07:35 23/04/11

The Rash

Five days to launch and all Alice could think about was the pink rash that had formed on her right arm. There was a press event at one tomorrow afternoon but, Jesus, what the hell was it? Just above the elbow on the back of her forearm, a fat pink line. It didn’t sting or anything but it was a nuisance and, let’s be honest, it can’t have looked particularly attractive. Especially now the weather was getting hotter and she would start wearing dresses. She turned her arm over to get a better look, straining the muscles in her shoulder and involuntarily opening her mouth just a bit. Christ, bloody annoying to have something like that come up now, just as the days were getting longer. She was going to wear that nice short-sleeve top for the event tomorrow but would now need a jacket as well. Those PR things are always so sticky and she knew the jacket would just make her sweat, especially when she would have to field questions from mental paranoids about dangers to human nature. And then all that hand-shaking afterwards with the knowledge that her palms were moist and she would probably smell a bit. Terrible, as if the press needed anything else to pounce on. The Sweaty Tech Witch.

She didn’t really understand the need for another PR meeting, it was only for the company to defend themselves against needless worries and in her opinion it came across as weak. All that crap about mind control and intrusion of human boundaries. It’s only a new sensor and, Christ, if they hadn’t developed it Apple would have. Then we’d be using our eyes to sweep across the pages and download useless aps. This way there was so much more we could do, the release titles were a great example of that. In her opinion the developers had done an amazing job integrating her technology in innovative ways, the first time she played the FPS she even surprised herself how smoothly the sensor detected minute eye movements. With the contraction of her iris the program was able to adapt and shift the game-play accordingly, and the resulting papillary response encouraged the narrative to increase the intensity of its content. As she blew a hole through the head of a Nazi the personal tailoring of the game’s action to her own mental state made her heart beat faster and, if she was honest, she had uncrossed her legs and pressed herself forward and down, just slightly, on the leather board-room chair.

Fuck, this rash was growing, she was sure of it, in the past five minutes alone no less. The phone started ringing and she used her left hand to pick it up, keeping focus on the back of her right forearm. It was her PA, he wanted to know what she would like for lunch tomorrow as the conference centre was booking the meals from the catering service in advance. Chicken was fine. She rested the phone between her shoulder and ear and moved her left hand to the rash. Roast potatoes were fine as well. Her fingers lingered above the pink blotch and she told her PA that yes she would be drinking wine and yes she was planning on getting a taxi home. She touched the rash with the tip of her forefinger. It was fine, she didn’t want him to give her a lift home, she was happy to get a taxi. She pressed the finger into the skin and it slowly eased into her arm, the surface opening around her nail and allowing her to push further, right down to the knuckle. Her PA wanted to know if she was sure about the lunch, as once he’d booked it she would be unable to change her mind. She worked her finger further into her arm and, with a bit of effort, was eventually able to slide a second finger in also. She uncrossed her legs and felt the cold phone against her neck. Yes, it was absolutely fine.     

A Quick Pint With Fran

Fran Copeman is a 25 year old painter and illustrator. She’s exhibited both locally in London and internationally, in Italy, Germany and Manchester. Her work, mixing hyper-realism and abstraction, often depicts disfigured and restricted bodies sunk in a thick painted landscape. I met her outside the John Snow in Soho for a pint.

How was the toilet?

Piss off. Actually, appropriate word. Why the fuck do we pay for water? It just goes straight through you.

What inspires you?

Shall we wait for this environmental services truck to pass?

 A dustbin truck moves past the pavement edge where Tom and Fran are sitting.

Okay.

Well.

Generally I’m interesting in relationships and our relationships with each other. Obviously that gets much more complicated when you’re living in such a busy place, y’know?

No. What do you mean when you say relationships?

I mean the way I react with my external world, simple as. I had an early project, crudely called ‘The City’, I was reading Walter Benjamin and all that, but the idea of the city is still an important metaphor of me.

Do you work a lot in metaphors then?

Yeah definitely. I wouldn’t work in a completely representational way – I mean I do often use the human figure but that’s because it’s a form that I can identify with.

Is that identification important?

All I can say from my personal experiences of exhibiting is that I haven’t seen a single recent piece that has been ‘essentially’ conceptual. There’s always been a narrative or something which gives the audience the ability to see what the artist is doing without having to read a manual. Which is nice.

