ambling rat

sunshine and songbirds and bicycles and walking in circles with luck

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:20:00 +0000

strange loop

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:24:00 +0000

Cringe

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:49:00 +0000

Wellcome Library

Sir A. Morison Lectures, mental diseases 1826; frontispiece.

When you were here before,
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel,
Your skin makes me cry

You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so fuckin' special

But I'm a creep,
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here

I don't care if it hurts,
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul

I want you to notice
when I'm not around
You're so fuckin' special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here, ohhhh, ohhhh

She's running out again
She's running out
She run run run run...
run... run...

Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
You're so fuckin' special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep,
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here

I don't belong here...

Radiohead, 'Creep' lyrics, sing365.com, retrieved from, 12/08/09

body wrecking

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:56:00 +0000

quiche in the microwave
steamed veg in the pot

rocking and about to roll

of walking in the hood
of heroin and cigarettes
of mobile phone and blog
of fey dreams and city lights

synopsis 1
Access: the viewer can access this work via the mobile phone installed in the gallery
of a mash-up road movie about a 50 foot street prostitute zombie in which the mise en scene is cast against hand-made paper movie sets inspired by those used in popular television programs like Criminal Intent and Grey's Anatomy

synopsis 2
Access: using either their own or the installed mobile phone the viewer can access the internet and then the blog created especially for this project from the blog the viewer can choose to view this work and/or download a small desktop widget and shortcut designed for use as a blog access point from the viewer's desktop or mobile phone
of video footage that takes the viewer on a series of walks through the hood meeting the folk and seeing the sights while keeping the viewer's gaze tightly framed not only by a downward tending angle but also by the inclusion and absence of the wandering viewer and camera person's own personage any visual information other than that of the camera person's walking shoes/feet and/or own hands is strictly withheld visual information about persons other than the camera person is likewise restricted however the restriction may be compromised when performances are made before the camera by other persons such allowance of full visual identity may be due to a prior arrangement of consent between the other person and the camera person or may occur by chance ambient sound is left uncensored

i beg your pardon ...?

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:02:00 +0000

a "notion" of defiled space permeats

the hand
collects in
identity

plays with
a defiled space
is named, represented

"ideas about space"

the hand
re-use
tactics
opportunities at hand
poaching

ideas of the city street as
and the identity

cinematic references / cinematic city
posits the "streetwalker" as urban flaneuse
and the city street

as part of an architecture of of identity
following a nomadic

notion of identity architecture
experiments with

identity personal narratives *fictional?
the spatiality of the things we collect.
nexus? street .....and

allusion and illusion
fact and fiction
communicating who we are spatially

to

alludes
presents the viewer with

defiled space, constituted by popular and (WHAT?) discourses, is the site
an intersection of "street" and "streetwalker" is sought, it is the site
the notion of an architecture of identity is explored, it is the site

the streetwalker is posited as urban flaneuse
literary, cinematic tradtions, are followed,
seeking intersections, it is traced and folded
alluding to the site, it is an architecture of personal narrative
the architecture of personal narrative
of architecture and identity

in popular and medical discourses of defilement
an
identity as space

the fictional/factional of identity and the inhabitation of an identity formed via

spatiality core, inseparable from who we are
an illustration of a "trialectics of space"

while looking for a junction of street and identity within an identity narrative (arrgh...of the artist's own)
street-based sex work in the suburb of Babylon, Adelaide.

poaching upon the flotsam and jetsom of identity formation tactical aversions, poaching as a means of negotiating identity space
posturing

inserting
pop cultural texts via cinematic "thoughts about space" and found "things in space"
alluding

from cinema
alluding with thoughts about space representation
and from
playfully

This new body of work for MOP projects has emerged as process of saw mw looking to space from the body out back in and through
errant trajectories
journeys of madness and desire
, defiled space & how it is constructed, it's permeability, it's limtiless possibility for adaption, it's mortal stream, it's appearance in litersture and film this time looking at identity and space, the geopolitics of identity, the spatial imagination, Lefebvre's trialectis of space, via an

while thinking about making, and then making this

In 2005 i exhibted at the Project Space in Adelaide, a show called white trash when i filled the space with an arrangement of heavy and soft forms, concrete casts, of objects, mainly plastic that i had found while walking to and from my artist resident space at the Parks Community Centre.

