POLARCAP NO MORE STARS PRESENTS

AUGUST 2007

1119101.indd19101.indd 1 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:405:52:40 www.polarcap.org.uk

ISBN no is 978-0-9556302-1-7 Polarcap Publications July 2007

1119101.indd19101.indd 2 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:445:52:44 NO MORE STARS

Polarcap is pleased to present its second exhibition “No More Stars”. Taking it’s name from an anagram of “astronomers”, the exhibition refl ects on the words of the science-fi ction writer Philip K Dick “Once you have opened your mind to the notion of fake, then you are ready to think yourself into another universe entirely”. This questioning of “reality” is intrinsic in the thinking processes of artists today in our media saturated world.

No More Stars is a joint venue exhibition held simultaneously at Edinburgh College of Art and West Barns Studios as part of the 4th Edinburgh Art Festival and has been made possible by the generous support of East Lothian Council, Edinburgh College of Art and in collaboration with Galerie Brigitte Weiss, Zurich.

Polarcap [Contemporary Arts Projects] is a new organisation based in West Barns Studios, Dunbar and is committed to promoting the visual arts in East Lothian and beyond through its continuing programme of exhibitions and publications.

Graeme Todd, Liz Adamson. Polarcao Ltd

1119101.indd19101.indd 3 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:445:52:44 Neil Mulholland

Random Son of a Bitch Uh, I feel in writing mood. What else can I say? I know. No boss at the moment - what more could a typical run of I usually get up at 6.15am in the morning because I the mill bastard say was better? I think today is gonna be always do. I try to make it to the 7:15am bus, and then I spent tidying up. I fi nd that even the simple act of clearing take the 7:30am ferry. On the ferry I usually practice off a bulletin board can make a room feel more open. You talking with a friend. This is ‘morning chat’. We tend to really don’t have to ask yourself why you bother. I plan to talk about what we’ve done that morning so far. Today work for about 3.7 hours. Let’s hope it’s a nice easy day! I talk about getting up at 6:15am and ‘just’ making the Now I am offi cial - at least I hope so. ferry we’re on (even although I easily made it). This takes about eight minutes. Then at 7:38am I get on the bus on At around 10:00am we have breakfast (for some people the other side. The bus drives right to work. it’s probably more lunch). We have scrambled eggs bacon, all sorts of different toast, bagels. I always take a When I don’t sit right at a window I am always lost and I bagel. Then I put some margarine on it which everybody have no idea when to get out. I need to invent some thinks is odd because you are supposed to put cream landmarks so I know when to get off. So far I never over cheese on it. I eat one thing at a time. If I do more than shoot, but I got off too early twice last week and the week one activity at a time, I have to take too much time out before that I got off once early, although it seemed as attempting to identify which activity is primary. Eating one though I’d got off three times early. I know I’ve only made thing at a time means that my diet dooesn’t have to be this trip for something like four years and three weeks, but grouped into categories. Uh, I feel in the mood for one to me it seems like nine years and fi ve weeks. The fi rst thing at a time. What else can I say? I know. I was going week seemed like a year and the second week seemed to say where we have breakfast but I wasn’t allowed to for like fi ve years and the third week seemed like a year terrorist threat reasons. I was told. again and the fourth week seemed like eight weeks and the fi fth week, that seemed just like a week. Well, that’s By the way: I have a huge NON-fl at screen computer. It’s not too bad. I could happily spend my whole life making funny because people always think of Europe as sooooo the trip. Getting off early this way I get some fresh air at advanced. Not so! But we do have a great corporate least. culture and very bright people.

