I’ve recently published a guide of the must-sees and must-skips at the Venice Biennale, which closes on 27th November 2011.
A major highlight is Switzerland’s pavilion by Thomas Hirschhorn. Crystal of Resistance promised to be exciting with its sparkling, holographic invitation, and Hirschhorn’s talk at the press event confirmed our suspicions. To a bewildered audience and a sweaty, smirking group of press, Hirschhorn held up his childish drawing of his plan for the Venice Biennale.
“I want to work in necessity, in urgency and in a panic. This should be understood as: panic is the solution! That’s the POLITICAL. Art reaches beyond solutions.”
A new neurosis has become habit. It is a pre-trip anxiety. Fear of missing plane, fear of forgetting toothbrush, fear of unknown catastrophes. Do I ease my nerves by taking out travel insurance? No. I don’t understand fear of flying… Yet, after watching too many detailed national geographic programmes of “how this horrific plane crash happened” its starting to make sense. Now, to solve all these problems, I like to fly high. This means I glide through the tube journey of hell, float through security, smile at everyone, drink lots of whiskey tasters and breeze through the flight. The odd mild hallucination delights me. I am safe from the levels of stress flying around the airport. Occasionally I have a mild panic mid flight that I am flying so high if the plane crashes I won’t even notice… Then I say my goodbyes to the world and swear to survive for husband’s sake. I feel sad, and think of which passengers are so stupid they will inflate their life jackets while inside the plane and stop us all from leaving. I look worryingly at the safety card that has an X through “glasses, high heels, false teeth and earrings.” How will I get off the crashing plane if I cant see without my glasses? Will every woman really pause to take out her hoops as a plane hurtles to the ground? Why are earrings so dangerous for plane crashes anyway? False teeth are expensive, what if its a false alarm and an old man takes out his false teeth and loses them forever? Then, I forgot why I’m thinking about false teeth and zone in and out of Aqua or Britney, not sure if I’m sleeping.
And then we arrive! Brno, Czech Republic! Or czech-o-slovakia as my nanny will always say. Its freezing like Finland, lose all sense of the meaning of money. In the centre, the gallery is a huge factory/warehouse facing a shopping mall that’s called a ‘galerie.’
We look at last years Startpoint prize book and realise the photo we sent of ourselves will be printed in the book. Realise the photo I sent potentially look makes me look like a prostitute.
Lucy brings us through an underground mall to a tram to our hotel. We are both suprised at my room, which is twice as big as my appartment in london. Its even got a bigger kitchen fridge and couch.. and a jacuzzi. The grandfather clock chimes like in my nanny’s house. I could get used to this. Decide I am moving to Czech forever.
See a posh shop called ‘Posh.’ Realise Brno is the Eastern Europe Paris. Eat chicken filled with cheese and potatoes, v good. See promising cake shops. Mark out the crypts and vaults as places to see. Especially the mummy in the glass coffin. Drink kofola, Czech cola. It is amazing and tastes sort of prune-ish. Freak out about the cola. It was super popular during communism when coca cola wasn’t allowed. Koplofa is better. Fret about now that I’ve tasted this how will I ever go back to shitty coca cola. Can u buy kofola in england? Get a dehydration headache from only drinking cola all day. My lips have gone bright red and might fall off.
Come back to hotel. Realise the whole room is empty of anything useful.. Not a glass, cup or utensil. But there is a fridge, cooker, and the rest of a house. Roam around the creepy corridors (that light up automatically for an energy saving ,3 seconds before going back to darkness) looking for vending machine. There is no vending machine. Freak out about vending machines being my favourite things in hotels even though this is not true. Drink from the tap more, tap is weird and sprays water everywhere except into sink. Can’t cope. Sleep now.
The next few days involved only installing and feeling like Spongebob out of water (dehydrating and lips cracking off). Had two giant Czech beers in a pub under a shopping centre that was made entirely of wood, wild west style. Catastrophically drunk. Had a long conversation about horrible sex things that, on reflection, were possibly recorded. Summary; anything with blood, fists or shit is just too gross for life. Daniella: “I can’t believe people like to be spat on! This information has changed my life!” Discuss the merits of Shakira’s songs with Javier and Daniella. Esto a ti, a ti, te va a calentar ¿Qué? A calentar ¿Qué?
Laugh so much my brain starts to seize up around the back of my head and might spontaneously pee. Realise Czech beer might be stronger than normal beer. Realise cigarettes are so cheap. Chain smoke happily indoors. Burn throat. In a fit of holiday hysteria we ask the bartender where can a chica score some weed in this town. He doesn’t understand so we write weed??? on a piece of paper. He says “one second” sternly and goes away. He will call the police! Haha honk honk hysteria. He nods and talks to someone at the bar and serves a customer. Giant Czech man comes to give directions. Says “Petrov” 27 times. We don’t know who that is! High fives me and breaks my hand.
Wake up dead. Run to gallery to turn on show before judging. Lots of people aren’t ready yet, do some helping and try not to die. Go to the crypt with Tommy, after some sandwhiches and a horrible fruit cake which was basically just soggy plums covered in soggy crumble. Crypt is closed for lunch. Realise “Petrov” is not a drug dealer but actually a gothic church overlooking the city. Tommy enters church. I attempt to step over church threshold and giant metal sign blows across path to smash into me. Scream! God hates homosexuals! Shaken by spooky spirit world activity. Go into church, forget about harrowing experience and take disrespectful photos and laugh at bad sculptures of angel babies.