For Mop projects, i have made a body of new work, having sent myself on a trajectory of seeking, for intersections. between street prostitution and representations of the street in literature and film. eventually leading me introspectively into the tunnels and back alleys of my spatial imagination. multi-layered defiled space in my own backyard. identities and defiled spaces. I discovered nexus [pl? of

Space that roll out or up like a carpet , as i perform identities of myself.

chance plays a part in relation to poaching oportunism?

the fifty foot woman is has occurred in mel's work before, in her Honours submission for the University of South Australia; Mel uses her
as a pop cultural referent
mythologising
literary traditions of the Charles Baudelaire's flaneur and the figure of the streetwalker

See a female colossus... her mountainous torso, skyscraper limbs, giant desires!

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:45:00 +0000

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman [1958]
Woolner Brothers Pictures Inc.
publicity material

These two videos were first brought to my attention via Facebook when Laura Agustin posted a link to her article: 'Street walkers and vigilantes in a New Zealand community' on her blog: Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex.

VIDEO LINKS [1 & 2]
sweeping the streets of sex workers

[1] Hunters Corner Footage
Source: tvnz.co.nz / close up
Published: 8:03 pm Monday April 20, 2009
retrieved 25/04/09

PART ONE HERE
The above link is to a video of the first part of a New Zealand TV program, called Close Up, and shows of footage filmed by the community group Papatoetoe Reclaiming Our Streets [PROS] during their intervention into street-based sex work at a local, urban, public space called Hunters Corner.

[2] Panel of Community Representatives Respond
Source: tvnz.co.nz / close up
Published: 8:03PM Monday April 20, 2009
retrieved 25/04/09

PART TWO HERE
The above link is to a video of the second part of the New Zealand TV program, Close Up, and shows a panel of community representatives including: members of the community group Papatoetoe Reclaiming Our Streets, Annah Pickering, Auckland Coordinator Prostitutes' Collective and Inspector Bruce Bird, Area Commander from Otahuhu Police Station, responding to the PROS' Hunters Corner footage.

death proof motorwoman self-made...?

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:26:00 +0000

film still
stuntwoman zoe bell
Grindhouse Presents | Death Proof [2007]
Rodriguez International Pictures

--------Mini-Bio From Flixter

Zoe Bell
Born November 17, 1978

A stuntwoman-turned-action star, New Zealander Zoe Bell established herself by standing in for A-list actresses on some of filmdom's most dangerous and intimidating stunts. Bell achieved her first major career coup in her native country, by doubling for Lucy Lawless on the hit fantasy-action series Xena: Warrior Princess, and accompanied that with additional stunt work on small-screen programs including The Chosen, Shortland Street, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Bell subsequently moved to Hollywood and commenced a multi-film collaboration with Quentin Tarantino that included the pictures Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004), and Tarantino's Death Proof segment of the omnibus Grindhouse (2007), before signing to headline her own action feature in 2008. Aside from her Tarantino collaborations, Bell's Hollywood resumé also includes such pictures as Catwoman (2004) and Poseidon (2006). The documentary Double Dare (2003) provided biographical portraits of Bell and fellow stuntwoman Jeannie Epper.

------------------------ Mini-Bio Text Retrieved FROM Flixter, 01/05/09

reading

Self-made motormen: The material construction of working-class masculine identities through car modification

This qualitative ethnographic study examined the role of modified cars and the associated culture of cruising on the construction of masculine identities among young British men. Researchers observed and conducted semi-structured interviews with around 30 young men aged 17-25 years who were involved in cruising scenes in the British Midlands and North Wales. A thematic analysis of data revealed the presence of a 'heavily individualised discourse of consumption' within participants' narratives. Participants viewed car modification as a highly personal and creative practice, through which they, as active consumers, transformed a standard (often feminised) car into a unique commodity possessed by them alone and which they regarded as a symbolic extension of their individualised masculine identity. Car modification and participation in car-based cultural practices also enabled the achievement of working-class masculine values, by which physical work is viewed as a source of pride and tangible rewards are offered for efforts expended. Participants viewed themselves as 'culturally privileged' due to their ability to produce these unique cars.