But your figures aren’t representational?

Well apart from the idea.

Is that idea frustration? It seems to be something you frequently work with.

When I left university I wanted a lot of things, but that all turned to shit really – a lot of people seem frustrated like that at the moment. I was also interested in frustrating the aesthetics of the piece to the point of distortion, and that got me looking at what makes something look distorted; ugly.

Why ugly?

It’s always a nicer challenge to make something that isn’t pretty.

Do you consider your work to be ugly?

Yes, it’s pretty ugly, but the image itself I find quite beautiful because of the detail created by the restriction.

What’s the process of getting that restriction?

Basically tying people up and getting them to break out of things.

Right.

Like with rope. Mainly on the face and hands.

Okay.

That’s where the most gesturing happens. Basically it started off as me imitating artists I admire, like Robert Longo who was active in the 80’s during the yuppie era. I did nick his style a bit but it’s mine now. (Laughs) History repeats itself anyways. We all forget things.

Fran drinks.

Is there a political element to your work?

I suppose the way you feel is based on a lifestyle created for you, which is politically created. Maybe if you lived on the top of a hill on Mars then you wouldn’t have that problem; you wouldn’t have inter…interwhatsitcalled?

Intercourse?

Yeah, that. None of that. Fran finishes her drink. I was watching a film and they were saying that women make up the majority of the population.

Your subjects are often women, or yourself.

People say they look androgynous. I really only use females because they’re normally the people I have at hand. I’d probably feel more on-edge getting a man to do it. Well, especially the type of man I’d be looking for…getting him to go crazy in front of the camera like that. At the moment it’s just androgynous me. I think it looks strong though. A bang is heard from across the road.
I’d like to just stand up and punch someone in the face. That would make me feel strong.

Why don’t you?

What?

Punch someone in the face.

Could do.

Are your paintings about people not being able to do that?

Yes, well, no. It’s the fine line; a specific place where someone has seen their restriction and is now at the point where they’re trying to break out of it. My hope is that they’re at a point of rebellion.

What are they rebelling against?

I don’t know, it’ll sound convoluted. I guess their limited channels of expression. Here, look, there’s a big environmental services truck coming.

The same dustbin truck from earlier slowly drives past.

How do you feel about trucks?

That wheel is as big as my body.

The sound of an engine is heard, low and guttural.

Words by Thomas McMullan.
Find out more about Fran and her work on her blog.

(via @MintMagazineUK)

even the bell, the namesake.

...

Another rumble is heard, it passes.

Greensides:                   I was supposed to see her tomorrow and give her the present then, maybe I should’ve waited until the morning.

                                                     

            Pause.

                                    I only give her things because she needs them. I hate seeing her upset.

                                   

            A distant explosion is heard.

            The dog whines and barks.

Greensides lights a cigarette and begins to smoke.

Silence.

Boyce:                         What was it like?

Greensides:                 What?

Boyce:                         Tonight, what was it like?

Greensides:                 Dark.

On the train I sat opposite a man with a dog...Collie I think. It had its black eyes on me the whole way, quiet and still as we sped past the estates near Bermondsey.

Charing Cross was packed to burst…a lot of people being moved by police back into the trains but the place was so busy and chaotic…

Outside there were horns, car horns of course but a brass band must’ve been there somewhere because I caught glimpses of men and women in red uniforms, all playing trumpets and trombones and tubas...God knows why they were there, but I followed them all down Whitehall to Parliament Square...and never in my life...the size of it all there, all those faces glowing in the light, all staring up at the clock-face and that music hanging in the air. People lined the statues, draped around Churchill and Mandela while the crowds pushed together on the grass. Blue lights flashed from the edges, a few faint sirens, but it felt like nothing, all of us anxiously watching the tower. My phone said five to ten.

A woman, must’ve been in her fifties, pressed up close to my side. I could feel the back of her hand against mine, her skin warm and I felt her move it up and down, just slightly but it was such a tender thing…so small in that place. 

                                    My lights gone out.

Boyce:                         Help yourself.

            Greensides helps himself to Boyce’s lighter, re-lighting his cigarette.

Greensides:                 It was a minute to ten; I could see people checking the time on their phones. I don’t know what we expected, nothing I guess.