1119101.indd19101.indd 4 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:445:52:44 Then at 1:00pm we usually go to get some lunch. We In the evening I spent 5.1 hours doing leisure activities at either go outside or inside. I usually have a sandwich or the local leisure activities centre (I am a member of a gym cold pasta. Today I thought we would rate all the people for the gay and wanna be celebrities. The gym opened in our team according to our rating scheme, C5 for good, 7 years ago - but they still have the grand opening sign C9 for the not so. But we talked about diversity. Interest- hanging outside with the balloons.) I spent 1.8 hours do- ingly someone mentioned that diversity regarding race, or ing household activities. During the remaining 4.8 hours, sexual orientation doesn’t guarantee that people will have I ate, drank, shopped and watched TV. I don’t remember different opinions. So everybody was like, What? Who? what I had for dinner but it was good. Watching TV was Gay? I didn’t know! Really? So as you can imagine we the leisure activity that occupied the most time tonight. It had a fun afternoon. Then back to work and eat in front of normally accounts for about half of my leisure time on av- your computer. At around 7pm I get out and back home. erage. Socialising, such as visiting with friends or attend- Having 8.6 hours sleep, today it really was a good day in ing or hosting social events, can be the next most com- work. I seem to get in the mood, to just get right into the mon leisure activity, accounting for about three-quarters working mood. I can be bothered to do everything today. of an hour per day. But today I just watched TV mostly. Let’s hope it’s exactly the same tomorrow. There’s not, I think, a single episode of Damn Average Victim that I didn’t see. Tonight’s episode featured John This is a picture of an outdoor pool. As you can see there Smeaton singing the words of Plath’s Ennui: is almost nobody there. Jeopardy is jejune now: naïve knight Some highlights from the day include: fi nds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard of, while blasé princesses indict • Working about an hour less than employed men. tilts at terror as downright absurd • This guy calls me and says he is excited about my resume and asks if I was interested in a new position. to the tune of Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls of Fire played He didn’t tell me what the job was. out by WAGS repeatedly kicking blazing jihadists in the • Spending about an hour less than employed adult testicles to create different yell tones. Weird :( I must have women (18 years and over) doing household activities gone to bed around a quarter after ten. I need a lot of and caring for household members. sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then. I must have read a while. The latest one by Shane Ritchie or something in that style. I am pretty tired! yawn. Otherwise not much news. Ah... yes. :)

1119101.indd19101.indd 5 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:445:52:44 Graeme Todd

Utopos ha Bocas peu la chama polta chamaan. Bargol he maglomi baccan soma gymnosophon Agrama gymnosophon labarembacha bodamilomin. Volvalva barchin herman, la lavolvola dramme pagloni.

Utopos me General from not island made island. Alone I of-lands all without philosophy State philosophical I-have-formed for - mortals. Willingly I-impart my things, not not-willingly I-accept better-ones.

Nowhere Nothing Fuckup, acrylic on panel, 105 x 120cm, 2007

Graeme Todd Born in Glasgow in 1962, studied Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Has exhibited extensively including solo shows at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland, Leeds Metropolitan University and Osaka Contemporary Arts Centre. Lives and works in East Lothian and is a lecturer in Drawing and Painting at ECA.

1119101.indd19101.indd 6 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:445:52:44 1119101.indd19101.indd 7 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:445:52:44 David Chieppo

I have championed many things. I have kissed gorgeous girls, not only farewell notes and fought rather rough men; and unfi nished letters, brown-skinned blonds thank you cards and blue-eyed brunettes, and change of address forms, big and small, but other things worthy of praise. thick and thin. I have championed the third grade, fourth grade tough they were, and fi fth grade too. but I championed them. middle school, high school I have spent time with loners, and everything in between, hustlers and hoodlums. like summer vacations drank whiskey with jailbirds and the crashing of automobiles. and beer with poet losers. classy things as well, I’ve eaten in fancy restaurants, like wrestling matches walked through airports without a passport, and wedding anniversaries, scraped barnacles off ships, roller skating rinks on friday nights and had sissy jobs with post-graduate twits. and birthday parties with piñatas sometimes; I have championed many more things, giraffes, gorillas, this is not all. elephants and donkeys. I would tell you all about it, pirates and alligators, give you the three hour tour, bambiis and bunnies. but the risk is too great I have championed all of these things and there are no more stars. and much much more

Untitled, mixed media on paper, 29.5 x 21cm , 2005

David Chieppo Born 1973 in New Haven, Connecticut USA. Studied at Pennysylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philidelphia and Hochschule fur Gestaltung, Zurich. Has exhibited widely including solo shows at Kunsthaus Glarus, Galerie Brigitte Weiss, Zurich and Kunstmuseum Thun. Recipient of Manor Art Prize Zurich, Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Lives and works in Zurich.

1119101.indd19101.indd 8 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:475:52:47 Untitled, mixed media on paper, 29.5 x 21cm , 2005

1119101.indd19101.indd 9 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:475:52:47 Boards of Canada

Boards of Canada’s anachronistic visual work often utilises partially-degraded 8mm and 16mm fi lm sources, VHS video, Polaroid stills and other vintage formats.

As with their uniquely introspective music, the duo’s photographic imagery reveals an obsession with fl eeting, transient moments, and the accumulative damage and subsequent loss associated with the passage of time. Fragments of 8mm celluloid are zoomed-in on so extremely as if to draw attention to the fi lm grain itself. Sun-bleached family snapshots appear to show unreachable lost faces trapped forever behind a murky patina of age, whilst innocuous frames suddenly take on a feeling of foreboding, having been burned and melted within the shutters of a faulty projector. Boards of Canada’s music is notable for the band’s heavy use of “unorthodox recording techniques” to achieve intentional fl aws such as badly-pressed vinyl fl uctuations and tape wow and fl utter.

