The Hollow Men - a response, 2014

                  IV

    The eyes are not here
    There are no eyes here
    In this valley of dying stars
    In this hollow valley
    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
   
    In this last of meeting places
    We grope together
    And avoid speech
    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
   
    Sightless, unless
    The eyes reappear
    As the perpetual star
    Multifoliate rose
    Of death's twilight kingdom
    The hope only
    Of empty men.

The Hollow Men

Experimental drawings November 2013

29: voyage to the edge of the future, 2013

29: voyage to the edge of the future

I

outside 

the land stretches, 

empty, 

to the horizon

large swathes unmapped

the bleak, barren upland plains

dead still air

a slow whirlwind,

a silence we cannot hear

the sun pouring down from a pitiless sky

among brilliant rising and falling points of dust

the grass crackling underfoot

the red and rootless earth 

the streams have ceased to run:

stagnant water, 

slow and thick and foul,

stirs and surges

in the boiling lake, 

simmering, spouting

II

on the horizon 

beyond the mirage:

the border city, 

straddling two deserts.

the city where memory is traded for forgetfulness

the city which knows only departures, no returns

the city in the wasteland of indivisible existence. 

the city that sleeps

profound silence 

broken only by the sound we make as we walk.

in the city unexpected gusts of burning wind

in the city, put your ear to the dusty ground

 and hear the distant sound of a slamming door.

in the city containing the ghosts of the past, 

like the lines of a hand,

waiting endlessly,

to be read.

in the city everything is invisible:

the stone and the clay have dissolved

retaining only the faintest trace of the past

as indexical proof of lives that were lived.

in the city the traceries of a pattern 

shimmering as a dimly illuminated mist 

holding shadows, echoes 

one of the many lost kingdoms riding on a cloud of smoke.

the last stage of the journey along a stony precipice,

through air like molten glass:

III

when you raise your eyes, 

you see the sea                   glist’ning above you

the thunder of the waves hammering the city’s walls

here it comes: 

the turmoil, the chaos, the hubbub and howls 

in the black, whirling wells of sea

shoals of light blinking past, like eyes,

staring down into the fathomless abyss

and a storm’s unleashed on the jealous sea that loves her ancient sleep

Fast         Asleep.               Fast.                         Asleep.

we’ve learnt to breathe water.

yet, there is nothing left for it but to go on,

oarless, rudderless, sleepless.

will she sing her siren’s song to us on our raft of dreams

as we drift along?

IV

there is a country up above the world

where we are sailing across hollow spaces 

where the air suddenly grows cold

and the sun is blotted out

solid silence:

where space is curved.

in tiny niches the void is crumpled up,

a sucking, greedy, grasping singularity of oblivion

dropping through the time-space warp

into the vortex,

spiraling us into inner space

the last frontier, 

populated with entropy engines, hallucinations, high-pitched voices,

alien furrowed full circle orbing ecstasy 

of flyblown paranoia at the helm.

havoc in the heavens

needing to get out of the centrifuge, 

and out of the spin

and 

it

is

a

long

fall

down.

from the friction of the air 

her face melting off

like the skin of a meteor.

lit by the diamond of Venus 

in the sky that is dying

the world suddenly exploding,

doubling, revolving, changing.

the old galaxies flee us,

inflexible in flux,

and we,

the survivors of the old,

projecting plasma bridges to the future

the movement of thought

flickering flaming flowing

for 

the dawn has come,

as it has for eons,

for the last time.

This is Tomorrow!

this is Tomorrow!

contemporary amnesia:

between the sea and the sky

where silence is a howl

and the memories of the living 

are endlessly echoed in misery,

floating calmly on the glossy wave,

swimming and dreaming in the cauldron of time:

we are speculating into the void.

this is Tomorrow!

the taste of the usual was like cinders in her mouth

gulf of failure:  perfect doesn’t work in her bandwidth of reality.

hovering on the edge of consciousness

spending time boxing in the shadows.

this is Tomorrow!

cyberverse saturation

the contrapuntal cacophony of horns

the neo-darkness disrupting the imperative of the music

the displacement of celestial questions:

multiplicities, ambiguities, slippery, slidey, dirty knowledge,

life is too contemporary.

this is Tomorrow!

in the atrocity halls a flexible logic of screaming popes, 

degenerate fantasies, unspeakable lusts.

you have a dream, she has a dream, we all had a dream

walking past the house 

skirts floating on air

ghosts in her head

bouncing on a mattress of silk

wobbling precariously on post-nuclear sand.

the new worlds contain the codes.

this is Tomorrow!

in the laboratory of infinite possibilities

visionary engines

cut-price shamans of a sad little cult

auto-destructive heroes

combusting in the auto da fé of vanities

this is Tomorrow!

BELL (telephone rings)

(Pick up receiver 1)

“Helen speaking, hello.”

(pick up receiver 2)

“Helen, it’s Libby...Is my daughter Sally with a boy?”

(pick up receiver 1, hand over the mouthpiece)

Helen, staring as if she had seen the horror of all horrors:

“Yes...she’s holding his penis!”

This is Tomorrow!