A. Bengry-Howell & C. Griffin, Journal of Youth Studies, v.10, n.4, 2007, pp.439-58.

Posted as Facebook Note on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 7:33pm

my mother the fiat 130

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:07:00 +0000

Ford advertisement: "Detroit Style" (In Style, 2001), in Driving Women: Fiction and Automobile Culture in Twentieth-century America
by Deborah Clarke, JHU Press, 2007, Fig. 8., p.80, Chapter 3: My Mother the Car?
Auto Bodies and Maternity pp.73 - pp.111.

Ford advertisement: "Detroit Style" (In Style, 2001) p.82, in Driving Women: Fiction and Automobile Culture in Twentieth-century America by Deborah Clarke, JHU Press, 2007, Fig. 9., Chapter 3: My Mother the Car? Auto Bodies and Maternity pp.73 - pp.111.

Ford advertisement: "Detroit Style" (In Style, 2001), in Driving Women: Fiction and Automobile Culture in Twentieth-century America by Deborah Clarke, JHU Press, 2007, Fig. 10, p.84, Chapter 3: My Mother the Car? Auto Bodies and Maternity pp.73 - pp.111.

15/03/09
--------
Copyright © 1993-2008 The Fiat Page. All Rights Reserved.

Fiat 130 Coupe & Sedan

The Fiat 130 was a luxury sedan and was produced from 1969 to 1971. The model had only limited sales success. The most desired model of the 130 series, the Pininfarina 130 Coupe, was released in 1972 and remained on the market until 1977. Fiat's 130 luxury sedan had a 2.8l V6 unit; loosely based on the Fiat Dino V6 engine (Coupe & Spider models), this build had only one camshaft per bank and differed from the Dino engine in that it was belt, not chain, driven. Fiat had by this time already assumed responsibility for Ferrari's Road Car production and marketing and so it would seem that the V6 engine (designed by Aurelio Lampredi), "...was a collaborative project between the two companies".

reading

Driving women: fiction and automobile culture in twentieth-century America
By Deborah Clarke
Edition: illustrated
Published by JHU Press, 2007
ISBN 0801886171, 9780801886171
225 pages
----------------------------------------------------------------------

oh oh oh

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:26:00 +0000

the trialectics of space

And when I look inside of your temple
It looks just like the inside of anyone one man
And when he beckons his finger to me,
Well, I move in another dimension
I move in another dimension
I move in another dimension oh oh oh

Ain't it Strange - Patti Smith Group

reading

Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions
by Edward W. Soja
ISBN-10: 1577180011
ISBN-13: 978-1577180012
Published by Wiley-Blackwell, 2000
Paperback 464 pages

The Production of Space
by Henri Lefebvre
ISBN-10: 0631181776
ISBN-13: 978-0631181774
Published by Wiley-Blackwell, 1992
Paperback 464 pages

every now and then I fall apart

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:18:00 +0000

yesterday would have said other things
unmoving and unmoved was heading south in a straight line until some force acted upon trajectory frustrated roiling coiling in active inactivity and bridling not a bit impotent omnipotence spoiling for a fight have been riding the delete button again said just lost six weeks of life is that all excuse please while drown bilious sorry feelings foment these bloody words public statements holding to account for a virtual eternity said don't feel as though need to explain stuff about the work that don't want to and welcomed that balanced it on tongue for a while finding it a satisfying counterpoint to what said about sharing everything know it's all other words so none of own or none that want to own might think wishy washy a fence sitter from way back undecided and diplomatic the word makes noises like an over qualified washing machine inside rattled head a said that inert applies to bodies both in motion and at rest having altered the self-diagnosis from procrastination to inertia welcomed that too

teasing out the text

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:28:00 +0000

while also making possible: detours, diversions, allusions, imaginations. Finally, this is my basic, reduced list of key elements for the new work ...a list of key topics or subjects, concerns, interests - with some associations thrown in:

*/syrup
junction of city, street, whore (Babylon)
defiled space/s
ruses/reuse

*/fruit (removed with a slotted spoon)
technology (& networked) (virtual space)
subversion/negotiation/survival
othering
body horror dis/ease
the clown/death/failure/decay/debris
the high & the low (hierarchical space/s)
the public/s voice/s
private space & public space
built space
social space

i could go on.....
meantime: casting and folding

today: walking
to Brynna's house
with peaches
and back
with Lucky along
the grassy stretch that grows
beside the City to Bay
tram line

