History of a compost heap
Image ~ Philip Cartland
Originally the compost heap was in position 1. X didn't like it there (why??). She moved it to position 2, but our neighbour was not pleased because he said it might encourage potential burglars... huh..? Clearly the tree isn't aid enough? X moved it again. Neighbour is happy, but now I must live with discontent in my heart, yearning and yearning for position 1... till my dying day. Allotment stories, 2010
23 August 2010 - 10:12pm — Philip CartlandCartrain
I discovered cartяain and his battle with the absurd Damien Hirst via one of my photos below.
"In December 2008, Damien Hirst contacted the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) demanding action be taken over works containing images of his skull sculpture For the Love of God made by then-16 year old Cartrain, and sold on the internet gallery 100artworks.com." ~ see more on wikipedia
Images copyright ~ Philip Cartland
See more from my series in progress
8 August 2010 - 7:41am — Philip CartlandToo true
Mark couldn't have put it better:
"The politicians and wise men on Newsnight and of course THE SUN scratch their chins and wonder why the support for Raoul Moat has been big and continues to grow. It's simple great swathes of the British public are sofa sitting, stella swigging, Berkley smoking, skunk puffing, benefit scamming, BNP voting, scumbags, and they love a villain as long as he don't fiddle with kids and loves his mum." ~ Mark Page - Anti Heros
16 July 2010 - 6:11am — Philip CartlandLet it all go - Bill Burke's 'Mine Fields'
My intrigue in 'Mine Fields' arises from my own long standing desire to make a 'diary or travelogue/docu-scrapbook'. The Peter Beard 'thing'. I have the same infection with Max Pam's, "Going East". I was lucky enough to get a shrink wrapped copy of this book (Thanks Sheldon!) and will review it down the line too. Somehow, though, I get the feeling that my life is neither fucked up enough nor remarkable enough (as if those are the only criteria!). Certainly in Burke's case we have bits of both.
'Mine Fields' is a loose 118 page narrative, travelogue, collaged together in a patchwork of images, ephemera, clippings, writing and documents, sandwiched between glossy boards (the glossy boards finally grew on me).
It documents a Cambodia with it's 'limbs blown off' so to speak, entwining simultaneously a narrative of Burke's divorce turned ugly, a 'Mine Field' of its own. I guess - could be pushing it a bit here - the book might be likened somewhat to the psychological journey, in "Apocalypse Now", of Martin Sheen down the river into his own soul.
In some respects, while the 'documentary' snippets give us a sense of what is going on in Cambodia, torture, train attacks, terrified prisoners, limbless victims, I suspect a great part of the catching interest lies in Burke's personal story. I spent a while digging out dates dates: divorce: 1991, girlfriend abortion: Feb 1990, and then, somewhere you read the quote:
I'd hardly said a word to my wife, til I'd said yes to a divorce ~ Apocalypse now.
I don't want to trivialize the suffering in Cambodia but I do feel something about the book is a little too melodramatic perhaps, too blatant a symbolism, both "Apocalyse Now" and "Heart of Darkness" - in a good way - suffer from this. "The Horror, the Horror".
Recall another Conrad story, something to give us that vision of a pointless battle over property... Remember, 'Out Post of Progress'? Two men, waiting for a delayed steamer deep in the jungles of the Congo, end up shooting each other in a hazy fit of sweaty madness, and why? All over the last bag of sugar!
MINE!
Reminds me of my previous bosses... psychological desperation over the trivial, so true, also, in both divorce and war?
Well, nevertheless, I love puzzling the pieces of Burke's multidimensional story together. In a way it's like reading a gripping novel, except that the reader will need to fill in the spaces between shards. Who is this photographer fellow Burke, to what extent does he implicate himself, how guilty is he?
Let's face it, a messy divorce, or likewise, a civil war, is much easier to read about that to live. But being the narrator you can build your own story, color it, gloss it and let your reader project the great traveler's desire to pickup and leave, light a unrestrained fag again, push the line, live out of the box… LET IT ALL GO! That's exactly what I want to do...sometimes.