Lying drugged among the bubbles is Euphoria Bliss,

the errant cow, a big dose of the blah-blah-blahs

drowsy with the torpor of no-exit dreams

drifting along a river of syrup, 

the igloo between her fossilised legs colder than ever before

red peonies falling from her thighs

chic gluttony, sunshine filtering through the milky cortex of her sickly skin

discordant sounds emerging from the bottom of the sack of cottonwool balls

signifying banalities that betray nothing.

The flesh is sad, alas!

this is Tomorrow!

The carousel, the carnival , the trapeze stop suddenly, 

the clown’s whistling interrupted by the thundering crash of a fallen building

eternal insomnia in the heart of the slumbering city

where buildings are made from books deciphered in moonlight on deserted balconies

freezing trips through empty streets

this is Tomorrow!

the door to the birdcage opens

fixed forever on a single meridian,

she’s flying into the unfathomable abyss of vast mirrors

reflecting an infinite succession of rooms

behold! the jeopardy of daily life.

this is Tomorrow!

in love with the shiny magpie surfaces of popular culture

in the secret vaults of her mind 

she does not plot,     nor plan,        nor devise:

she goes for life                  hammer and tongs.

she collars it,         and scrags it          and throttles it,

traps it in the lava flow of her whimsy

this is Tomorrow!

stubborn gospels of joy

unhealthy heresies

aesthetic antennae flaccid and still

the government of the tongue

finding epiphanies in the banal

a sclerosis of the global conscience

adding strength to tyranny

the merry chorus of ignorance rising from the intergalactic darkness

breeding in its dim whirling greyness

 this is Tomorrow!

through the big end of the opera glass

moon, tides, voyaging globes, compasses, constellations

and longitudinal lines:  

Ecco Homo!

this is Tomorrow!

Dystopia: an investigation into the dark side of Mothering

'Dystopia' is an ongoing body of work primarily concerned with 
mapping liminality (that which is neither ‘here’ nor ‘there’) and is 
particularly interested in reconstructing and repositioning the role 
of the female outsider who occupies liminal, peripheral positions 
in society. 

‘Dystopia’, interrogates the role of mother as outsider, in light of 

social expectations and pressure.

"Slowly Swallowing the Mercury, ring Delirium 1-2-3!", 2013, installation and  text

Excerpt from video of installation 'Mama doesn't live here any more', 2013

Documentation of an Action, Shabby Mummy performance, 2013

Shabby Mummy's costume, with balaburka, cloak and tittudders, 2013, as worn by Jo

‘Beyond God the Father’, 2013: A challenge to Patriarchy

‘Beyond God the Father’, 2013

'Virgin, Mother, Madonna, Whore', 2013, digital print

In contemporary western society the oppression of women has a long history dating back to ancient Greece.  As the earliest practices of goddess-centric worship became supplanted by monotheism, the rise of androcentricity led to patriarchal dominance.  ‘His-story’ was born and ‘Her-story’ began its slow decline into oblivion.

There is a long history of belief, particularly in Abrahamic religions, in male-female differences associated with male superiority.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition, men were originally designated as the owners of their families.  In the Talmud, Jews were taught that categories of property included cattle, women and slaves.  In the New Testament, Ephesians (5:22-24) instructs Christian wives to “be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the Church”. 

'Her Master's Voice', 2013, digital print

The Catholic Church remains the locus of the mythologies that perpetuate the oppression of women.  By continuing to deny women the right over their reproductive function, they remain victims of patriarchal demands and expectations.  In a religion that teaches women they can only achieve fulfilment by being wives and mothers, or choose to be wedded to the church as nuns, the archetypes of the Virgin the Madonna, the Mother and the Whore were born.  These crude categories are totally incompatible with Feminism and common sense.  However, given that the Vatican estimates there are currently 1.2 billion Catholics world-wide, it is imperative that these damaging mythologies are actively challenged and new possibilities mooted in order to end the global oppression of women.  Unlike other persecuted minorities, women make up 50% of the population and still do not enjoy equal rights with men.  Although it could be argued that small in-roads are being made in Europe and North America, patriarchy still maintains its social and cultural stranglehold.  

'Beyond God the Father', 2013, digital print

Women who challenge and break patriarchal heteronormative mores i.e. radical feminists, lesbians, queer, bisexual and transmen (female to male transsexuals) are most likely to suffer punitive measures.  Radical lesbian feminist writers, theorists and philosophers like Mary Daly, Sheila Jeffreys, Judith Butler et al challenge the notion of male dominance and point to the insidious role of gender construction.  

The  latter embodies the idea that men and women are born different and therefore can never achieve equality.  However, this is the greatest prevailing myth of the 21st century.  It is imperative that our society brings up children who are not sexually stereotyped into fixed binary gendered roles, but learn to become fully human, in order to expose the false premise of this mythology, which keeps women and girls subjugated.

'Benediction for Benedict', 2013, digital print

The title of this new and ongoing body of work is taken from the eponymous, seminal work by radical feminist philosopher and theologian Mary Daly published in 1967, in which she directly calls upon the Pope and entire Catholic Church to end its misogynistic and oppressive belief system.