Nice summary. Yes I expect Cummings to be found unconscious in some gutter somewhere around Fleet st, worse for wear.

There is talk about the border poll in Ireland and that it is a requirement of the Good Friday Agreement that the pole be held should public opinion in Northern Ireland demand it. This is under international law. Next Scotland, these are unstoppable forces and Johnson knows it, but he is prepared to throw the Union under the buss to get his term in No10 and save the Party*.


* I reiterate my view that there is a wider agenda than this. That it is imperative for the Tory party to do this on the back of Brexit to force the country to the right, while demonising Labour in order to secure Tory dominance for another generation. Because they have looked over the edge of the abyss of a turn to the left and socialism.

I wasn't trying to catch you out, that would fall into the category of artists and critics trying to defeat each other's arguments about the merits and meaning of the artwork.

I'm simply pointing out that you can't remove the artist from their work entirely, and that if the artist thinks that a statement of some kind is required to appreciate the work, then that is valid, a valid aspect of the work.

This is entirely different from the contortions of a conceptual artist trying to legitimise the work they have produced in an atmosphere of conceptually validated works. Or a sterile establishment comment by a critic.

It really is remarkable how rightwing voters, and people who just listen to the media, don't know what socialism is, or how it benefits them. It's just a dirty word for them.

It's even worse here in the UK, with the drip feed of rightwing ideology in the popular press. Most people, except university educated politics aware folk, equate socialism with Communism and would go for a privelidged rightwing populist loon every time. The fact that he will just make many of them poorer and poorer with less and less rights and greater social division, is just more socialist(communist) propaganda.

Sajid Javid, the chancellor of the exchequer, the second highest office in the government has resigned this morning. Having been given an ultimatum requiring him to dismiss his key advisers and accept some others appointed by No10.

Or in other words he refused to take direction from Johnson and Cummings. Interestingly he has been replaced by Rishi Sunak, who has had a meteoric rise recently, a talented hawk, who is married to the daughter of Indian billionaire Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy.

More evidence of the new administration consolidating power in order to push forward a hard right agenda. Or it is a sign of the paranoia of Johnson and Cummings, turning inwards and demanding to hold all the reigns from the centre.

I’m a very stable genius.

There's no such animal as a stable genius. A genius is the epitome of instability. Trump is either speaking alternative facts, or highly unstable. Although one can probably speak alternative facts while being highly unstable.

P.s. I like deepfake, I'll add that to my vocabulary.

He sees opposing opinions as so foreign that he simply refuses to believe people will disagree with him

So I should believe you. As an outsider, I can see where the populism has been employed.

but will refuse to abide by his own standards and says nothing about those who serve to confirm his biases.

You didn't answer my question about the integrity of the office of the President?

As I see it the artist's statement became mendacious with the advent of conceptual art. There was a point where artists were presenting poor artworks and then propped them up with a lengthy ambiguous concept which they used to justify and qualify the piece. I experienced such artists being cross examined by critics, who were attempting to defeat the attempt to qualify the piece. It left me with a bitter taste in the mouth and I disregarded the piece out of hand. I don't think I am alone in this.

If an artist’s statement is needed, it means that work of art is uncapable of fulfilling its purpose of communicating the intended idea, and consequently it is worthless.

I think this is to simplistic, some works of art are carried out, or conceived of by the artist which are not evident in the finished work. There is a case, especially if the artist wishes it to be so, for some kind of explanation.

This is a work I produced a while back, I won't give an artist's statement at this stage, but I might later on to qualify the work.

What as a viewer do you see (as a work of art)?

NOS4A2,

Prove or otherwise admit that you have imagined it all. Admit you’re speculating. Admit you’ve invented it. Admit that you have no proof. It is a part of trying to be objective.

NOS4A2 is just trolling. He/she waits for posters to comment on the issues and then hits back with spin from the Republican propaganda playbook. There is no engagement on issues outside of this propaganda bubble in which the two sides are portrayed as locking horns. When outsiders point these things out, there is no response.

The whole playbook is based on Machiavellian divide and rule principles. The office of the president is treated with contempt, in plain sight.

Beating Trump shouldn't be the goal, transforming US politics and aligning it more with what a majority of people want should be the goal

I agree with what the US needs, but the populists just promise these things while smearing the opposition to get into power. Once in power the promises don't matter any more. If the Democrats make the same promises, they have to have something equivalent to the smear so as to discredit their opposition. They have to defeat the slogans like "drain the swamp" and "make America great again". Because the voter thinks they are getting the promises fulfilled, as well as make America great again, and to have a strong leader.

Is it because he served McDonalds in the State dining room? Is this what you mean?

Is that all you've got to say?

He's a laughing stock around the world, I wonder why.

He's squirming ;)

I don't know enough about him. I think though that to beat Trump they need someone who can equal him on the media stage.

Buttigeig is young and looks the part. It worked for Tony Blair, who brought the left wing to power in the UK in a country strangled by right wing biased media.

All he needs to do is pick Trump apart with slick sarcasm. The media will love it.

NOS4A2 is discredited as an impartial commentator here. He/she has gone around the block a number of times now, simply trotting out the same tired responses. If there is difficulty in defending Trump, just pull out a divide and rule trope and then anything your opponent says is smeared as jealous partisan scheming. It's right out of the Trump, "how to get into power using populism to play the media" playbook.

The fact that it is diminishes the office of the President of the United States, or deflates the integrity of the country on the world stage is not mentioned, it's an inconvenient truth.

