on a week long residency, so they gave us a dance class/workshop that was amazing. To wit:

... me rolling around on the floor... it's difficult to explain.

Happiest of days

love to ya

First Piece Out of the Oven.....

2008-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

Clinton my mate arrived today. the sweet boy has made his way over here to give me some much needed assistance.I have some fine ideas but production has been slow. Hoping to pick up the pace abit. 4 weeks to showtime...!

I did get this little number together eventually, though. Still pics are only up on my facebook at the moment, I'll get them here soon to.

Check out this vid of "her moovin' " . Isn't she pretty?

And from another angle.....

You beauty. That's "Stretch-108"

love to ya

Low Riding & the Deadly Chainring Disease.

2008-01-31T03:32:00.000-08:00

Went on a my first ride into Yamaguchi City today. It was good. Nice to be on the road again & get the old cartilage smoking. Wanted to test out my new panier rack aswell. Getting closer to "tour-ready". One elderly gentleman came past hooting very happy to see me & my strange steed. He reappeared 15minutes later coming from the other dirtection, and basically stopped his little truck in the middle of the road to come and rattle off some Japanese at me..... and give me a little bottle of green tea. Nice, and I think the japanese for Satelite is "wigi!".... who knows? I had to bight my lip not to deploy the international raised eyebrows of interrogation and ask, "Wiki-wiki-wah?" Here's a little mad video collage of the ride:

(I've been struggling with this video for an hour now that's why it's in two pieces. Hope it works, it took ages to buffer and play)

& part two if you can stomach it...

While I was at the mall I ran into Kako (I shit you not, I have his card.) We met him the other day at the community centre. He did a full catastrophe cycle-circumnavigation of Japan. He was keen for a photo opportunity. Below is a close-up of his speedo showing mileage.) he did his trip through winter, crazy bastard, and has pictures of some pretty ingenious urban camping. I think he's actually Chinese. Anyhow, the bike culture here is quite heartening there are thousands and thousands of them. Riding everywhere, kids, old grannies, business men, you name it. Lot's of fold up bicycles, some very minimalist, and a rather naff generic version sporting a lowslung seat, very upright posture and less street-cred than would be easily embraced in our image-concious southern colonies. If you're lucky you get a basket. You almost always get a cycle track though. !!!!!!!!! From a man whose run the woodstock rushhour taxi gauntlet on a fixy more than is prudent, Halle-flippin'-lujah. So some quick bike pics and then enough with the chain grease for you poor uninterested petrol heads.

Finally some pretty pics from the last week or two. (Done in that slick & not un-laborious, I'll have you know, Photoshop technique some of you are growing so fond of.)

So, sayonara!

Which is japanese for "love to ya.."

p.s. The next blog to follow is a corker, brace yourself for some contemporary dance as you've never thought feasible. Avante garde, baby. There's going to be some thrashing about I tell ya, and some violin playing (by my friend Yashemi) that'll make Stradavarius wee in his coffin. I'm warning you....

Nip in the Air...

2008-01-24T17:36:00.000-08:00

So, it's been a little chilly of late. Quite nice though. I've been too much of a woes to ride in it, but maybe a midday ride through to Yamaguchi (I'm told about 1.5hrs away if you're an out of shape Austrian artist with a modest bicycle and no map...?). For all the extra wardrobe requirements, though, it has been stunningly beautiful. Snow falling on cedars.... sigh. Here's a little clip of me in falling powder for the first time in years. Nice.

But it does beg the question, "What precisely are these crazy Japs doing without any kit on?!!!" Hello, konichiwa, & how is your mind? Well, they would answer, "Pretty focused and devoted, origato. And how is yours?"

So, it's a little chanting and hanging about on the icy forecourt, a little jog, up the stairs past the temple, bit of rowing exercises, & er.... yup I think a swim. That'll be nice. Everyone in the pool; nice icy swim. Kids'll love it.

Dedication, baby, dedication!

There was also some extraordinarily beautiful architecture and garden design at a nearby palace build buy the famous Mori family in 1916 to house their family collection of national treasure (some of which are 1300yrs old or so). And in the garden I saw a little premonition........

Love to you all

J-san

ps For my mense back home, check this out. It's looking pretty good for a last minute gold at Spier! Woo Woo! See for yourself @

http://www.spiercontemporary.co.za/site/index.php/awards/peoples-choice-award/

Fancy a bit of Coori....?

2008-01-20T22:50:00.001-08:00

We went to a restaurant last night run by this gem of a guy. He runs it from his house (...which he made ! and would you look at the size of those beams).

It's a kind of shoe off at the door and low slung table affair.

The local curry-house you could say.

They serve a pretty spectacular Nepalese dahl (which he made). He plied us with special saki and then whipped out an Mbira(which he made! Handy sort of fellow) for a little tune.

Take a listen to this little video clip. No surprise he a cheerful fellow.

Love to you all

2008-01-18T05:09:00.000-08:00

I've walked up there several times, and had to come down twice in the dark. There is a little Buddhist shrine up near the top ( the size of a big letter box ) with a small statue sleeping inside. I shall be having the odd early morning meditation up there. There is a lovely panoramic view of the area showing the various surrounding farms, towns and forested hills to the horizon.

Walking down through the Bamboo forest in ..... How you say? Trippy!

But beautiful.

