Pornography and tram track

Twin symbols of modernity exist in a joyful union here. Mass transport alongside reproductibility. Not only that, but the tram tracks and gravel are also mass produced and/or quarried, as is the kerb and paving. Added to this is the frisson of a discarded pornographic magazine, the epitome of pre-information age modernity. Photography, sex and paper all combined in a cheap and disposable melange of repetitious onanism.

Plastic finger and grit

As the memories of snow and ice melt away, parallel to the actual physical change of state of these watery materials, items are deposited in unlikely locations, and one is unable to ascertain how long before they had been cast aside. This finger is a perfect example of this. A pseudo-human digit, cast in plastic, used, one would assume, for entertainment (its effectiveness as a prosthetic is fundamentally flawed, due to not only its lack of verisimilitude, but also the underlying inflexibility that would exclude use as anything but an index finger). And here, I believe lies the truth behind this composition. An accusing finger pointing deep into one’s soul, questioning. Asking why the viewer picks it out, yet ignores the grit, the purely functional companion which lies beside this afunctional piece of plastic. Why decoration, not labour? Why pleasure, not work? Well, why?

Dustcover

This image was rather longer in the making than I had envisaged. I first saw this dustcover laying inert as I exited a metro station. However, I was running late an had no opportunity to stop and examine it in any greater detail. As I passed by again on my return journey, I noticed that it was part of a larger set of literary work that had been discarded in a plastic bag and now lay in the urine-stained shade of the escalator. But once again, I was running late, so no chance to engage with the dustcover. One week passed. I returned. The dustcover was still there. This time, it was propped up beneath the window to a building society. I had little time, so I made a perfunctory examination and continued on, hoping that it would still be in situ upon my return. What luck, it was, although it had shifted to the position below, it was still there, and offered me far more than I could’ve dared to imagine. An album of black and white photos of England. Anglie had been angular earlier (excuse the dreadful pun). Yet now it was spread out beneath me, as alien in this residential borough as I feel in this country as a rule, and in this life as a whole. Unexpected, out of time. Beautiful.