Their sweet but vaguely disturbing sleeve imagery has been described as “oneiric”, and it is a perfect analogue for their surreal, melancholy melodies.

Images and unused images created for the sleeve artwork of the albums “Geogaddi” (2002) & “The Campfi re Headphase” (2005).

Boards of Canada Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin have been creating music and experimental fi lms together since the early eighties. Their fi lm work is a focal element in their live shows. The band’s fi rst publicly-available release was 1995’s “Twoism” LP on their own label Music70. Their follow-up album “Music Has The Right To Children” (1998 Warp Records) was an international cult hit. They have since released a string of albums and EP’s and collaborated with various artists including Beck, Meat Beat Manifesto and San Francisco’s Anticon collective. Boards of Canada are currently based near Edinburgh in Scotland.

1119101.indd19101.indd 1010 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:495:52:49 1119101.indd19101.indd 1111 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:525:52:52 Edward Summerton

About 30 years ago when I was a young teenager hitching to the north of Scotland, I got a lift from these Germans. The man in the back with me asked if he could have my tub of margarine in exchange for the lift; which seemed fair as they took me all the way to Rannoch Moor…. Gateway to the Glens?…. A life-size sculpture of Bon Scott, cast in Kirriemuir rock stands in the fi eld, licked into shape by a woman called Rosie…..Highway to Hell?…. A naked man is sitting in the woods with a tree stump up his arse, a branch poking from his mouth….. Smells like white spirit?…. A lone bat is fl ying low to the ground in broad daylight, its limp callipered legs brushing the pollen from the mid summer fl owers….. Lock up your otters?.… A collection of twelve freshly blown hares eggs lie in a cotton-wool fi lled cardboard box….. Black Forest ghetto?…. Plastic vampire’s teeth are opened out and painted to resemble a snow capped mountain- range with enclosed lake….. Easels ripped my fl esh?…Jimmy Shand and Macintosh Patrick hold hands in a magic circle……

Oh oh - The knowing, then not knowing, then pretending to know, is creeping in.

Black House to White House, gouache on printed image, 90cm x 60cm, 2007

Edward Summerton An artist whose work has expanded from the practice of painting into books, prints, sound works, objects and collaboration. He has recently organised events and exhibitions, which have included Blind Sight, Doctor Skin, Bird of the Devil and Digital VD. He is a Fine Art lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College, University of Dundee. www.edwardsummerton.co.uk

1119101.indd19101.indd 1212 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:555:52:55 1119101.indd19101.indd 1313 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:555:52:55 El Frauenfelder

El Frauenfelder is fascinated by the myths and stereotypes of the American Wild West: cowboys, outlaws, gunmen, hunters. In her paintings as well as in her animations, Frauenfelder deconstructs and interprets the macho culture that we have learned to love and hate through Hollywood westerns. With Fauenfelder’s striking technique and fl are for details in both movement, colours and expressions, the western tropes are taken to a higher level than the mere representational. The Wild West clichés step out of the dull and obvious, and reveal a portrait of the vulnerable human condition with its aspects of fear, loss and longing.

In STEAKHOUSE, a complex shifting narrative leads the spectator into a dreamlike universe shifting between different spheres. All the ingredients of the classical western movie are here: the lonely railroad leading to nowhere, endless prairies, cadavers, bad guys, the lonely rider, the saloon and the temptress. But Frauenfelder adds surprising and surreal twists that make the movie both humorous and uncanny at the same time. The movie is fi lled with contradictions; the artist mixes the lonely rider’s drift into the sunset with the rock’n’roll hero playing his guitar. The cowboy turns into a humble symbol of mankind’s fragility and sadness of a weeping clown, who again turns into a skull and then back again into a clown. The saloon turns into a modern bar with neon signs and rock music - the old time western and modern cityscape melting in a dark, nightmarish vision.

Gianni Jetzer

Original biro drawing from STEAKHOUSE, 2005 7:13 min, Animation, DVD, Soundtrack: Jacobee, Vocals; Danni Dov

El Frauenfelder Born in 1979 in Zurich, Switzerland. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2005. She lives and works in Zurich, for paintings by El Frauenfelder see: www.likeyou.com/brigitteweiss/el_frauenfelder.html

1119101.indd19101.indd 1414 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:585:52:58 1119101.indd19101.indd 1515 224/7/074/7/07 005:52:585:52:58 San Keller Born 1971, Bern, Switzerland. Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland. Exhibited widely including Galerie Brigitte Weiss, Kunst museum Bern, Centre for Fine Arts Brussels. P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre, New York.

