Some pictures from Brussels

I was in Brussels recently and went to the BOZAR there. In one room there was a group of books to read through if you wished, but they were displayed in cases which you had to put your hands through little holes to turn the page, a cross between a museum vitrine and a post-natal incubator. It made me realise how fetish-like a book is, the touch and smell of it.

This was one of the books, by a Belgian artist by the name of Michael Barreman. There is a natural sense of relationship here between the giant person and the little building which still feels gigantic and the human still feels small. How does that work? I've had a look online at his paintings, there is a great fantasy going on a formal kind of playfulness.

And this is a photo I took from the park in Brussels one evening. Such formality to the gardens and such a striking compositional intrusion by that great beautiful big piece of machinery.

PUPPET THEATRE

I was really glad to see this performance, it was in Brussels and to be fair it was on the main tourist drag so it was mostly trying (I think) to fulfill a kind of preconceived stereotype of what puppet theatre is.

There is such a great feeling when you see a puppet like this because it has been endowed with such wonder and fantasy without even seeing it come to life. But then when it is used in such a traditional way as this (though the puppeteers were pretty adept at what they were doing) it leads my fantasy absolutely no-where. The puppets soon die because they are following a kinetic or scenic framework that is imposed on them rather than coming from them. Here, they were used in Romeo and Juliette and you couldn't help wondering why they didn't just use humans.

This was the bit that came to life for me. Being able to watch the puppeteers. They were absolutely fascinating, the way they formed their bodies and their movements around the restrictions of space and need to manipulate the characters. I wanted to switch the lights off the puppets so that I could watch them better. There was a little story going on between two of the girls on the left, the more experienced girl was telling the other one when to pass the puppets over and when she got it wrong a couple of times she really ripped into her. But of course you are not suppose to see these things because they are part of the hidden machine.

Ok perhaps I shouldn't comment on these too much because I know them second hand from books and so it is so affected by what OTHER people thing in terms of how it represented.

This is from the Venice Biennale (I still haven't given up hope of getting there myself in the next few weeks). Apparently this exhibit is very popular because it is semi-pornographic, derived from or responding to the Marate Sade, but OF COURSE it's popular. Isn't that the first thing you do when you turn on a projector, you exaggerate the size of your cock, you fuck another figure, these are things that the unconscious release in us instantaneously when our imagination is given a whiff of freedom. I read that book called Story of the Eye by George Bataille the other day (I was desperate for reading material in English). I really enjoyed it, because it reduced sex and bodily fluids and desire and darkness to simple benign fantasy. It reminded me of a great album that Jeff gave me once called Passenger of Shit, just wild and fantastic descriptions of perversity.

And then there is this, I'm going to get to the bottom of this guy (I will see a performance on which he is scenographer in a couple of weeks) because it really touches me.

So strong and heavy are his lines yet so utterly impermanent at the same time, there is a wonderful contradiction that keeps the whole thing alive and propelling you forward into the image or moving image.

And lastly here is a beach in Brussels.

Just a minute, isn't that lame, a beach in Brussels right next to the dirtiest canal you have ever seen, a measly 10cm of sand and a garden hose. Well yes and no. It is exactly that but the fantasy is alive and well in everyone who lies there under the sun in their bikini sipping on a Margaritta. To quote a friend, (John R) it's like the kid with the tiger mask, it doesn't really look like a tiger but it's the fact that they are wearing it that allows you to be afraid of the roar.