Iain Cameron's Diary
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2004-06-13 - 10:40 a.m.

I am thinking about classic multi FX � especially when used beyond guitar source eg on woodwind thickened line.

I saw the film of Smithson�s Spiral Jetty at the Tate � which I have never seen before. The only disappointment was that they had moved the promised commentary by Tacita Dean from an adjacent room. Thanks to David Cunningham and the ICA I am a complete addict for avant film or vid from thirty to forty years ago, The SJ was built in the Salt Lake in Utah � a relatively obscure part � and involved a massive transfer of rocks and sand. Heaven knows how they got the money to do it.

It gets me on so many levels � the commitment to start � Smithson died working up a related project a few years later. Smithson is interested in the character of the geology that he is working with � and there are shots of the drive out to the site. Ever since I drove across the Arizona desert from Palm Springs to Phoenix � where I got a chance to visit the Lloyd Wright centre � and then up to Death Valley � I have been totally hooked on this landscape. Lots of helicopter shots too � following the Jetty round � ascending and descending, sometimes with Smithson walking along his creation.

The work disappears and reappears as the lake level varies. I saw the lake as a flew from Detroit to LA once � on my way to Pacific Pallisades and Santa Monica where I had the chance to try a few bars on California Girl.

I bought the first English commentary on Deleuze published by John Marks � it opens with a quote:

�It�s a strange business, speaking for yourself, in your own name, because it doesn�t at all come from seeing yourself as an ego or a person or a subject. Individuals find a real name for themselves, rather, only through the harshest exercises in derpersonalisation, by opening themselves up to the multiplicities everywhere within them, to the intensities running through them.�

Sounds like the premise for the hyper-individual lyric to me.

I saw Cy Twombly�s Four Seasons as well � another first for me � and was very taken. They were done about ten years ago and so for first generation AbsEx they are very late. I think I am right in saying that CT hung out with Merce, Rausch and Cage in the great days of Black Mountain and then went to Italy. People still find his work an affront which considering all that has happened since is a great achievement.

In a similar vein they had a 1960 Lee Krasner out � LK was married to Jackson Pollock and helped guide him towards his heroic period of achievement. This painting would have been done about five years after she was widowed. According to the notes it comes from a time when she was troubled by insomnia and various anxieties. It reaches back to features that are in Pollock�s work before he and Krasner went out to the barn on Long Island. They had a 1948 Pollock out too � from the barn era. It looks classical today � restrained and graceful � like a painting of a ballet.

To finish I looked at some really great So Le Witt drawings from the 70s � although they are late for High Minimalism � that�s what they are � gloriously so.

Then we walked across the bouncy Millenium Bridge which I have never done before and down to Fleet Street to look at the Daily Telegraph and Daily Express buildings. Then a taxi down to St Martins for a Bishop Simeon Trust episode to meet Peter Chatterton and Trish. I passed Trish the amazing farewell donation from Cleveland and told them both that Nick Brown is booking Hughes Hall for us on 28 November 2004 so we can do Lullabies part 2. Brilliant.

We listened to Z talking about the ferocity of South African politics and the impact it has on people's lives.

Denise wrote about the MM event.

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