1119101.indd19101.indd 1616 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:015:53:01 San Keller

THE GREAT LIGHTENING

The Swiss Federal offi ce of Culture made it possible for San Keller to spend a year in New York, where he was involved in the studio programme of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre. As a contribution to his simultaneous leaving and arrival San Keller took a Bernese sandstone that weighed exactly the same as himself to New York. Attaching a rope to the cube shaped sandstone, he dragged it through the streets of New York until it had crumbled to dust.

THE GREAT LIGHTENING Video still DVD, I h 52 min 52 sec, 2004

1119101.indd19101.indd 1717 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:055:53:05 Charles Stiven

Questioning what is real and what is fake leads to other considerations ;- Good or bad? Right or wrong? High or low? etc. However, fortunately and unfortunately, the world is not black and white, but infi nite shades of grey.

THE HIGH GROUND Synthetic systemising. Contradictory concepts of morality. Who is ascending, who is descending? Are not those who rise highest often the lowest? or Space shuttle Challenger, up to the stars, syphoning our imagination, back down to earth in little black boxes.

THE HIGH GROUND, Wood/Acrylic, 60cm x 12cm x 10cm each (multiples).

Charles Stiven Born in Aberdeen in 1960. He studied Drawing & Painting at ECA. Over the past 20 years his work has been shown widely in the U.K, Europe and the U.S.A., and is held in many public and private collections. He has recieved numerous awards and scholarships both at home and abroad. In the past few years he has had solo exhibitions in Belgrade, New York, Bern and Wroclaw, and held artists residencies in Serbia and Switzerland. He was recently included in “Drawing - Space, Form & Expression”, published in association with The Drawing Centre, New York, and last year work was purchased by the newly opened Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern. Charles Stiven lives and works in Edinburgh, and is a lecturer in drawing & painting at ECA.

1119101.indd19101.indd 1818 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:085:53:08 1119101.indd19101.indd 1919 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:095:53:09 Soland Goose

Soland Goose, Hatched in 1967 after a two thousand four hundred and twenty four day incubation, Soland Goose is a connective

1119101.indd19101.indd 2020 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:125:53:12 collaboration based near the Bass Rock on the east coast of Scotland. Schmidt telescope plate.

1119101.indd19101.indd 2121 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:165:53:16 spoon

1119101.indd19101.indd 2222 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:205:53:20 1119101.indd19101.indd 2323 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:205:53:20 Michael Windle

“P2” Michael Windle Video 2007

Words Gerry Mitchell Music Brian Cope

Michael Windle Born 1958 studied Painting at Duncan of Jordanstone, before taking up residence at Delfi na Studios in the east end of London in the early nineties. Since returning to Scotland ten years ago his work has become more focused on video and multi media. He collaborated with the composer Brian Cope on a commission “Beginning Ending” for the Threshold installation at Perth Concert Hall last year and renews the partnership for this project “Pilgrim” Mike is a Lecturer in Digital art at ECA. www.porty.net/pilgrim

1119101.indd19101.indd 2424 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:235:53:23 1119101.indd19101.indd 2525 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:245:53:24 Paul Keir

FOUR POLES, EACH 2.7M LONG, TWO GREEN AND TWO WHITE.

ONE OF EACH CUT INTO APPROXIMATE EQUAL LENGTHS.

TWO POLES REASSEMBLED WITH ALTERNATE GREEN AND WHITE PIECES,

PROPPED AGAINST WALL OR LAID ON FLOOR.

“TRANSLATION” 2007

Paul Keir Has degrees from the University of Aberdeen and ECA, where he also obtained his MFA. He has exhibited widely, in UK and abroad, though rarely recently. He lives and works in Edinburgh. The work begins with drawing and can utilise a range of formal strategies - painting, objects, fl oorworks, wall drawing. More recently there has been a more explicit acknowledgement of a kind of nostalgic regard for the givens of a particular kind of modernist and minimalistic painting.

1119101.indd19101.indd 2626 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:255:53:25 1119101.indd19101.indd 2727 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:255:53:25 Eri Itoi

I lose myself when people look at me. I feel they walk all over me. I get overcome by people. I always look at the dark side of my life.

BHennaAtamaDatoOmotteRundeSho KocchiMinaiDe, Pencil on Paper, 29.7 x 21cm, 2007

Eri Itoi Born in Tochigi, Japan (1982) studied Drawing and Painting at ECA. The Volta Show, Basel. Art Chicago, Chicago. Salon 2007: New British Painting and Works on Paper, London. Chinmi (Solo show), Edinburgh. Zoo Art Fair, London. Particulars (Solo show), London.

