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Increasing the range of art The flows and forms Edward Lucie-Smith of MutualArt on the Conceptualist and The body as a symbol for revolutionary impulse romantic photo-collagist psychic change provides insight into depiction Mothmeister | Stelarc | Louis Cole (Knower) | Bert Gilbert | Adam Dix | Katharine Dowson | Martha Parsey ISSUE 4 Ron Athey | Mike Laird | Andrew Litten | Damien Meade | Gail Olding | Sarah Sitkin | Nestor Pestana André Hemer, The Cobra Effect #8, Photograph by Ben Connell, courtesy of Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery. Hjellegjerde Kristin of courtesy Connell, Ben by Photograph 2018 contents 66 CONTENTIOUS NUDES Edward Lucie-Smith on the revolutionary impulse 94 SUFFERING AND 12 AND TRANSHUMAN MUSIC ELECTRICITY agency explore and Michaela Davies James Sclavunos and transgression TRANSFORMATION The body as a symbol for psychic change A RICH BODY OF DATA OF BODY RICH A of MutualArt forms and The flows 138 38 118 JOHN STEZAKER AT LOREENA MCKENNITT: THE APPROACH FOLK ACTIVIST Conceptualist and romantic The Canadian Celtic diaspora and photo-collagist the New World online ARTISTS ON THE BODY 24 110 Mythological entropy Scars and revelations Mothmeister: Revelations behind Ron Athey: Personal explorations and 150 the mask. public displays. MODERN PATRONAGE 32 114 The inside edge of the Montblanc Progressive augmentation The depth of the vessel Cultural Foundation Stelarc: Engineering the interface Mike Laird: The inner limits of the human body 54 Keeping in the shape of rhythm 126 Louis Cole: From Knower to Solo Pain, wit and gesture Andrew Litten: Timeless models 56 of expression Alchemical transformations in soul and psyche 130 Bert Gilbert: Rites of passage, Mud and the body by-product skins of change Damien Meade: Making the artificial appear sentient 76 Hypnotic memories of the future 132 Adam Dix: Science fiction and new The poetry and potency dimensions in art. of presence Gail Olding: Emotional access 80 Lungs of coral, hearts of stone 146 Katharine Dowson: Internal beauty Sculpture and abstract sensation reflected in nature Sarah Sitkin: Bodies in decline, bodies at rest 86 Elegant geometry, structure 156 and violence Existing beyond the body Martha Parsey: Symbolic feminism Nestor Pestana: Speculative design and the revolt and the new human REGULARS 04 Contact & Credits 06 Editorial 08 Online digest 162 Subscriptions 4 44 Cover image: Publisher & Russell MacEwan, Editorial Director God Save The Trebuchet Kailas Elmer Queen. 2018 © R. MacEwan. Art Direction 2018. Image challenges Mark Halliwell courtesy of artist. Art Editors Printed in the UK. Michael Eden, entrenched Edward Winters Culture Editor views by Naila Scargill Music Editor Jed Saint bringing Web Editor Sean Keenan Advertising new creative Calanit Peretz Proofreaders Emma Horton, ideas to the Jayne Nelson Subscription and frontline of general enquiries office@trebuchet- magazine.com culture. Commercial enquiries sales@trebuchet- Something in me knows where I’m going, and — well, magazine.com While every effort has painting is a state of being. … Painting is self-discovery. been made to ensure Every good artist paints what he is. The publishers accuracy, Trebuchet would like Magazine does not - Jackson Pollock accept liability for any to thank: errors or omissions. Jason Colchin-Carter, Reprinting of any articles or images from Emma O’Hare, Trebuchet without the Russell MacEwan permission of Trebuchet Ltd is expressly forbidden © 2018. EDITOR’S NOTE the body masks There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate;’ -TS Eliot, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. (1915) In this issue of Trebuchet we look at how a variety of artists have approached remaking the body: as a canvas, a template, and as a site of investigation and statement. The representation of humans within societies has been central to the discussion of who and what we are, asking where does the individual end and the social body start? Where do transgressions against the body move from an agent’s agency to a site of conspicuous controversy? Society is a compact in which each individual forgoes actions and behaviours (sometimes this is easy, sometimes hard) in order to exist comfortably within local and contemporary values. The representation of the body has been variously knotted with social values, from Hitler’s ‘degenerative’ assignation to Marshall McLuhan’s analysis of Cubism, where the medium of painting replaces the content. In both cases we are asked to read the body as a place of action, philosophy and normative association where what we are seeing is intellectually demonstrative rather than just photorealistically figurative. We are asked to look beyond the