Neurology

Too Much /  by Justin Harrison

Image: My own

So here's my confession. I've been reading through some denser texts. Derrida and Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained. Whilst I find it interesting at moments, I also find it tedious most of the time - wading through Phenomenology, Cartesian Theatre models, and then Derrida refuting structualism, logocentric values, linguistics act... In an attempt to find a deeper understanding of beliefs and where they come from.

I started to delve deeper into theories of consciousness, neurologically and philosophically. However there is so much writing on this topic - like really a lot, not to mention 2 hr podcasts. Each time I pass through one school of belief I find another that contradicts it. Ok so I may not have read extensively but enough to know that this is not my passion.

The more honest part of this confession to my blog, is that I find myself wanting to have difficult and obtuse theory attached to my work to validate it in academic circles, to make it sound worthy of an MA. I think of the people who I want to intimidate with my dazzling intellect. Shame on me. I have previously written about honesty.

Some of my research is getting performative. And actually a little dull.

I looked back over the blog to reference some bits and found brief analysis of photos and film stills - much more interesting. So back to research of stuff that genuinely interests me, (which can still include Derrida and Neurology if it's genuinely interesting).

 

Matthew Barney /  by Justin Harrison

A series of ink drawings from Matthew Barnwey’s ‘River of Fundament’. I’m using the drawings to think about Matthew Barney’s work and my own. I like the deeper inspection that comes with drawing, not just visually but also cerebrally. There’s a freedom of thought that seems unique for me when I draw. A deep pleasure in finding marks that describe, especially when they look nothing like the article yet still evoke it

{{{Currently I’m reading ‘Consciousness Explained’ Looking the the nature of our consciousness how we think and perceive. It’s interesting as it explores the visual nature of our thinking which is a contradiction as our brain does not hold physical pictures but converts these things to electrical impulses - well that’s a crude reductionist version. So how is it that we can make images and drawings and they hold not just symbolic presence but deeper emotive and intuitive values too?}}}

I want to make more drawings - go larger and deeper add a little colour too. I always return to drawing in my practice >>> I’m happiest when it hovers somewhere between Abstract and gestural evocative of something familiar yet slightly beyond our recognition.///

I find him Matthew Barney hard one to decide upon. DO I like his work or not? Do I think it succeeds?Or is it all just sensuality opulence?The truth is I am seduced by the materiality of his work. As a sculpture he engages with the visceral physicality of metal, wood, vaseline >>> all kinds of materials. And he does work very closely with his conceptual enquiries taking a the threads of a principal or narrative and weaving his own. However I do have to ask the same question I ask of my own work - how is his audience and what can they take form his work.

Self indulgence is unavoidable in our work, we have to work with what moves us - yet I feel it should be with one eye on our audience, for what is there with out a viewer?

But still I can’t get enough of huge cast metal objects - demi gods of the space they occupy. The presence beyond the work an aura. Then there are the sets he makes sunken corridors of ruin, or vaults of human senses. People and objects set in a charged miasma///similar to Gregory Crudeson, Barney’s work is flooded with symbols, materials, ideas, questions and possibilities.

Hmmm I guess I do like his work then.

Currently Reading///

Consciousness Explained - Daniel C Dennett, Penguin
Why We Believe What We Believe- Andrew Newberg, Free Press
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Madella,Little Brown and Company