Showing posts with label disintegration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disintegration. Show all posts
Old Bega Hospital
Old Bega Hospital is my favourite building in the local area. Sadly fire has left it in a state of disrepair. Recently funds were allocated to re-roof the building as a start towards restoration. It is obviously needed as an important part of the local heritage. However, I like it just the way it is, and although I recognise that it won't remain like this forever, I do think that it is in a perfect state for an intervention. Whether this be projection or performance or both I am open to suggestions. Of course, all highly illegal, but nothing ventured, nothing gained? Contact me if interested...
My day at the mall
Bob Georgeson, underground car park, 2015, Photograph
Nobody laughs in here. They avoid eye
contact at any cost. Shop assistants yawn as they finger their mobile
phones. The mall swarms with bodies disembodied. Being tall I peer
over their heads. A small woman tries to walk through me. I play
chicken, determined not to move to the last moment, then jump
sideways to the left. She does the same. I jump the other way. She
does the same. Our little dance clearly irritates her.
The young girl says “Can I help you
Sir?”. I “smile and say “Don't call me Sir”. She looks taken
aback. I say “It reeks of British upper class imperialism and the
the subjugation of the workers”. I can see this explanation is not
helping. “Don't worry...I'm a surrealist” I shrug, realising as
soon as the word has rolled off my tongue I have made a mistake. Any
word ending in 'íst' these days is to be feared. This is not going
well...
Perhaps I am a cultural terrorist. My
surrealist ancestors advocated going into the street with a gun and
firing at random. These days that is so common that it no longer has
an impact, and besides I cannot stand sudden loud noises and
hysteria, but I do have the perverse thought of planting a bomb in
the food court. It wasn't the drumstick through the forehead that got
him, it was septicaemia from the secret herbs and spices.
A woman walks towards me pushing a
double pram. She looks a bit too old for a mother, a bit too young
for a grandmother. She is very protective of her babies. As she
passes I look back at the twins. Two identical plastic dolls stare
back at me. Nobody is laughing...
Untitled abstraction (for John Peart)
Bob Georgeson, Untitled abstraction (for John Peart), 2015, Photography
Self portrait on top of the scrap-heap
I love going to the tip. Not only the satisfaction of offloading a ute load of rubbish, usually gardening prunings, that earn me a couple of brownie points for a few days (believe me not that easy!), but I also get to admire and photograph the mangled piles of human detritus that would for the want of a few simple tools be turned into accommodation in the poorer cities of the world. There aren't too many favelas in Bermagui, so the piles build until crushed by machines or torched by delinquents.
The staff at the tip often get suspicious seeing someone taking photographs, thinking it must be going to end up a negative reflection of their work practices splashed across the front page of the Daily Telegraph so I am always excessively polite in asking their permission and explaining that I am artist who uses this imagery in my artwork. "What do you do?" asked the attendant at my last visit. She looked a little apprehensive when I explained I worked in photomedia and video art and am involved in online collaborative projects, but when I added that over the past two years that my subject matter had changed from erotica to an interest in decay, disorder and social disintegration I could visibly sense the relief in her eyes...
Self portrait as toxic waste
Bob Georgeson, Self portrait as toxic waste, 2015, Intervention at Bermagui Rubbish Tip (destroyed by crushing 23/03/2015)
The last broadcast
Bob Georgeson, The last broadcast, 2015, Mixed media
Apocalyptic perhaps? Video to follow soon. An ending you would
Je suis Charlie: four points of a compass (a view of the world)
Bob Georgeson, East, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, West, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, North, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, South, 2015, Digital print
Bob Georgeson, Four points of a compass, 2015, Digital print
Happy New Year! Not. Last year ends with mindless violence in Martin Place in Sydney. This year begins with it in Paris. These photos seem to sum up the situation. I have generally avoided politics in my art and on this blog (Twitter is a different matter if you want to follow me). There have been a few exceptions: the Worlds in Collision series and the Why is this happening? video to name two, but it does raise the question of whether there has been (or perhaps should be) a link between politics and art, and ultimately what purpose that might serve. And do artists have a responsibility as the eyes of the world to address the socio-political situations that we find ourselves in?
I don't have an answer for this any more than I have a solution to the Islamic problem, or any other issue you choose to pull out of the hat. What I do know is that silence and a reluctance to, or fear of speaking out against injustice will always play into the hands of the perpetrators. And so we set the tone for the year ahead...