That writing should benefit the process/es of art making is not hard to comprehend but accounting for the benefits of publishing my (what must surely be, to anyone other than myself, picayune) journal entries on a blog is something I find difficult to do; of course comments from readers, if not always forthcoming, are always valued, and often edifying, and the internet can, potentially, facilitate dialogue with a vast, diverse and geographically widespread audience.

life imitates cat

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:13:00 +0000

art [if] acts

OF ...this week

the house shelters four when Suriya and Shandra join the quarters of two
[a mapping of one space onto another or onto itself]

long wasting; wanting transit
stuck
unable, or unwilling,
to see/k

{ cats act
cat[s] ar[e] act[s]
cat acts }

two kittens; altered day-to-day practices of
four
[a marked change as in appearance or character, usually for the better]

doing my bit

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 03:21:00 +0000

The Dark Horsey Bookshop had a '20% off' sale last week. After shopping at the Central Market yesterday, I caught the tram from Tarndanyangga to City West, dragging my trolley load of fresh bread and vegetables up the red-bricked incline, up three red-bricked steps, and into the white linoleumed EAF building. Alone, as the bookshop's only customer this rainy, Saturday afternoon, I browsed for an hour or more. Ken Bolton had previously located an Artforum article for me as I had sent an email inquiring after books and information about Georges Bataille's notion of informe. Local visual artist (and a former tutor of mine), Bridget Currie, had recommended: Formless: A User's Guide by Rosalind E. Krauss and Yve-Alain Bois, unfortunately however the paperback is out of print and the hardcover prohibitively expensive. I'm sure the UniSA library will have a copy though and I may yet chase a second-hand one. Before photocopying the informe article, I sat reading at a quiet table beside the Horse's library of magazines and journals. Come closing time, at 5pm, my already over-stuffed trolley needed to be persuaded to accommodate four new books! Shopping sprees such as this do not occur very often - I am feeling just so darn happy and excited!

reading [my bookshelf!]

A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
By Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Translation and Foreword by Brian Massumi
ISBN-10: 0816614024, ISBN-13: 978-0816614028
Published by University of Minnesota Press, 1987
English Language
Paperback 610 pages

Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions
By Edward W. Soja
ISBN-10: 1577180011, ISBN-13: 978-1577180012
Published by Wiley-Blackwell, 2000
English Language
Paperback 464 pages

The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque
By Gilles Deleuze, Translated by Tom Conley
ISBN 082649076X, 9780826490766
Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006
224 pages

What's Wrong With Addiction?
By Helen Keane
ISBN-10: 0814747655, ISBN-13: 978-0814747650
Published by New York University Press, 2002
English Language
Paperback 228 pages

fish with zucchini and tomatoes

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:59:00 +0000

The following recipe is a slightly modified version of 'Whiting with Courgettes and Tomatoes', from Gail Duff's High-Fibre Cookery. My copy of this book {purchased for next-to-nothing at a garage sale no doubt), is the 'fifth impression', published in 1986, with full colour photographs, featuring seventies-style crockery and assorted utensils, on each of its well kept pages. Most of Duff's fibre-filled meals are easy to prepare and quick to cook, and so I turn to them often, with several of the recipes having now become regulars at my table. This meal, which is sooo yummy and simple, is one such regular.

fish with zucchini and tomatoes

3 - 4 good sized fish fillets
the juice of 1 lemon or lime
4 - 6 large zucchinis, washed and sliced thinly
840g (two 420g tins) of diced tomatoes
25g/1 oz of butter
1 good size onion, thinly sliced
1 -3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
parsley for garnish

When the children were little I used to make tomato sauces - for kofta balls and pasta - with fresh tomatoes, first scalding them in boiling water to ease the removal of their skins. The children have since grown and flown, and while I remain, in the kitchen, and still do the majority of the cooking, nowadays I use diced, tinned tomatoes - the least expensive ones I can find.

Gail Duff's recipe for this meal suggests 450g/1 lb of fresh tomatoes, but you can choose. Where the original recipe calls for 8 fillets of whiting, you can use any fish that you think would taste good with zucchini and tomato. I use inexpensive, yet delicious, white fish. Similarly, although the original recipe calls for 450g/1 lb of courgettes (zucchini), as you would with any recipe, simply adjust the ingredients and their quantity to suit your particular needs and tastes.

