Artwebtelly

Spymass ..... Parameters ..... For information only

[1]

Perhaps influenced by Quatermass. The word more than the film. A word thats been floating around in my head for years. It has a definite function but i cant tell you what that function is or what the word means. I dont remember the film at all but the title was scary, aside from the content. there are many words like this, just floating, being but serving any precise purpose. Eventually some are incorporated into the vocabulary and are replaced with other obscure words. In parallel there are ideas floating around without words to describe them, floating into the foreground then disappearing. Sometimes the obscure words and elusive ideas are married. More often, though, they remain a mystery and just have potential, giving depth and an horizon to the landscape of personel ideas and language. To our understanding of the world and our understanding of ourselves. Quatermass is such a word and only has very loose associations. It suggests but nothing is certain. Ideas can be hung on it temporarily then removed at will. These notions eventually coalesce and a word is needed. A new word. The word Spymass. Sometimes we get scared for no particular reason. Especially when we were young and didnt fully understand things. Doctor Who was scary. Some neighbours were scary. The dark,,, Time,,, being alone,, crowds, the thing in the wardrobe, the thing under the bed, anything could make us fearful. Many things were scary, without a clear or obvious reason. As though we needed to to be scared. A necessary part of understanding the world or preparing for later when we really do experience something terrible and nasty. Maybe to develop coping mechanisms in advance. Spymass, however, is the unexplained rather than the fear. The fear was when we were really young. Later, we see, we feel, we are still a bit scared, we struggle with our fear and curiosity just about wins, we cant explain but are compelled to watch. We are now slightly masochistic and beginning to enjoy the unusual and unexplained. What was pain and fear is now a source of enjoyment. Intrigue becomes positive. Fear is pushed aside. The human desire to know drives us onward.

[2]

Spymass comes when we become aware of our limitations and lack of control over our destiny. We develop an awareness or at least, suspicion of something other than what we immediately perceive. In fact we constantly seek out these things. Tell us a story. Please. The children cry. What did, as a very young child, frighten us has become a state of wonder and intrigue. Some will carry constant fear into adulthood and will always be scared of their own shadow. Most will develop ideas and thoughts to dissolve or allay the fear. If your lucky, and have been conditioned to be religious, you can relax. You are safe. You will apparently go to heaven and everything else becomes almost irrelevant. That is, i suppose, where religion can be beneficial and in previous times, scored heavily with the masses. If, however, you are more aporetic in nature, then you have a tougher road to follow and will inevitably find and invent fragile grounds for that route. You may become overly superstitious. Maybe drink yourself into a stupor to block out the fear. Philosophise. Play games. Shop. Shop again. Distract ourselves by creating music, painting, writing or sculpting. Maybe just consume these things. Collect them perhaps. Collect anything. Collect people. Certainly, collect junk. How many sheds are filled with absolute junk. This junk however is as diamond to the spymass man or woman. We may invent something more scientific or at least conduct some kind of research. R and D, they call it; sometimes confused with R and R but im not so sure that there is a confusion since its all distraction. Many ways will be found. The existence of something other will nevertheless, affect us all to some degree all our lives. We will explain it away or otherwise cope but it will constantly be in the background. You want answers but they never come, as each answer contains questions of its own. Its impossible to escape your alternative and unique route. That path is now a tunnel and you imagine a light at the end. They all say they believe your explanations and theories because their denial is as necessary as yours and they feel your pain so we all play a game or just go and get drunk together for the night. Many questions. Many therories. Missing answers. What is it. Why is it. We talk all night and the beer flows. We talk all night. We listen. We talk and so it goes on until we wake up and get back on the treadmill.

A concrete structure with no obvious function. Rusty holes that were previously occupied by some unknown metal attachment. There is evidence of intent but its gone. We fill the gap, temporarily with some almost random idea. We wonder. Stare. Think. Maybe a camera or a gun or other device. Some hybrid system we visualise. There is an association, an aesthetic that is irresistible and there we are, staring at the thing, a work of art. A ready made, an objet trouve. Marcel ,,,,, thank you. The concrete aspect of Spymass plants it firmly in the 20th century. Though concrete as been around for many centuries the common perception makes it more recent or modern. The same goes for the rust..... The apparent recentness of object gives an edge of extra mystery since we could more easily expect to be confounded by some ancient relic were time has eroded any causes for its existence. Of course a complete modern item would not qualify to be included in the genre. It would somehow have to have been transformed to be unrecognisable. Burnt, broken or just a fragment remaining. Things are not Spymass if they are too easily read, their provenance is clear and consequently lack mystery. They just are and dont question or incite our imagination. A part of a car, other machine or any other man made object / fragment, slightly aged or damaged and disfigured hiding its history with no clear function may qualify. It will usually be man made but there will be naturally occurring instances of the genre. An old photograph or text or part thereof illustrating or suggesting an idea without being over explicit or unambiguous may pass. The key to understanding Spymass is not understanding, recognising an inability to understand everything not needing to understand everything and rejoicing in the potential of knowing more. Always aware that there is more to life. So what we dont know ironicaly gives us the most important piece of information that we need and that is that there is infinitely more out there than we could possibly hope to take on board. Potential............................

In the Spymass classification we are experiencing things in the same way as when we first encountered our world. I find Paris a good experience, I have no idea what people are talking about and everything looks different. Its like being born again. The potential for learning in this new enviroment is massive. A Spymass holiday you could say.

