Please redirect yourself to BROUGHMAN.US I was using that site to have what I thought was an amusingly horrible manual html website while I waited to purchase a new computer and Adobe CS. I’m too nomadic, too reckless, and too broke to mess with a new Macbook Pro to replace my dead Powerbook, and I’ve lost interest in Dreamweaver. WordPress kicks the shit out of trying to maintain and publish content with Dreamweaver. I can update, tweak and maintain my website from any computer with an internet connection. I’ve got a lot to do to make it look the way I want but I’m happy that I’m able to keep throwing content up while I figure things out.
Two nights ago I was unable to sleep as the pinball machine was in a heavy game of multi-ball. I sat up and worked on this for a little while, eventually I was content with my attempt and laid back down. I had my contacts out for this one. It reminds me of a drawing by Szukalski of a man only mentioned as “Eddy.” Stas didn’t have a very high opinion of Eddy, but he looked down his nose at damn near everyone. Eddy was one of many “thieves” that existed in the world of Szukalski, stealing his method of teaching art throuhg master of light and shadow, no tricks with paintbrushes, etc. Szu Kal Ski is still a favorite of mine and his work pierces my soul, but he sure was a bit of a dick.
My brain is a pinball machine on constant multi-ball. Desperately juggling thoughts by smashing buttons to rubber laced flippers. Speeding up and down ramps, knocking down targets. Side gutters: watching lambs march to the slaughterhouse; their direction unchanged by my screams. The center shoveling its mouth with ravenous hands of gravity. The jackpot’s set to zero, and the scoreboard that doesn’t change. TILT! This game is fucked.
Was writing some work for a collaborative effort called “Pressing Palms” and I came up with one that is slightly to off to some corner that just doesn’t seem to work yet. It should do fine here.
“Phantom embraces like removed limbs tingling my emotions, echoes of the good and the bad. Haunted by a ghost of dead love, its grotesque form still beautiful in distant familiarity. Cloaked in fabric we weaved, chained and cuffed with steel forged in our fire. Its face a concave mirror. Its heart a ticking bomb. At the end of warmly extended arms are cold fleshless hands that have clawed through 6 feet of earth.”
Kicking off the first real post on my own blog with a few self portraits just days old.
Hair still wet from a bath I sat for a Self P.
A little after my tea started to kick in.
I was feeling very loopy at this point
The last two portraits from a nice little Solo Tea PartyI had at my house. Eventually it turned into a bit of a dance party. The neighbors from the cemetary showed up and brought good drink. Mostly I just jammed out to to XII and XX by Mushroomhead, and Meshuggah’s Catch 33, it was an intense night. I wrote Exquisite Corpse poetry with myself as I stepped into different states of mind and ultimately separate identities. I flooded my facebook and twitter pages with clever little lines of poetry. Below are some of my favorites:
“Attempting to capture creativity like a child with a jar after fireflies.”
“Experiencing multiple gravities. dancing for my one thirsty house plant which I will water with my sweat.”
“Considering urinating on my peace lilly.”
“Holding liquid like a cloud. I could drizzle but i’m waiting to storm.”
“Listening to albums and discographies that exist perfectly within nano-seconds books falling out of shelves reading themselves”
“Speaking to myself presently about the future and eventually reading it as a past event”
“Sending out my own personalities like yo yo’s”
“Trying to draw myself but my sketchbook is lost and my pen is elsewhere”
“I’ll be signing autographs at the abortion clinic in the morning and paying for my breakfast with money from the sperm bank / I’ll be having eggs / and watermelon, spitting out the seeds.”
