Things disappear. The same text over and over and over, slurped up into the machine. Erased.

Patterns of erasure.

It was all about the blur, the blurred photo, that image that is beyond the image, a thing in itself, irreducible ..., and the thought that while such an image may give shape to the day, stand for it in a complex way, create it in some way, give it a focus, an image of itself, what then of the text that might achieve the same thing, the 'blurred' text? Blur into meaning, blur into representation, what we see when we don't see, what we don't see when we are out there in the street, anywhere, that blurred world which 'extends' itself beyond meaning.

The 'sharpness' of the perceptual world is deceptive. It demands that we participate in it. It is oddly authoritarian, like a well-tailored uniform. But there is always something missing. It promises us the real but this is not the real, not in the least.

Thursday 12 August 2010

If yesterday was the blur then today is the blotch. Don’t read anything into it. The blotch is a blotch, that’s it. (Having said this we might retain an interest in its etymology.

A cloud is a cloud, a horse is a horse. A cloud is not a horse riding on high or a camel loping forth in the desert.

Somewhere between the lick and the lecherous, the slick. Think of this in musical terms. They talk of the lick – but what of the slick? The slick hand, the deft, the adept … The slick is an abuse, an abuse of the virtuosic. Remember, we are trying to think of these things in visual terms.

Friday 13 August 2010

Everything in the dictionary paints the blur in a bad light. This is the fault of the dictionary – a fault and an error. What shall we say of the runner who ran by in a blur, or the ‘ruined’ passage of the landscape as you look outside the speeding Shinkansen? You can either look for clarity in the distance or celebrate the blur close up. The blur is more engaging, more difficult, more demanding. This does not mean we should put it on the side of fault or error. It may delight us. It keeps things in movement unlike the film image that destroys movement by making it its very ‘matter’. Movement is the matter of the blur, too – a reminder of our sensory limitations. It reminds us how we are in the world. Clear vision makes us forget.

Blurring distinctions may not be merely a retreat to the indiscriminate. It may be a return to the true nature of things! And who shall not praise the shrouding mist? Hard edge, who wants that? It’s the life of the cleaver.

Saturday 14 August 2010

A lick of something, we are told, is a small amount. We might equally say that it is a taste, a sample. Yes, a tasting. In that sense, tentative, a try on.

The link between the lick and the licentious, the lick and the illicit, the lick adn liberty?

We shall keep such matters on hold.

The sketch saves us. It's a deterrent, it dissuades. I mean, it wards off. Crossing the Bridge on Thursday I sketched it, as it were from within. Yet it's a view for 'out there'. It might be said to position but it does not. I was feeling ill at the time, I was desperately trying to keep my mind on other things. This is what resulted, this quick sketch. It took two split seconds. Yes, an esquisse. An esquisse but not a study. It represents a condition but what sort of condition? Like a tag set out ('splurged', we might almost say) in mid air.

See this drawing as thrown sticks, almost as an augury. It is positioned here less vitally than it was on the page; however, it is hard to retain such 'niceties'. (Certainly we would not wish to talk of texts and contexts. Every performance is a total performance.)

Tomorrow I shall try that exercise in earnest.

Saturday 14 August 2010

This evening TW offered me her collection of 'story wires' to use as yarrow sticks (for augury purposes). No, we had no real idea what yarrow is - but that's

only a Wikipedia search away. It's a good offer but it isn't quite what I have in mind. But then, what do I have in mind? I don't know. I think it would have bits of plastic tape, the sort they put around building sites or crime scenes. Mixed with other things, of course. There has to be a ritual component to this activity, something that indicates care or attention. It needs a special cloth. This needs further thought.

I'm reminded of two things: an art work I saw in Hobart, at the Carnegie Gallery (