body’s physical attributes and into its being, as it appears to others and to ourselves. The hand, the eye, the neck and the mouth are all symbols imbued with intent. From Ron Athey’s visceral explorations of the body to Martha Parsey’s layered figures to Loreena © 2018 ofJ.Appleby courtesy 2018, McKennitt’s search for Celtic identity to the investigations of Stelarc, James Sclavunos and Michaela Davies into #2200418 transhumanism, the spectrum of work presented here provides cardinal directions from which we can evaluate the continuing fascination we have with our bodies. Jemma Appleby, Jemma Appleby, Lorem Lorem ipsum dolor as seen on online ART ED KIENHOLZ’ EARLY WORK Ed Kienholz is an assemblage artist, an installation artist, and a conceptual artist; which is to say that his work lies somewhere within that matrix. Showing at Blain|Southern, London, 2018. SOUND SOUND NO SPACE FOR THE MELTED ON MY CORTEX UNEXPECTED – XOR GATE “It is more progressive, more uplifting, The latest creative manifestation of more melancholic, more dynamic, there is Donald, one half of Detroit electro a greater emphasis on light and shade, it legends Drexciya and the main figure is heavier, it is more delicate, it has more behind the projects Dopplereffekt, beauty, it has more darkness” Arpanet, Der Zyklus and more. SOCIETY THE PASSION OF WU YONGNING The final tragic dance of Chinese rooftop artist Wu Yongning. ART ART POSTCARDS FROM THE LOST WHY BEING AN ARTIST IS GENERATION: PICASSO 1915-1925 NOT A JOB Review of ‘Pablo Picasso: between cubism Andy Warhol famously called his studio and classicism 1915-1925’ ed. Berggruen “The Factory” and employed assistants. and Von Liechtenstein. Surely this was a job? ART ANTI-ART REFLECTING A KNOWING SOCIETY ‘Anti Art’ is a reflection of the often ironic, self knowing stance of the artistic player who undermines conventions. SOCIETY SOCIETY ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE: IAN EQUIVALENCE & THE LOSS OF MCKELLEN PLAYS HIS PART THE ENGAGED HUMAN Frank self-analysis offers some Postmodernity as a condition of being for fascinating insight into Ian McKellen’s those of us who inhabit the developed career trajectory; an essential watch for world in the later 20th and early 21st both fans and those interested in an century can be difficult to fully grasp. READ MORE TREBUCHET-MAGAZINE.COM experienced actor’s perspective. 10 Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing - Salvador Dalí James Sclavunos & Michaela Davies explore agency and transgression Electricity and transhuman music STEPHEN O’MALLEY ON CENTRE POMPIDOU COMMISSIONS AND THE CAVES OF THE DORDOGNE. NIAGARA REVERB #07150 Fujiko Nakaya + KTL (Stephen O’Malley & Peter Rehberg) Alphorn accompaniment by Alponom, arrangement by Stephen O’Malley Sound spatialization by Manuel Poletti ManiFeste-2017 (the 40th anniversary of the Centre Pompidou and IRCAM), Paris Photography by Noriko Koshida © 2017 Trans-human music Trans-human Art Previous page: Photograph of Jim Sclavunos by Daniel Efram. Left: Attention is a scarce resource photo by Liam Loke, 2013. Courtesy of M.Davies Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) The body is an electrical emitter, receiver and network Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) is the elicitation of muscle contraction using electrical impulses. station. Interconnected points vibrate with pulse The impulses are delivered through electrodes messages; somewhere amongst the thought, signals and on the skin near to the muscles being stimulated. the noise of action there is some obscure deity called us. The impulses mimic the action potential that comes from the central nervous system, causing the muscles Music changes us; the electrical impulses coursing to contract. through our brains are changed when we make sense of auditory inputs. Sonic experimentation has long pushed the boundaries of what we consider recognisable as music. We’ve changed the setting, format, range, production, even the value of music as a cultural artefact,however, what has remained largely sacrosanct is the role of agency in the creation of music. Starting from a shared appreciation of the creative possibilities of Michaela Davies’ art-music explorations, Bad Seed James Sclavunos and the Australian avant- garde cellist explored how control might be exerted over musicians via EMS (electrical muscular stimulation). The resulting experimental productions marked the beginning of an exploration by the two artists into the role of the body in performance and whether physical agency and humanity are as closely tied together as most would expect. Speaking to Trebuchet, Sclavunos and Davies (via a less painful electronic medium) described the history of the project and where this visceral investigation