If necessary, skin the fish fillets, then chop them roughly into pieces that are just over bite-size. Put the pieces on a plate and sprinkle them with the citrus juice. Leave the prepared fish to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Melt the butter in a large pan, over a low and gentle heat. Stir in the sliced onion and chopped garlic. Cover the pan and let this cook for 5 minutes, or until everything looks soft and yum.

Add the sliced zucchini, and (only if needed), extra butter. Cover the pan again and let this cook at the same, low heat for a further 5 minutes, or until the zucchini slices are merely softened (don't overcook them!)

Uncover the pan and raise the heat a little - to medium. Carefully stir in the prepared fish pieces and cook, with the pan uncovered, for 2 minutes, turning the fish gently - once.

Gently mix the tomatoes into the pan with the fish and zucchini and cook until the tomatoes are just heated through.

Place the meal into a warmed serving dish and garnish with sprigs of parsley. Serve with brown rice or wholewheat pasta. Voila!

As you see, all of the ingredients included in this meal are of the sort that do not require much cooking. Depending upon the type of fish used however, you may need to cover your pan and/or extend the cooking time at that step in the recipe. Num, num... now I'm hungry!

reading

High-Fibre Cookery
By Gail Duff
ISBN: 0600208095, 9780600208099, 0-600-20809-5
Published by Octopus Publishing Group
English Language
Softcover Edition

The Practice of Everyday Life: Living and Cooking v.2:
By Michel de Certeau, Luce Giard, Pierre Mayol, translated by Timothy J. Tomasik
ISBN-10: 0816628777, ISBN-13: 978-0816628773
Published by University of Minnesota Press
English Language
Paperback 292 pages

Soliciting the Junction

mel.curtiss@gmail.com (Mel) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:17:00 +0000

This blog is established for the purpose of sharing some of my thoughts and processes. Of thinking: things I am thinking about. Of processes and media: I am using. ...while making - and not.

Specifically, at this junction, this "now-here" moment, I am creating things to show-off at MOP Projects (Chippendale, Sydney), for July, 2009.

.soliciting the junction ..OF "teasing out the text"

petticoat junction
junction road
tuxedo junction
villanova junction
up the junction

unction to anoint (with oily charm)
junction place or process ...OF connection

twofold blend

...OF boxes

folds

flaps

creases

[fealdan]

fold unfold enfold refold
withdraw (one's hand) in defeat
give in; buckle; collapse; discontinue; close
envelop or clasp; enfold
twofold; to blend ...folded the beaten
a fold or ridge, as of skin
a bend (in rock) ...OF MOVEMENT ...of the (earth's) crust
convolute coil or fold in overlapping whorls curvature

...of MOVEMENT

'nip' and 'tuck'
insert
intersect
intertwine
loop
curve curving
unfolding

a piece or section that has been folded

a mark, crease, or hollow made by folding

a crease or ridge apparently formed by folding, as of a membrane; a plica

THE SUB [space] ...of bodies
constituted as defiled (maculate alteration)

the ears cymba concha (cavum concha) ...OF LOBES (fleshy pendulous) [part] liver lungs brain
the forehead (of boney outcrops and shells)
the face ...crinkle, rumple, wrinkle, crumple, crease
the skull ten`to´ri`um a fold in the hard mother (of the brain) (toughest of the 3 meninges)
the neck
folds of mucous membrane project into the larynx

the chest lobos subdivision
the spine (OF curvature)

in one's arms (a person)
the hands (overlap)
the elbows (un/fold the arms)

the stomach (flabby folds OF FLESH) (...not sparing) rugae
the gut (infinite) convolutions
the pelvis OF ...genitals (Hottentot) queen concha fossa of vestibule of vagina vulga ...OF body horror

the legs (bended knee) saphenous opening (thigh) fossa ovalis
the feet (FLAT ...uncurling)

and toes
and fingers jointed an/ointment

reading [i wish]:

The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque
By Gilles Deleuze, Translated by Tom Conley
ISBN 082649076X, 9780826490766
Published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006
224 pages

An Intimate Distance Women, Artists and the Body
By Rosemary Betterton
ISBN: 978-0-415-11085-3
Published by Routledge, 1996
Paperback (also Hardcover) 256 pages