Mombasa/Walthamstow
Left: Mombasa Kenya, 1994, Right: Walthamstow, London, 2010
6 July 2010 - 7:26pm — Philip CartlandBP - witch hunt
Well let's put things into a little bit of context here:
| Rank | Country | Annual CO2 emissions (in thousands of metric tons) |
Percentage of global total |
| - | World | 28,431,741 | 100.0 % |
| 1 |  China |
6,103,493 | 21.5 % |
| 2 |  United States |
5,752,289 | 20.2 % |
| - |  European Union |
3,914,359 | 13.8 % |
| 3 |  Russia |
1,564,669 | 5.5 % |
| 4 |  India |
1,510,351 | 5.3 % |
| 5 |  Japan |
1,293,409 | 4.6 % |
| 6 |  Germany |
805,090 | 2.8 % |
| 7 |  United Kingdom |
568,520 | 2.0 % |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
19 June 2010 - 6:43am — Philip CartlandOil - BP
Seems to me, that even if the pipe never leaked, even if we pumped all the oil out as expected, it would still end up polluting our world.
17 June 2010 - 6:49am — Philip CartlandWalthamstow - butcher -2010
'Traditional' butcher, London 2010 - Copyright Philip Cartland.
The 1998 Diana calendar has been up for 12 years!
1 March 2010 - 7:27am — Philip CartlandDeadly Mission
Deadly Mission - Antique shop, Bath, 2008 - Copyright Philip Cartland
Hank Janson (made to be a tough ex cop turned writer living in the Bronx) - real name: Stephen Frances was a pulp fiction writer in the 50s and early 60s. He lived and wrote in Britain and was revered in the paperback novel world - selling millions of copies of his books. However, he fell victim to censorship by the Home Office when, in January of 1954, the Old Bailey found him and his publisher guilty of obscenity. The Home Office burned or destroy hundreds of thousands of books, among them Janson's paperbacks. He escaped prosecution by fleeing to Spain.
Janson's books were largely cover illustrated by Reginald Heade (though the inferior examples of his work such as 'Deadly Mission' in the photograph, suggest an alternative artist was doing his best to provide a likeness, or that Heade was tiring in his craft). Heade's art collectively provides a perverse selection of fantasy ranging from femme fatale to the classic beautiful victim, all made to match titles such as 'Silken Menace' or 'Nyloned Avenger'.
Paul Seawright's Invisible Cities
Seawright in conversation with Russell Roberts:
RS: For some your work might be in danger of creating a neo-colonial perspective as it is firmly situated within the narrow confines of the Western art world. Is this something you have considered?
PS: Obviously I have considered it, worried about it even. After my first trip to Africa I considered moving on to something else, uncertain how to resolve what was inevitably going to be problematic, no matter how I approached it...
...I'd argue that an external perspective has value and maybe is even enhanced by a post-colonial perspective, or at least a perspective that rejects the dominant Western iconography of the African continent.
Seawright recognises that Africa is a photographers trap. His method, which give priority to a 'neutral' and muted stance, attempts to deny dramatisation
I wonder though, if, by rejecting the dominating iconography, by stepping into his specialised world of art, and succeeding, that by this very action, he stumps himself. Perhaps, with this book, he'll fail to find appeal, and so also fail to inspire the prerequisite deluge of imitatative imagery straining to establish its own domination (Africa is to be avoided like the plague, I've noticed). No, I doubt it. I detect, even in Seawright's desolation, his vacant spaces, a faint pictorialism, a seductive aura, even if it is conceptual, that inspires us viewers, even while our attention is called to notice the buzzing electricity that bypasses the shanty town
This book contains an introductory text by John Reader, and, at the back, a coversation with with Russell Roberts. I would set it right beside Guy Tillim's Avenue Patrice Lumumba on the shelf.
4 March 2009 - 10:26pm — Philip Cartland