it’s worrying – covidcard no. 101
This was quite a rapid sketch. I made it in response to a news item I read about what is going on in Chile, regarding the rise in COVID-19 cases despite a huge vaccination programme. ""It's worrying," he said last Friday. "We're going through a critical moment of the pandemic… I urge you to take care of yourselves, of your loved ones, of your families
drawn to… A Piece for Tape Recorder – Vladimir Ussachevsky
A Piece for Tape Recorder is an amazing piece of music. It was recorded in 1956 and it still sounds like a transmission from the future. To make it, Vladimir Ussachevsky used "a gong, a piano, a single stroke on a cymbal, a single note on a kettledrum, the noise of a jet plane, a few chords on an organ" and "four pure tones, produced on an oscillator, a tremolo produced by the stabilized reverberation of a click from a switch on a tape recorder". This if the fifth in my drawn to
garlic-breath distancing – covidcard no. 100
'Garlic-breath distancing’ is no. 100 in the covidcard series of drawings. I noticed the headline in The Guardian on 15 April 2021.
drawn to… Unerforschtes Gebiet A – Thomas Köner
I used a Marco 9001 sharpened pencil with the paper placed vertically to draw blind to the 21:50 track Unerforschtes Gebiet A by Thomas Köner from his Unerforschtes Gebiet album. It's an album of bitter cold, creaking ice and cutting wind.
rotten fish: Day 1 of 100 Days of Brexit
rotten fish: Day 1 of 100 Days of Brexit
drawn to… Vertigo KO – Phew
Why not draw while listening to LPs? It was a simple enough premise, and, in these COVID-times I thought it'd be a good time-filler, and it was. I decided to start this mini-project by drawing while listening to Vertigo KO by Phew (aka Hiromi Moritani).
drawn to… Music On A Long Thin Wire – Alvin Lucier
This is the third in my small series—where I draw to a particular piece of music—hence the 'drawn to..' project title. I drew each of the four drawings below blind while listening to a 6 minute 43 seconds excerpt of Music on a Long Thin Wire by Alvin Lucier.
drawn to… Palm Sugar Candy – Oren Ambarchi
I first heard of Oren Ambarchi last year, when I stumbled across the Patience Soup collaboration with Phew and Jim O'Rourke. Somewhat embarrassingly—given how good his music is—I'd never heard his solo work until last week. I dug around his discography and ended up listening to the 16-minute long Palm Sugar Candy track from the Simian Angel LP on repeat. Simian Angel LP by Oren Ambarchi Palm Sugar Candy is so good that I decided to use it as the starting point for the second in my "drawn to
covidcards
This project makes more sense the more it goes on. A few months ago, I realised that I was basing each drawing on some phrase or word relating to COVID-19 that I either heard on the radio or read on a news site. I've now done over 70 covidcards, and I'm starting to think of ways I can use them to somehow tell a cohesive story once the pandemic is over, or has, at least, subdued. Vivenowhere.
vive nowhere
Nowhere is safe. Vive nowhere. From my Instagram. The support bubbles project keeps on coming. It's not something I planned or thought out in any way, but it seems to make sense to continue. The lexicon—that now accompanies our new ways of living—intrigues me and, the dots keep insisting they help me narrate some sort of a sense out of both the lexicon and the times. I've no idea where all this is going, but I'll stick with it until next summer or until the dots stop coming. Maybe this will make more sense this time next year. Follow me on Instagram if you want to see how the project progresses. Tier four. From my Instagram.