1119101.indd19101.indd 2828 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:275:53:27 1119101.indd19101.indd 2929 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:275:53:27 Norman Shaw

Starless And Bible Black Sabbath (or This ain’t the Summer of Love)

Hadit! Passed the stars to void fi eld glimmer to rend veil Shining fi eld vibrates the waveform priestess suns to and durational chamber sonorous. curved horizon. Climb! Holy form the whirling wondrous Flash! Death nettle broken nightshade: Still warm Ancient triplicate: electric, archaic, cosmic, doubt… clash! Straight to their The Queenly fl ux: Descend! Fingal spunk crimson bed eyeball wicks, heretic, frolic, skeptic… critics fade out, the sly secret joy worm howling stormrose bled invisible fl ash! Blood day incomprehensible feel his sin in the grave bee teeth boy on Templest theme tussock (aerial scream, frost yard eye Flash! fl eshless scream (sidereal) grasp the I land) itchy & scratchy catch a witch. Ancient burning twilit head accelerate. Ahead feeling hiss kaleidoscopic rides melancholic beam rape the returned sun holy scion heightening. Unendurable. Polyhedronal churned tone pat- hill circles wither sins: mindforged sword bled wings on tern dimly sent climax the heightening ascent butt of loose strange angles sings. lightly sea-holy unlightened churchly and desire ruins. Frighthouse fold: her forced green fuse driving the ageing Violet! Shadow loom soundclothed majesty countless and fl ow fl owers to Eternal Light; or the light that never never lordly. Immensional seduction volume ultramaximised. warms. Parasitic bankblood state of satanic panic police forever the Nightmare of the Organism: I am the one you Discorporate! Vixen comet cupid comes. No-time: Unbind warned me of. Are you loathesome tonight? your mind bend diamonds time lick velvet up far away and afar and a go-go from corporate logo (boin-n-n-n-n-n-g) Now smell the stench of immortality: The starres are drifting cloudless; starless… marching sadly home. The ghosts of night shriek afar and Arched grove theolithic groove golden salmon to two with I have seen the meteors of death, so I put a habit on her the woody owl boughs down rhythming a rhymer to mass face when I listen to that Yes song ‘Yours is no Disgrace’, true . The other one’s a duplicate! mine is no disgrace. I see nothing! Nothing… the fi elds in a whirling dance with the trees and long trails of birds traversing the air disturbs my blood and brain but my eyes turned within only see starless and bible black.

Norman Shaw Born Ullapool 1970. MA, Mphil, MFA (Edinburgh); PhD (Dundee). Work ranges from drawing and painting to texts and music. He exhibits, publishes, performs and releases music internationally. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Generator, Dundee in 2006, and Highland at the RSA in June this year. He is currently a lecturer in Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College, University of Dundee.

1119101.indd19101.indd 3030 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:315:53:31 fl aming bard starred 2007

1119101.indd19101.indd 3131 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:315:53:31 Lee T O’Connor

Dear Mr Dick,

Are you still wondering what makes for good art? Do I have to keep pretending to know or even care. It seems that I have made some fake reality for myself here. Do you get bad reviews? I suppose so, I have received one to my knowledge and reckon I would have many more if anyone knew who the hell I was.

“Flimsily nailed to the wall,” I’m sure I used drawing pins, “makes for a rather bleak show” doesn’t she know that NM says I “constantly seek to eradicate the chic from the shabby.” Well, whatever you think yourself. Apparently RC’s “fragments of thought and childish delight in colour are somewhat welcome relief” from my “melancholic musings.” In the past were you not pounded for producing pulp fi ctitious nonsense? I seem to be pounded for not. What do those students at the Student News Paper know anyway, wait until these happy students hit the MAD (Melancholic Alcoholic Depression.) Oh well this is what I get for vainly trawling the net for a crumb of a mention of myself. Anyway this was years ago and she could be right, her fake reality could be fi ne tuned into Greenberg’s channel, looking for works of art whose blankness offer a sublime and contemplative response. Could it have been better if I didn’t feel that I had to make the art to fi t into what I said I would do? Anyhow it has its own memories now, a fake reality if you like. When I pretend that all was meant, does this fake reality become more real?

Anyway dear Philip I’m changing my ways, as you once fantasized about substituting fake birds at Disneyland - the ones that worked by electric motors and emit claws and shriek as you pass them by. You wished to substitute them with real ones and somehow rendering the park incorruptible, I too have been substituting my fake art into, incorruptible, genuine attempts of creating a romantic vision of which we do so dearly miss. Has my world become so corruptible that I feel the only way to move forward is to move back, even right back to someone I have never been. We will see how long I can keep this up for.