//
Come home. Die of fever. Demand 7up instead of water. Sleep for two days.
Katherine checks into hotel. Pop a prosecco. Hear a strange conversation in the hallway, scurry to peep through the spyhole. Concierge is handing something to woman who says “will it bring me to heaven?” He says, “oh yeeesss.” Feel like I’m watching a real life episode of Weeds when Nancy is a drug dealing maid. Admire concierge’s business venture. Eat a cookie. Turn on tv. “Enter your room number to pay £20 for tv access.” Omg. Turn off tv. Nerves rattled. Eat another cookie.
This book will be our first publication as an emerging artist duo and will have a limited edition print run of 300 copies. The publication will feature 19 of our photographs, reproduced in full colour, and the story written by Kevin…
Rewards go from a pledge of £5 for a poster …. if you feel like helping or know someone who might like the rewards please send it on!
So far we have 4 £50 pledges who will each get a signed copy of the limited edition publication, 48cm x 30cm poster of The Unnameable and name featured in “with thanks” section of publication… and one £100 pledge who will get a signed copy of the limited edition publication, copy of The Unnameable film on DVD, name featured in the “supported by” section of publication, 48cm x 30cm poster of The Unnameable, and a signed copy of “Hardcover; Image Perspectives” on Black Dog Publishing (http://blackdogonline.com/all-books/hardcover.html) featuring a four page spread of an alternative publication of The Unnameable. Major big thank you…. !
Sally-Anne & myself have just returned from a residency at the Cill Rialig project, Co. Kerry. Our pre-famine cottage looked over a cliff onto the Atlantic… Sally-Anne got electrocuted by a hanging wire but a rubber hat saved her, I nearly caused us to die in a car accident by insisting on saving a wild puppy… but now we’re back in London and about to begin editing the film we shot in the area, “The Observer & I.”
A few weeks earlier I shot another, shorter, film… editing begins soon…:
There’s no leaks, ghosts or poisonous, brain-damaging black mould! Our new house is so exciting!
When I turned up to live in the 3 bedroom 1960s ex-park keepers lodge, with a jungle front garden and a forest for a back garden, run down garages and, of course, the south asian cruising park, I felt some trepidation. I’m not scared of old houses, but there was a “oh shit what have I done moment.” The person before me had a huge, stupid dog and I soon realised the dog smell was accompanied by hundreds of fleas that kept trying to bite me. I was too concerned about staining the floorboards mahogany that I didn’t worry about the pipes clanking in the floors and walls all night. It was just the heating. But, as Pradeep later pointed out, after moving into the house with me, why would they clink if the heating isn’t even turned on?
When Siobhan came to visit for a weekend adventure I told her about “Larry,” the park keeper, having killed himself in her room. Drunk and sleepy we played on the Ouija board to talk to him. Siobhan was not concentrating and all we got the spirit to say was “Q T.” A quicktime file extension?! We forgot about it and went to sleep. I scared Siobhan all weekend with fake severed arms hidden in her room, lights on timer and sneaky tricks.
Then she went back home, and Pradeep said, looking at our photos in Thorpe Park, “oh so Q T!” WHAT!
“I said, so cutie.” I couldn’t tell Pradeep why I was so alarmed because he is scared of ghosts the way normal people are scared of knife crime and gangs of angry youths. If you joke about ghosts he freaks like Scooby Doo and is unresponsive to reasoning. Then, the house was put up for sale and we were all unhappy and stressed about what our next move would be if it sold. When it sold at auction we began to pack our things and look for a new home. Its been a week and a half since we found out we had to leave. Since then:
- A leak from the bathroom started to flood the kitchen
- All the flowers in the garden died despite good weather.
- Pradeep woke me up to tell me someone was downstairs, it sounded like sawing or shuffling- no one was there.
- Black mould appeared over night in the kitchen (literally).
- We were woken up by a noise in the garden that Pradeep accurately described as “if a bird became a human and was being choked to death.”
- And, last night (our last night) the light bulb in the hall emitted a smell like gas and it seems the plastic was burning.
Why did all of these things happen at the last moment? Why was the house functioning fine for me, the past 4 months, and the guy before me, for two years? Finally, the sale fell through. It seems the ghost is unhappy with us leaving, or maybe he sensed our unhappiness and stopped the sale. Birds don’t scream like humans! And, no, it wasn’t a cat. I know what cats sound like!
So we get in the moving van and I announced my secret suspicion that there was a ghost. Pradeep says “yes, so bad. I didn’t tell you because you would be scared but one night when I was alone the light in the kitchen and the cooker kept turning on by themselves!” The van lady pipes up that “that house gave me shivers.” But I don’t think he was a mean ghost, I think he was just sad we were leaving. I imagine we provided ample entertainment for him. Especially when you consider the previous tenant, the tragic Mr “I want to be a comedian despite never making any funny jokes.” (True story)
I don’t think the ghost understands the legalities of us having to move and even though the sale fell through we already had signed the lease on our new house so had no choice. Pradeep banned all seances as his one condition of moving in, but I feel like bursting back in with the ouija board to find out what’s going on. And then I worried the ghost got trapped in the house BECAUSE of our previous seance.
Anyway, I must now concentrate on my current task of transporting roses, blackcurrent trees and cheese plants safely on the tube to our new home for an emergency re-potting. The other roses are not looking too good after their earlier trip in the van but I’m determined to save them for ghosty’s murderous garden revenge.
