MAY 2007

Look at the photograph above - what practical fact does it eradicate and what uphold? Statues of man in place high on his plinth would surprise many under technical inspection. That is because man's head under the circumstances has to be magnified in size to amplify the failure of perspective to represent the actual facts. Above we see the facts, the mechanics of perspective of even a shadow reveals that man's head is reduced, appears so small and shrunken - devoid of the pretentions that we artists often give the cranium, the sphere of the mind in our representrations; and which, indeed, we must deploy in a ceremonial sculpture if knowledge of reality is to concur with the perspective from the ground.

What perspectives am I interested in that I cannot squeeze as a camel through the needle's eye and reduce or expand

Sage figures of our time clearly build up their analysis of man's behaviour as a search for an individual's satisfaction, and the motivating force that changes a paralysed present into an active one. On the other hand the contemporary and criminal features of combat in the global arena are repeated scenes from the Middle Ages, to which, animal man seems to be ineradicablly tied.

Our Western civilisation is presented as the achieved development of the individual and his/her rights in the time line of his/her life?

Do the artists with their videos and insistent symbols of a "work", as men and women, explore conversation with fingers that can trace a shape as powerfully as the mind of the blind - or as the deaf who, like myself, retrieve the fabulous songs of speech in words I read, words that I must explore as do those fingers of the blind, with the mental equivalent of a living moving active body. We trod the boards with simple steps at the crossroads, only the insolent priest realised that if we people understood the symbols we illustrated there, on the cross-road, we would break free from the abuse of our civilisation . Having kicked up my heels for a long ti me, careless of the stupid silouette I presented, because I loved the joy in movement .I now move among books and too late, too late, educate myself . Thinking about the dance , it is the youth we know that keeps a pulse fluctuating through the human crowd - and now that Time with his mapmaking mask of age walks with me I nevertheless move as though marking out an art of being, existence organically captured as an idea that can never be expressed unless I submit to it. Photos tracked down on the internet thrill me and if I steal them from a blog it is as though I found a torn paper on the pavement with a message on it. Old, I rebel against the catatonic life history of the old. I persistently draw from memory . I persistently talk to people although I can hardly hear what they say to me. I persistently breathe in and out for I am sure that like William Blake I may burst into song today or tonight.

Well anyway long sentences enough - but the Handstand could change if it is to nourish a transfer to art in the internet community. Though I cannot see any way out of the problem at present. Jocelyn Braddell.

photo: a brooding dawn - adrian platts

THE HAND-GUN’S RETORT

Here a short journey for a bullet

That takes all the time I have to give it

The length of my barrel ;

Then the bullet may stray from the arc

Of display .

My betrayal might be the trigger finger;

Hiding in the crook of a man's hand

Without choice I aim his will.

My deep distrust of this will

I demonstrate

Within a hair's breadth;

To miss the target is my duty

When in the hands of the murder

For which I was designed.

Heavy I am

His hand trembles

Fire! A bullet sings

Free as the bird in the zenith.

Thinking about this song

Gave me a luminous moment in the dark

My iron barrel deflects man's will

Life is hard, but metal

Is more difficult to mould

Than man's will.

jocelyn braddell©

older now....

I RECOMMEND THAT ANY MAKING HITS OR BOOKMARKED ON THIS SITE LISTEN TO THIS VIDEO BY AARON RUSSO, DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKER. THIS IS THE GOODS FOLKS - THE PEURILE PLAYBOYS OF THE WORLD REVEALED,UNITED IN A DEMOGRAPHIC WAR.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1263677258215075609&hl=en