Yours truly, Lee Thomas O’Connor

The Long Sea Bleating, water colour on paper, 2007

Lee T O’Connor Lee T O’Connor studied at ECA 1997 - 2003 and is currently teaching at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. www.leeoconnor.co.uk, [email protected]

1119101.indd19101.indd 3232 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:335:53:33 1119101.indd19101.indd 3333 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:335:53:33 Tommy Crooks

It was Wednesday afternoon at half-past two and I was in a real hurry as I had to go to the bank to get some wages out so I jumped into my car and drove up Church Street towards the town centre. I turned on to Winton Place and parked outside The Photography Shop. I then turned off the engine. As I was doing this, I noticed an unusual, large, white, shape ahead to my left and at a distance of no more than six metres from my car. “What….. is that?” I asked myself as I tried to focus on the object. To my complete surprise, I realised that I was staring at a huge- bare- female- arse? My brain wouldn’t immediately allow me to accept what my eyes were seeing, but, on second glance, I established that it was indeed a bare arse! I zoomed my eyes in towards the arse and noticed, to my further surprise and total incredulity, a stream of urine gushing from between the cheeks. ”Ke – rist…. Almighty!” I said aloud. ”Is that a woman doing a pish on the pavement? ” I got out of the car and activated my “Force Field” as I fl oated past her in an arc. When I had negotiated my way around her semi crouching fi gure, I turned my head and saw that she was lighting up a Richmond Menthol Kingsize Cigarette. She had also managed to fasten her pish-sodden jeans around her fl abby belly in the blink of an eye. “Street Vermin” I muttered venomously under my breath. Anyway, I continued on to the bank and withdrew the money I needed and then drove back down Church Street to my house. I had to put a new roof on this particular house. I also built three bedrooms and a shower room into the attic space. I fi tted solid wooden fl oors throughout and I also put a dimmer switch in the living room to help me achieve a relaxed ambience in the evenings.

Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, digital photographic print, 101.6cm x 127cm, 2007

Tommy Crooks Born in Govan (1963) studied Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee. The Art Of The Fall, Berlin. Strategic Art Gets, Embassy, Blind Sight, Titanik Artspace, Finland. Played guitar for cult British rock group The Fall.

1119101.indd19101.indd 3434 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:365:53:36 1119101.indd19101.indd 3535 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:365:53:36 Alexander Guy

El PASO Out in the West Texas town of El Paso I fell in love with a Mexican girl Night time would fi nd me in Rosa’s cantina Music would play and Felina would twirl Just for a moment I stood there in silence Shocked by the foul, evil deed I had done Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there Wicked and evil while casting a spell I had but one chance and that was to run My love was deep for this Mexican maiden I was in love, but in vain I could tell Out through the back door of Rosa’s I ran Out where the horses were tied One night a wild young cowboy came in I caught a good one, it looked like it could run Wild as the West Texas wind Up on its back and away I did ride Dashing and daring, a drink he was sharing Just as fast as I could from the West Texas town of El Paso With wicked Felina the girl that I loved Out of the badlands of New Mexico

So in anger I challenged his right for the love of this maiden Back in El Paso my life would be worthless Down went his hand for the gun that he wore Everything’s gone: in life nothing is left My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat It’s been so long since I’ve seen the young maiden The handsome young stranger lay dead on the fl oor My love is stronger than my fear of death

1119101.indd19101.indd 3636 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:385:53:38 I saddled up and away I did go Riding alone in the dark Maybe tomorrow a bullet will fi nd me Tonight nothing’s worse than the pain in my heart And at last here I am on the hill overlooking El Paso But my love for Felina is strong and I rise where I’ve fallen I can see Rosa’s Cantina below Though I am weary, I can’t stop to rest My love is strong and it pushes me onward I see the white puff of smoke from the rifl e Down off the hill to Felina I go I feel the bullet go deep in my chest

Off to my right I see fi ve mounted cowboys From out of nowhere Felina has found me Off to my left ride a dozen or more Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side Shouting and shooting, I can’t let them catch me Cradled by two loving arms that I’ll die for I have to make it to Rosa’s back door One little kiss, then Felina good-bye

El Paso Something is dreadfully wrong, for I feel Words and music by Marty Robbins A deep burning pain in my side Though I am trying to stay in the saddle I’m getting weary, unable to ride ‘El Paso’, oil on canvas, 260cm x 330cm, 2007

1119101.indd19101.indd 3737 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:425:53:42 Christian Vetter

In the horizon of the infi nite.- We have left the land and have embarked! We have burned our bridges behind us - indeed, we have gone further and destroyed the land behind us! Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure, it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize that it is infi nite and that there is nothing more awesome than infi nity. Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now strikes the walls of this cage! Woe, when you feel homesick for the land as if it had offered more freedom—and there is no longer any “land”!

