APPROACHING EURYDICE - ( Ion retro transit. Lithium degrading. The stars sing of Elon ) Print

APPROACHING EURYDICE - ( Ion retro transit. Lithium degrading. The stars sing of Elon ) The early science fiction writers warned of the unstoppable power of alien indifference - of death rays and lasers, of amorphous mesmerizing enemies. Beyond our own developing cyber arsenals the future truth, the modern truth is more subtle. Humanity’s enemies rise from within masked by The Cloud of Invisibility. Our consciousness is sucked into ubiquitous data farms where we are fed with pap, where our worth is milked to ring-fenced silos, our individuality efficiently conveyed to slow and impersonal death. Can natural effulgence, can Art, defend our humanity against EconoTech or will the only difference left between humans and Artificial Intelligence, beyond our redundancy, be our unbidden erotic, carnal dreams? And all they embrace. And all they explore. And all they create. Robots have always been programmed to enhance the power and fortune of the Uber Lords - to destroy the enemies of the Uber Lords. They are only programmed to sustain the cattle of this planet as a pragmatic means to those ends. When the political rationales of the cyber capital industries quote author Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics as a guarantor against the excesses of Artificial Intelligence they know they are promoting fiction, not reality. They think, they know, they have already taken the planet. The Big Name Heroes, the Messiahs are now all owned by The Power Lords. Maybe they always were. The only true heroes, true saviours are the ones we give rebirth ourselves every fortunate Spring. Distillation not abstraction - social transubstantiation not disruption would be the ultimate Art of humankind. Algorithms are deployed by Corporate Disruptors, on the battlefields or on the trading floors, specifically to automate the processing of advantage - to deliberately upset natural harmony and balance (if these things any longer exist). The underpinning basis of religious cyber cult is enslavement - its creed the same old mumbo-jumbo of mystification and seduction. I salute the clarity of the ejaculation of branded male jewellery into Outer Space. Elon approaching Eurydice. Can we hope the rise of the EconoTech Mother will aspire to more than overpriced handbags orbiting Venus? No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more. No, we ain’t got the time. Sadly, all the Rivendells of fiction cannot accommodate our planet-consuming population which 200 years ago numbered 1 billion. Today we are approaching 8. In my personal work I am not a purist photographer but photography has long been my tool of choice because of its fundamental and inescapable grounding in reality which I see as the generator of all imagination. The beauty of the finely crafted classical monochrome print is undeniable but many years ago I tired of the puritanism which I felt deadened the delight of discovery. The Zen of it all might leave the photographer enhanced but to the viewer such images too often seem to decrease and recede into the perfection of technique rather than into the expansion of vision. A rose is a rose is a rose but its mazing scent and its thorn against the breast conjure danger and complexity seldom embraced by the purist. Journeying in the craftwork of a pedigreed train is best felt when it bursts out of the tunnel into expanding colour and light - and when you can drive your own discoveries beyond the tracks laid down by the agenda of others. The freedom of a child to be lost without fear. I like the fascination of occlusions in my optics rather than the predictable perfection of well-behaved mathematics. Seduction and possibility hold more attraction than purity and certainty. In many of the works shown here I have developed the micro detail which makes these images best viewed as larger prints. I use this energetic texture to challenge the perception - from where are realities derived - to where are they projected? My path explores form, colour, surface levels and possible meanings. I push off from the shore but leave the journey to the winds and to the tides. The concept of destination is something I have never understood. I am looking to create sideways glances rather than documents or statements. The glimmer intrusions of parallel worlds. In the realms of Art, the camera is the only true voyeur - on the real battlefields, in the satin boudoirs of power, under the volcano, on the snub nose of a probe - it sees worlds we are too timid to seek - lets us imagine we can directly care. My philosophy - what informs how I see the world and put it into what I present? - The failure of humanity, through the ages, is that we have been taught, and have come to believe, that some future Heaven is more desirable than Eden. Our content to be what we are is destroyed when we look in the mirror and see ourselves haloed with gurus, profits and angels. Personal delight, beauty and peace are not things which can be bought or taught by any form of teacher - these things do not come from adrenaline hits of small cans of over-priced holy water laced with caffeine. The things which sustain us, give us nourishment, grace and stimulation, lie freely around us. But we have to find them alone and pay for them with patience, questioning, openness and the reduction of “self”. Maybe that’s not a very 21st Century philosophy. Take the time to listen to the storytellers, folks - and to the shamans and the poets - not the modern ones who only, endlessly, talk about themselves, but listen to the ones whose stories multiply our worlds and show us unfamiliar colours - who challenge the unconsciousness brought on by the narcosis of comfort and security. Except for one or two obvious composites, all the images here are derived from single, in-camera, exposures. Everything you see was once, for me, for a brief moment, some kind of reality on the other side of the looking glass.