Just a glowing circle up there with twelve numbers, no countdown, no movement, nothing. I could hear the woman next to me breathing, deep and low against my neck, her hand still pressed against my own…If I’m honest I felt myself get hard, just a little but hard nonetheless…all the blood down there tightening up like a knot….It was ten o’clock…and then, above our heads… the sound of it…The noise shot from the empty face…like thunder cracking amongst the sounds of its wound, split down the looming form; Big Ben’s open mouth choking on all that came from that hole.

            Greensides puts the cigarette out on the ashtray.

I tried to go back to the station, but it was too late then.

I didn’t see the woman again.                       

Boyce walks towards the floor and begins to pull up the boards with his hands.


Greensides moves to stop him.

...

"During the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high." - Kurt Vonnegut

The Minotaur

Yes, it’s true. Every detail, every fact. I’m a well travelled man with a well informed body, a sharpened mind. And, like you, I have a keen eye for beauty.

Who else can say it? Say that they have flown over the dark forests of Europe? That they have watched the volcanoes erupt on Java. That they have peered into the heart of Paris; into the spine of Toyko; into the womb of Buenos Aries? I have spied upon the giddy heights of the world from the cool metal enclosure of the cock-pit, leather on my glorious hide and countless dials at my command.

All these things I carry in my experienced eyes - An Atlas of the skies.

My suit, as you can see, is pressed and worn to perfection. My three-button navy-blue carried like the cloak of a king, closed over a white shirt and tie. A pair of black shoes shine under my straight, single front-pleat trousers, and my styled pilot cap rests on my head, casting a short black shadow. You know this to be true. You feel it in your heart and your blood quickens as you gaze upon my gallant form. Don’t be ashamed, it is not your fault - it could never be your fault. Beauty has no fault.

My scent is golden and my lips are jewels. Women have tasted them from London to Cairo, and so will you; lucky, lucky you.

It is true that I spend my time in the airport; that I walk along the concrete buildings and rest upon the plastic seats of the passenger lounge. Asterion in his labyrinth, you have passed me before and you will again. I lift my left leg and bring it to rest upon the surface of the right.

For two hours before a flight I sit in my pilot's chair, adjusting every sense to that environment; the cool glass of the flashing screens running under my gentle fingers and it is easy for me to become hard. As I press myself against the control-panel I think about what it is to be in that seat, the weight of the vessel and all the responsibility a man like me must take with him into the skies.

But then who could do it but me? You know this. You trust me already - that’s how trustworthy I am. I speak and you listen. We’re a well oiled machine, you and I. 

Maze

I know the route to the middle. It’s the simplest thing in the world. When I was small, before I was allowed go in. I would study it from my bedroom window. I would imagine it, all the paths and contours. In my head I would run, in a white silk dress and bare feet, between the hedges, straight to the centre.

Dad told me that when I turned five I would be old enough to go inside. That night before my birthday I lay wide awake. I thought my heart would beat itself out of my chest. I knew the path, but I was scared. In the dark of my room I looked out at the unmoving shape. I watched the centre and thought of it as an empty city, long abandoned from the war. It was a city only for me, for me to run through its streets and for me to lie in its shade.

Morning came and Dad led me to the entrance. He said he would wait for me, and if I was to become lost, to call out his name. The hedges towered over my head, but I remembered the path and walked right, left, right, left...

I made it. I felt my lips tighten around my teeth as I grinned at the leaf walls, motionless and tamed below the open blue sky.  From the centre I could see the house, my home; it's old stone walls reaching up like fat toes. My lips were slightly parted, my neck exposed. My hand was pressed against my skin and I could feel the contours of my ribs. I squeezed the flesh gently between my thumb and fore-finger like a soft-boiled egg. I have a soft boiled egg every morning for breakfast and I thought of it sat in my eggcup waiting for me to cut it open with a knife. It didn’t say a thing; of course it didn’t, it was an egg. It didn’t howl, it didn’t whimper. It silently let me eat it, just like the day before, and the day before that. But today, for some reason today, I listened, hoping it would protest as I tapped its skull.

Left, right, left, right…I made my way back and couldn’t stop smiling. I had made it all on my own, in silence, with no-one’s help. When I got out I could see Dad on the other side of the living-room window. He smiled and waved and I smiled back, frozen on the grass.