Christian Vetter Christian Vetter was born in 1970 and lives and works in Zurich Has exhibited widely including solo shows at Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Galerie Brigitte Weiss, Zurich and Museum Langmatt, Baden. He was the recipient of the Manor-Preis 2008, St. Gallen and the studio grant Beijing, China, Stiftung GegenwArt Bern.

1119101.indd19101.indd 3838 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:465:53:46 “Whither is God?” he cried. “I will tell you. We have killed him - you and I! All of us are his murderers! But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? And backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infi nite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?“

Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science, Book III, 124 / 125, Translation by Walter Kaufmann

Untitled, Gouache,ink, chalk on paper, 29.5 x 21cm , 2007

1119101.indd19101.indd 3939 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:475:53:47 The Lonely Piper

The Thrawn Chorus

He’d roused himself much earlier than normal because Guided by the torch bright light of Venus, (his sometime he’d yet again been troubled by early morning glimpses mourning star, when death had left him bereft) he arrived of eternity. Snippets of nightmare, nonsensical and at a destination at the bottom of the privet lined street. garbled in nature had prevented a peaceful slumber. He sat, and perched bird-like on the worn sandstone His half conscious mind, jolted itself awake repeatedly wall directly across the road from her house, his elegant in a panic-stricken fuddle, with an express desire to fi ngers absent-mindedly rubbing the geological Braille extricate itself immediately and without ceremony, from of the surface beneath him, a stately sandstone this cruelly imagined void. A dreamed desolation, devoid bejewelled with a smattering of summer dew and some entirely of anything approaching life. He decided to defer knobbles of well weathered lichen. He listened intently, sleep until later in the day, when his pillow may re-offer quite mesmerised, to the melodious blackbird perched solace as opposed to the auguring of breathless horror. on her gable. A tiny passeriforme of performer, spot-lit by that curious ultra-violet light of dawn, with yellow beak For as long as anyone could remember he had had wide open, releasing a continuous liquid litany of song. an unfortunate trait to his character, whereby, without Suited up in black and yellow, like a Wasp or a Bumble; meaning to, he would subconsciously upset merry a tiny svelte non-stinging Pavarotti of the urban stage. people and overly jubilant friends with an occasional burst of cod-melancholic eloquence. On the other hand, Utterly bewitched he breathed in the cool air thick with if they unwittingly offended his darker archaic sensibili- growth and revival, and savoured the rich and heady ties and seemed to lead always illuminated and untrou- mingling of scents and the burgeoning aromatics of bled lives, he would remind them (in a round about kind summer, an odour that assumed a pregnant shape of way) of death whether they needed reminding or not, in his minds-eye; conjured from a pagan elixir of but in a way that wasn’t at all overt, but subliminal in its pheromone. His mind wandered gangrel-like, and sneakiness. Standing back, he would then watch their ex- he thought abstractly about navigating through the pressions change ever so slightly as internal strife quickly neighbourhood without eyes, instinctively utilising the fl eeted over their features like cloud shadow, and the complex network of birdsong that he could hear all abyss sucked them in, planting uncomfortable butterfl ies around, to wend his way home safely and without in their stomachs and a dark whistling fog of dread in their collision via signposts of sound alone, a tangled web hearts. He liked to share and share alike with his unwitting of tune and ever so pleasant musical meander through kindred. the warm and comforting darkness of closed eyes; a blindness simply cured by the opening of eyelids.