At 4:43am I wrote “5 hours ago seems like yesterday”
“Mycelial hands gently pumping my heart / Oxygen/ My hand turned to my face reflecting the memory of myself and who has come along but is not with me”
“Studdering Rehearsed words to a beautiful woman”
“So anxiously waiting for the sun to rise that I’ve grown feathers.” (5:42am)
Last night I took my contacts out for the first time in a very long time. So with these -5.25 optical enhancements that I had slept in so many nights that protein had clandestinely built up to such a level that I was seeing the world as a colorless foggy haze. Slipping the lenses off my eyeballs felt like pulling off a pair of work-boots off my feet after a long day of construction work; Dorothy opening the door into the land of Oz, slowly stepping out of Sepia-toned Kansas. My nose so close to the mirror, that the expulsion of air from my occasional laughter fogged up the mirror. Looking into my own pupils I went cross-eyed. My left eye and right eye slowly flirting with one another, until each others gravity was too strong and the two crashed together and became one. With tear-ducts on either side, each iris fit together as a Kaleidoscopic jig saw puzzle; interlaced fingers of lovers’ hands. My now center pupil slightly shivering in size, despirately attempting to focus. I was able to look left and right and see the reflected side of my eyeball without it looking back at me. Concentrating on this centered third eye I could see my entire portrait reflected on the surface of my pupils, as a stereoscopic photo overlapped, sitting within a never-ending tunnell. I would occasionally pull my face back and in a blur of form I would appear with 3 eyes and 2 noses. My 3 eyes appeared so out of focus that their bright blue hue bled beyond their own form as a Melange feind. I had slipped into a near entheogenic state of color perception. A film representation of this is in the works, and drawings will be shared of my attempt to represent this state of mind and form i discovered.
In vain I attempted to sleep. These new ideas of how to draw what I had seen how to best represent my thoughts, like a wild fire burned the dry fields of my mind. I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. I sat up still blind as hell fumbled around to find my moleskine and turned my lamp on. Sitting on my bed I knocked out the self portrait pictured below. My own sketchbook was out of focus to my eye as it was drawn. Somehow I was more clearly seeing despite all the fuzz and distortion. What I thought provided clarity was itself a distortion, a way of seeing false to my natural biology. The drawing below is one of my first actual drawings in a long time. The face was my own, yet it was unfamiliar to me. Things were distorted but I was able to draw with an unfiltered clarity.
So I played around a little more with some footage of my nude form casting shadows on the wall in my living room. Some of the footage had to be deleted as a flopping penis could be seen in the scene. There is an occasional hand that sneaks into the cameras field of vision via the left corner but i think I’ve managed to cut out all the flopping cock; whether or not that was a good idea i don’t know.
I had planned on making an audio track to dub over original audio but after hearing it I decided other wise. I was reminded of a performance by the late Merce Cunningham and his dance company. I was fortunate enough to be front row at Dia Beacon in New York and I remember how nice it was to be able to hear the footsteps and the breathing of the dancers. I could see the rippling of there muscles as they strained to hold position, luckily no one farted. It was a moving experience. Merce was a nice old man in his wheelchair. Despite his age he seemed very much with it and was probably the millionth forced introduction of the day just dripping with anticipation of getting the foot in the door with such a significant artist. Interest was expressed in my having an athletic background and I even got a card to call if I were to find myself in NY and interested in possibly working with them, if just as an intern. I fucked that one up. Here’s to Merce, may his work live on and his company keep progressing modern dance.
Try this: wobble your upper body left and right quickly as far as you can each way, keeping your hips and legs stationary. Notice the forced expulsion of air? That is why I kept the audio unmolested. I noticed this as a kid, thinking it was somehow my own movements stealing my lung power so I refrained from the motion for the most part.
Eventually I plan to use a few actual dancers rather than my own convulsions.
Here is some experimenting with an idea I have for a performance piece. Unfortunately I’m spending more time learning Final Cut Pro than actually making anything this point and this took me far longer than it should have.
Today Griff Beheler and I recited The Alphabet at a local Best Buy. Here is the video with musical enhancements by Griff.
I also did another self portrait last night. Still managing a partial decapitation but included more body this time. My self’s (selves?) have been improving. I owe this mostly to getting a “proper” mirror which is large as hell and rests on the floor against the wall next to my bed. I also have a better light source… before I was usually crammed up close to the bathroom mirror practically sweating from the heat of 5 bulbs lined at the top, little shadow. Now I use a single 1950’s lamp I bought a a yard sale for 1 dollar u.s. cash money, nice shadows.
Ryan Broughman August 19 2009
Keep an “I” out on Hirst http://hirstdamien.blogspot.com he is publishing a new line of work entitled “BEAUTIFUL INSIDE MY URINARY BLADDER FOREVER” He made a statement here. Machine. “Ugly Outside Your Rectal Bowels Temporarily” or should i play with the opposite of bladder as in holding things rather than a similar bodily function? “Ugly Outside Your Auditory Tongue Temporarily” I like that much better than my first attempt. But i used MY brain, bummer. Art?
