It is surprising what
one discovers when cleaning up one’s computer. This piece had been
drafted up ready for publication, but had been forgotten, perhaps
lost under its bland working title – JOHN E-MAIL. It is still worthwhile
thinking about.
The E-mail read almost
as a plea for help:
Just going through
cleaning up my computer. I asked my son what this meant. He didn't
answer.
Subject: Fwd: Can
you please tell me what this means?
From the upcoming
RAIA seminar series “AG Urbanism’ speculates on the notion of a
parasitic city. Sydney 2050 Fraying Ground examines the future as a
condition of the present; the future occurs to the extent that the
present allows for its own transformation. The project consists of
investigations at all scales in which drawing and mapping and thus
the reinvention of terrains and ground will continue to produce
sustainable interventions. Part of the project is the investigation
of new urban strategies, which because they incorporate the process
of ‘fraying’, ‘knotting’ and ‘parasitism’ are able to
operate at all scales.”
One could only
sympathise. What on earth might one say? How could anyone respond?
Little wonder that the son gave no answer. How might one help? Youth
usually understands computed confusions that confound age, but not
this astonishing shambles of a text!
The words gave the
impression that they were collected together using the strategy that
believed that any bewildering nonsense will promote one’s ‘genius’
just because of the rude brashness. Such a text is so striking that
it silences everyone with its blatant cheek, allowing the author to
believe that this lack of any response from anyone feeling threatened
by this boldness, only highlights an inferior mind, a lesser
intelligence bowing to a superior one.#
Humbug. If one is unable
to simply state what one’s ideas and intentions are, then it is the
author who has the problem, not the reader.
The revealing proposition was inadvertently exposed by the silly, pretentious statement in the ABC TV 5:00pm
news of 12 June 2014: “The welfare system needs a simpler
architecture.” That two wacky statements might stimulate some sense
appears at odds with ordinary logic, but they did. The words ‘simpler
architecture’ rang loud and clear, and resonated with an equally
certain: “Yes!”
We do need a simpler
architecture that can be spoken about in simpler English. We need to
learn that complexity has no inherent value in its own being, when implemented just for its own
sake, for confusion and dense befuddlement. Complexity is not clever;
it is confounding; baffling. Tortured English like
tortured architecture leads only to a muddled mess of words, ideas,
forms and messages that do not elevate any author or work into the realms of
creative genius, even though these might highlight ME! loudly and
clearly by ordinary amazement and dumbfounding astonishment. “WOW!
How stupid!” seems to be a preferred reaction that demands
attention, and distracts, apparently being considered better than the
quiet enrichment involved in the experience of simple meaning.
There is little doubt
that this preference is misguided. The approach reeks of selfies and
their culture that centres only on the individual's primal scream: “Look at ME!”
Architecture involves others and needs to accommodate them with grace
and ease; care and consideration, not eye-catching exaggerations and distortions. This is its responsibility: its ability to respond in silence rather than to loudly, proudly declare.
#
NOTE
30th October 2019
The point is made clear by Jon Lys Turner in The Visitors’ Book
In Francis Bacon’s Shadow: The Lives of Richard Chopping and Dennis
Wirth-Miller Constable 2017, page 124 – 125:
Critics and
gallery-goers append to his work a narrative and meaning, perhaps led
there by the storytelling nature of traditional religious triptychs
and the suggestive title. (This text is referring to Francis Bacon’s
Three Studies for Figures at the
Base of the Crucifixion.) Many saw Three
Studies as a story and judgement of war, a comment on man’s
inhumanity to man. Bacon, however, did not mean his works to be
narrative, judgemental or religious. The figures in Three
Studies
are Furies captured in a moment of anguish, not victims within a
narrative of the extraordinary cruelty of the Second World War: the
depicted moment gives the work power, not the backstory, not the
‘why’. The strength of people’s reactions would force them into
conjecture to fill the void left by the absence of narrative, and
this lack of narrative, combined with visceral power, gives his
paintings continued resonance. They speak to our own horror whatever
the actuality of the situation, personal or global.
As
long as the artist remains silent, the observer is placed in an
emotional no-man’s-land where context and provenance reign supreme.
Who might dare suggest that Bacon’s paintings were merely
provocative smudges? Given Bacon’s reputation – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2013/01/bacons-sacrambled-studio-francis.html
-
one might be forgiven for being a little cynical.
This amorphous, subtle situation is a loophole that is manipulated by those we are told are 'lesser' artists who seek to promote meaning in their silent voids, their bold thrusts into inarticulate nothingness.
Jon Lys Turner explains why Bacon is never challenged - page 259:
In critical terms, he had become untouchable.
The myth reigned supreme, and has only been reinforced with time.
This amorphous, subtle situation is a loophole that is manipulated by those we are told are 'lesser' artists who seek to promote meaning in their silent voids, their bold thrusts into inarticulate nothingness.
Jon Lys Turner explains why Bacon is never challenged - page 259:
In critical terms, he had become untouchable.
The myth reigned supreme, and has only been reinforced with time.
NOTE
1st
November 2019
Jon Lys Turner The
Visitors’ Book In Francis Bacon’s Shadow: The Lives of Richard
Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller Constable 2017, page 277:
‘I wonder very
much whether a few who get a kick from being outsiders and rebels
won’t feel a sense of disappointment and perhaps have to try some
new eccentricity.’
This comment was
made after the passing of the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 in Britain
that removed homosexuality as an illegal pursuit. The post-war (WW2)
British art world seemed to have become a confederacy of queers. The
statement says much about art and artists.
It highlights an
understanding confirmed by Quentin Crisp on page 318. He gave a talk
to students in at the Royal College of Art that was reported as being
very opinionated but interesting. Offering no solution but self
analysis and ‘doing one’s own thing’ with obsession.