................................m o r e

The cold war and the spying paranoia tied up with it. The more modern, cctv, the internet, cameras and monitors all around, watching us watching them. Everybody watching everybody. A mass of people watching the same mass of people. Masses of people spying on masses of people. Spymass. Is this our nemesis? will we pine away and turn into a field of daffodils ?. This cam that cam, cams firing both ways and The Global Village Mass Media Mass starvation Mass terb ation Pornographic clips clips of all sorts all influence the meaning of Spymass. Living in the city amongst the buildings, the buildings with, often, unknown functions. The more mysterious and the more modern yet defunct it is the better.

St. Giles Court

Derelict with wafting curtains, broken signage, wires lost and looking for some where to feed and with their lack of supply; terminated long ago. Terminated when the unknown tenants long fled to a happier house. This building once had a purpose, served its time and now, abandoned, a spinster to its previous and now dead business. Grey and old before its time.

Look at those classical blocks just up the road and me, old, yet less than half their age.

[3]

The now dead items found by the roadside or river often will be in the realms of Spymass. The password to log on to the spymass world is to accept the incompleteness of our knowledge and powers of understanding and that something is missing from our intellect compared to the bigger picture and its many mysteries. The Spymass objects are, of course, metaphors and fundamentally signify all enigmas and riddles our world. Both the physical and the other but should be enjoyed for their superficial character too for, we can only ever scratch the surface so why not enjoy it; while we can. This is the level that Spymass should be enjoyed since it is only Art, only Human , just entertainment, just a distraction from the deeper questions that constantly bug us. Take a holiday. Leave your job. Just walk. The ability to do this does indicate a sort of resignation but also a crucial acceptance of our mental deficit but more importantly the rejection of social restraints invented by others. Not others like yourself but more like the ones who would control you and have you as their slave. Rebel now. Dont waste your pitifully short life running around after someone else or chasing some fantastical ideal. An acceptance of our place in the universe is a start. When we are fully Spymass we dont have problems, we dont have possessions. We cannot be slaves to the system. We live in tents. In vans. In boxes. Under a tree. We may live in a mansion but we dont need it. We are travellers. When a house becomes a prison we move on. When an idea becomes a prison we move on. When a friend turns into a prison warden we go. Though, a prison would be the ideal escape for many people since, on the outside the constraints and complexities of life are much more detrimental. It seems like the more we have the less we own our own lives. No wonder then that we seek the other. . . . .That other that in quiet moments is a bit of a worry. We cant win really. Too much on the one hand and something always missing on the other.

There will be exceptions to incompleteness and the unexplained. I have a large concrete water tower near me. its clearly a water tower but i like to imagine that it has a much more sinister function anyway it just seems wrong or incongruous. I dont know if its its position or maybe because it just looks too worn out to be of any use at all. I guess i want it to be a mystery and i just make it so. There is a place around the back of centre point. It is definitely spymass. All bomb proof curtains and no people. Where are they ? Who were they ? What were they up to ? Another building is or seems to be somewhere in the south east corner of Hyde Park or Kensington; loads of aerials and gear on the roof. Makes it look top heavy. Weird looking building, definitely not what you would call an attractive building in the conventional sense but Spymass ? most certainly sir. I imagine some rogue has taken the caretakers position and is up to all sorts. Sometimes Spymass may be achieved by separation or distancing. Tractor and Overhead (see web site / [4] ) are such an instances. Originally photos taken of or off of the TV. A bit of play with photoshop and hey presto, an image that isnt totally clear; an image that allows some potential and leaves space for the imagination to get to work.

Reading, Endflash, Mushroom and Run are tiny details from photographs blown up. [5] [6] [7] [8] Detail is absent due to the poor resolution of such a small section of printed material. They are de-contextualised and the viewer is distanced from the original and so these images become much more flexible signifiers. Each spectator being triggered in their own way and filling in the spaces. Joining the dots, colouring between the lines and so on.The consumer in this case has to do a little bit of work but only the kind of work we / they enjoy.

[9] The parked car in Journey creates a tension between the movement expected from the title Journey , the idea of a car progressing and its present parked stillness.There is something missing from the story here and is, therefore, very Spymass. Again the spectator, like in a mystery movie, doing some work and not being totally passive. This idea of incompleteness can inspire one to fill in the gaps. There is a potential. For completeness. For closure. For answers. The potential, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or a mirage promising water on the horizon drives us forward like the donkey with his carrot or what may become his carrot. Silly bugger. The modern carrot is constantly changing. Constantly, we are offered the latest versions, improved versions and something with extra something. Most of it is nonsense but we are driven forward like zombies. The spymass person is not of this nature. He will find this potential in other ways and will prefer some forgotten modern relic thrown from the, now defunct, telephone exchange, some cast aside broken toy from a run down toy shop put out of business by some massive global concern. A thing found in a skip. A thing found in the road. Just a thing will do. Just like a child. Just some thing. A building block. Potential.....

Bryan J Robinson. Sept. 29th 2005

find 'Spymass Deep' the track here,,,,, [10]

also 'Helfro' and 'physca' on acquisitionx.com (file sharing program fully intergrated with itunes)

Copyright (c) 2006 Bryan J Robinson. Permission is granted to copy, distribute under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".