1119101.indd19101.indd 4040 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:495:53:49 Everywhere the operatic song of the blackbird sounded; bodyguard, protecting him against an antediluvian evil. a wonderful bubbling trill that an exhausted mind could fi nd quite distracting, off-putting even, a chorus He’d wait with the patience of the paralysed for the commissioned by insomnia to accompany an impending vacated space betwixt her chimneys to be reoccupied, personal apocalypse that might detonate in his mind at reassuring himself that the gable-end song would resume any moment. The void had to be appeased: a personal and remain the same. Satisfi ed that it had and was, sacrifi ce of feather, fl esh, beak and bone had to be he roused himself from his deeply satisfi ed stupor offered. The time was imminent and soon to be now. and brushed past the pink fairy thimbles of the solitary foxglove that guarded against intruders (and heart A circling whiff of lavender from the herbaceous border attacks) at the head of the path. A clarity had been entered his neb and settled his jangled nerves. Taking restored to his life, and he felt that a prolonged period of a deep steadying breath to muffl e the natural shake of bother had punctuated itself with a welcome full-stop; no the human machine, he slowly took aim with an imagined more bother, not never. The street lamp to his left shone fi rearm; he manoeuvred the rifl e incrementally, until he even brighter it seemed, surrounded by a cat’s cradle of had the joyous little bird in the crosshairs of his innately powdered satellites as adoring moths aplenty erratically Evil Eye. Then exhaling slowly and deliberately he gently orbited the false sodium sun of its amber illumination. squeezed the trigger and fi red a thought at the bird like Twilight budged up slowly and gave way to a quite perfect explosive buckshot. With an abrupt ending of song the mother of pearl sky striated with what appeared to be Blackbird Tommy Coopered, mid-gig, and took a streaks of sunlight, but were in fact the brilliantly illumi- swan-dive like slump onto slate and slid downwards to nated contrails of aeroplanes. He turned to the right at do a little jump off the jutting rone to bounce with a the top of the path to wend his way upwards towards the percussive thud off of the old widow’s wheelie bin; landing crest of his hill, where the shortening of shadows ushered elegantly on her diminutive lawn. He ambled over and in a new day, he paused, turned and admired the orange picked up the small body of the bird still warm and constellation of Newport, glistening star-like across the trembling, as the rhythm of life faded and its nerves mirrored Tay. In that small town the celestial bodies of settled into fi nal rigor, its musical clogs well and truly Northern Fife were still sleeping in their beds, serenaded popped. He buried the bird under the old widow’s Rowan subliminally by a new dawn’s chorus. Unconscious, thus Tree under a two inch covering of humus with a reverence unaware of the secret ceremony that had just taken place befi tting its’ gift to the world of song. The Rowan being his across the sacred water. symbolic angel of the North and his red berried The Lonely Piper 2007

1119101.indd19101.indd 4141 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:495:53:49 Neil Mulholland Neil Mulholland is a writer. He is Director for the Centre of Visual and Cultural Studies and leads the MA in Contemporary Art Theory at ECA.

Liz Adamson - Spoon Born Bo’ness (1959) studied Drawing and Painting at ECA. Has shown extensively in the UK, and abroad including Round Room Talbot Rice, Edinburgh, Frontstore, Basel Switzerland, La Cajachina Gallery Seville Spain. Lives and works in East Lothian and is a lecturer in Drawing and Painting at ECA.

Norman Shaw - references Starless And Bible Black Sabbath (or This ain’t the Summer of Love) Sampled and remixed texts from (in order of appearance): Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno, Blue Öyster Cult, Aleister Crowley, Black Sabbath, Deleuze & Guattari, Melt Banana, Austin Osman Spare, HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Stewart Home, Algernon Blackwood, Dylan Thomas, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Neil M Gunn, Nimrod33, Om, Bill Drummond, William Blake, William Shakespeare, The Simpsons, Darkthrone, Mayhem, Mr Lahey, St John the Divine, Thomas Ligotti, Coil, Slayer, Current 93, Ossian, Melvins & Foetus, Lautréamont, King Crimson. Butt of Lewis True Thomas

Alexander Guy Born 1962 St Andrews, Scotland. Studied Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee and Royal College, London. Has exhibited widely in Europe and America including The Prague Biennale, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf and Caetello Di Rivara, Torino, Italy.

The Lonely Piper A solitudinous soul, supernaturalist and ancient provocateur, romantically entwined with the rugged grandeur and unrivalled splendour of his spiritual environs. His physical age is thirty two, metaphysically however his vital essence is older than myth. During the summer months he is prone to the romantic malady of ‘Heather Pollen Lung’ when he sometimes wishes he could shrink to a size diminutive so’s he could hug a midge.

Rachel MacLean and Diane Edwards. http://dp.eca.ac.uk/2009/rachel [email protected]

Front cover: Acknowledgments to Rene Vidmér, 1954. Back cover: Graeme Todd, ‘ Hey Unk’ (detail), acrylic on canvas, 2007.

1119101.indd19101.indd 4242 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:495:53:49 POLARCAP

Would like to thank the following:

East Lothian Council Edinburgh College of Art Brigitte Weiss Lesley Smith Duncan Bremner Rachel Menzies Josh Christopherson Billy Caulfi eld Rachel Maclean Diane Edwards Naomi Struan Keir Malcolm The Bird All the Astronomers (keep up the good work)

And Know That We Love You

1119101.indd19101.indd 4343 224/7/074/7/07 005:53:495:53:49 Liz Adamson . Boards of Canada . Charles Stiven . Christian Vetter . Graeme Todd . David Chieppo . Paul Keir Edward Summerton . El Frauenfelder . Eri Itoi . San Keller . Alexander Guy . Soland Goose . Lee T OʼConnor Norman Shaw . Tommy Crooks . Michael Windle

eca edinburgh college of art

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