Day before yesterday I made my smallest origami lotus flower ever, and gave it to our tireless chaperon and host (-ess) Machiko. She seemed pleased.

I was.

Today I managed to knockup a very exciting bit of progress in the stu-stu-studio, despite a late start, the arrival of my bike (woo woo) and a long exhausting sojourn to various towns to absorb neon sights and wander through impossibly advanced and stocked hardware stores looking for materials. Have I got some materials for you.

Expect many pictures of me happily reunited with my strange bicycle beast, and the formative makings of an idea for a new dare I say... wobbly... work

love to you all

The "Muji life".....

2008-01-17T02:47:00.000-08:00

So this is my clean lined Japanese bedroom. A bit like living in a beautiful storage box made by Muji. Actually it is a room for two large living Honky's. If I was Japanese I would pack my futon in a cupboard and re-purpose the space. Very rational and cultured. In fact there is a Japanese style room just like that here in my apartment & I have just decided as I type that I shall be moving with the new linen. No huge culture shock for a happy camper, but some messy living habits may well need changing.

I leave my shoes at the door where there are leather slip-ons to shuffle about on the coir matting. Climate is controlled by hidden air-con. Furnishings are quite energy efficient if slightly intensive: amazing paper vertical blinds on every widow; you turn on the geyser as you need hot water. Wood paper read-matting and walls made of a soft grey paper-like substance that is warm to the touch.

This pic from my balcony looking in.

....and if I turn around:

I also have a large studio (challenging panoramic pic, sorry). It has a piano, lovely and distracting. The short pillars are state of the art acoustic dampeners that can be placed in the corners of the room to absorb standing waves.

If I look out the window to the left....

....I see the large courtyard. It can be used as an outdoor stage and the rocks about it can me flooded with water. Hmmm, that stage is asking for it!! I'll make rocks move above it if it's not careful. This facility is futuristic beyond anything I have ever seen or is available in South Africa. There are very few people here for various reasons, like winter, a strategic shift towards local values (more traditional) from cutting edge contemporary, and 'cause I'm a lucky guy. Sometimes it feels like I've discovered an abandoned space-ship to be used & explored.

Happy days. If I look out the window in front of me in my studio.....

... the forest!! And the path up to the mountain.

Good times.

These people are so generous.

Love

ps might get some work done tomorrow, but then my bike is coming too. We'll have to see.

Lunch in Japan

2008-01-16T05:28:00.000-08:00

Today these 7 magnificent people sat with me for lunch next to a little clump of forest.

The little forest was in the middle of a grassy Japanese plateau high above Yamaguchi.

From right to left : Shin il (Korean artist on same residency as me), Primoz & his girlfiend Nika (Slovenian video artists on residency), Hiro (one of the organisers running this programme a shy architect working here to mix with other genres and because he likes the building, I suspect) , Tamoko (temporary staff hired specially to keep us company and see that we are alright, a masseuse who takes some pictures and is in the running for "sweetest living thing I have ever met" - think panda trying to figure something out), Machiko (tall Japanese minor goddess chaperon and main translator- last night she made us sea-urchin pasta), Ayaka (local lady back visiting from studying art is Frankfurt), & a tiny clump of forest.

Wind was brisk off the moody plateau. Spirits were very high.

This is what the the little lunch-boxes looked like, and what they had inside. Special.

About R15 worth of very special; made and delivered in the morning by a local lunchbox company. They are called Benko's. The heart shaped ones were packed for Hiro and Ayaka by her mother (it was a source of envy & amusement at the table as it is typical of newly weds and they are not involved.)

Then we went to see these spectacular caves that are 80m below the plateau.

Magical & warm. Met a small fellow with more legs than one would think was completely necessary.

That was a fine day.

love to you all

2008-01-11T01:06:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Dubai!

I have crossed the ocean!

I now have a full day waiting in the airport.

My flight is only at 02h00 tomorrow morning.

Oh well what's another day of floating for a traveler like me?

It's nice to be on the road again.

I'm in a place called the "quiet Lounge" dipping into my first Haruki Murakami (After Dark). Quite romantic really except this shirt is starting to turn on me. A squirt of Cologne and possibly a new Paul Smith shirt from duty free and I'll be a fair tribute to Paul Bowles' character Port from The Sheltering Sky.

I will call Machiko as I arrive in Osaka if the hour is decent. I have a slight sense of fore boding about my luggage as we were delayed 45min in Johannesburg waiting for missing baggage (the pilot revealed over the PA). I had some last minute issues with some hand luggage condemned to the hold & it had her present from James Webb in it. It better be waiting in Osaka for me.........

What's more The Bicycle I had to freight over is probably going to arrive in Osaka rather inconveniently on the 13th Jan....?

Might have to wait a week for me to return.

"Why don't you buy another one there?", I hear you question.

Well, she's slightly hard to come by...... as well you know.

We shall see what we shall see.

Regards

Like a complete unknown

2008-01-11T00:20:00.000-08:00

These are the digital ramblings of Justin Fiske on his Japanese mission and beyond. A way for you to keep an eye on Japan. This beautiful photo was taken by Clinton Whaits in Brassbell subway. Beautiful; very James Dene. Thanks Clint, looking forward to see you in Japanese forest. Reminds me to count the friends who see me as I'd like to be.

Take care