Your only defence is that the populism and egotistical property tycoon antics employed by the President to play the crowd are not contravening the law. And yet you imply that he is squeaky clean and respects his office. Where is your criticism of his disrespect of office?

Yes, I agree, people have their own taste in art like with music. Some connoisseurs and critics develop an educated overview of art, like music, which tries to asses the work objectively. Not always with much success.

Yes, financial services is going to be disastrous for the negotiations, when it comes to the fore. Yesterday Michael Gove gave a speech laying out the governments policy to abandon any efforts to maintain frictionless trade. They are starting plans to have customs checks on all imports into the country from the EU. I expect they had already abandoned any hopes that there wouldn't be customs checks for goods leaving UK bound for the EU. Just in time supply chains are going to be difficult to protect now and manufacturers who rely on such supply chains are going to be planning to move their factories to the EU now.

All this was vehemently denied by the Leave campaign (government), indeed up to a few weeks, or days, ago Johnson swore blind that we will secure frictionless trade.

More evidence of the dishonesty and duplicity of the PM and his government.

My other thought, as I mentioned, is the modern consciousness. Is it real? If so then does it need new ways of regarding itself?

I think that as our consciousness has speeded up with the increased use of IT etc, we have become exposed to and accustomed to aesthetic narratives and these have become part of the nature of our consciousness. I think that if one looks to examine these issues philosophically this phenomena should be understood, for what it is and the aesthetic narratives identified. A knowledge of previous aesthetics would also be appropriate.

I feel that people go on their own individual aesthetic journey, either like what I have just described, or not thinking about it, but being spoon fed by the electronic gadgets etc.

I think that for artists, there is a similar spectrum of consciousness, genres act as a good framework through which to develop ways to convey experiences, but this would probably require a social group of viewers, who are familiar with the narrative.

Edit: a person could sit on the beach and write down on paper every word that comes to mind over a 60 minute period then hang it in a gallery. Is that any less than a painting

Yes, I think that poetry, or writing could convey the beach experience, as it is something which can be evoked, reminding the viewer, or listener of when they personally had the experience.

I know what you mean about the beach on a perfect day, something very difficult to convey.
These are a couple of paintings I have done in contemplation of the sea on one of those days. (Lighting is difficult when photographing these paintings, they look so different with different lighting). The first is inside lighting and the second is outside lighting.




This painting by someone else has a quality I like

Oh right, yes I have practiced meditation a lot in the past. Up until I reached the point of not needing to meditate any longer because I felt I was doing so all the time already.

The problem we have though is mass cooperation, something which will be required to pull through the difficult time ahead. It does feel like we are going backwards at the moment.

I suggest you consider meditation, I say this because it can facilitate ones ability to capture in creative ways the experience of the experience of consciousness.

When it comes to cooperation, it can be done and has been many times in human history. But always decends into decadence and conflict eventually. Fingers crossed that we can survive the next few hundred years of turmoil.

So what seems to be happening in the forum is the reality of one consciousness conflicts with the reality of another consciousness.There is no getting over this impasse except for an individual to let go.

This is a result of the format of forums. Unfortunately they work on disagreement and argument. This is not necessary, provided contributors agree to agree on things and work constructively together.

Only an enlightened person could do this, and would an enlightened person be on the forum at all?

Yes, they might be, being enlightened does not change the need, or desire for debate. Also many cases of enlightenment as described in the religious accounts do not entail great intelligence or understanding, but rather an exhalted state. I have met gurus who are purported to be enlightened and they are no more intelligent than anyone else, though they do tend to be wise in some way.

Perhaps a human attempt at expression is a better way of putting it. The acknowledgement of human frailty accepts the limits of artifice.

I accept your comments on the futility of conveying experience in an profound, or adequate way. But it does not allow for a creativity in the appreciation of art. Or the power in formulaic art, such as in religious iconography, or artefacts.

For me there are works of art which have an experiential effect on me which is equally profound as any beautiful human experience. Some artefacts can become invested with such meaning that simply to think of them can induce an experience of joy, or profound understanding.

So perhaps what I am saying is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

This is an interesting subject. For me I often refer to photographs I find online for how to draw a horse for example, or a sunset. I don't think that making a painting based on a photograph infringes any copyright, because the copyright refers to the photo and a copy would have to be a facsimile of a photographic image. Not the subject captured in the photograph. So such a sunset can't be copyrighted, even if it can be established that the position of the clouds, or features in the foreground, which confirm that it was copied from a particular photograph. It is not a facsimile, but a painted expression of a scene in the mind of the artist.

I would think that this also applies to other mediums, that any copyright is primarily referring to a work in a specified medium.

I think the problem you identify regarding music copyright is often an injustice. I have heard examples which don't sound like the original, or only have a tenuous link. I see this as a problem with the legal profession.

This is the curse of the artist, most works fail to convey what was intended. They fall short in the execution and result. Also the experiences we wish to convey in an artistic medium are so full of experience and sensation that all attempts to convey it are doomed to failure.

However it's not all bad because often when the artist is dissatisfied, the viewer is not. Or the work inadvertently conveys something successfully but chance, or happenstance. Very occasionally the work does capture what was intended, which is a very rewarding experience for the artist. Or the artist discovers a successful technique.

The journey of the artist is an exploration, along the way the artist becomes a creative person, learning more artistic techniques, developing insight into nature and the ways things are observed and may learn rewarding creative processes, exploring and sharing these insights. Some artists break through a threshold, or ceiling of limitation and find creating successful pieces effortless, like Picasso for example.

That was intentional ;)

Noble Dust, Praxis and Brett, nice work.

This is a plein air I did about 5years ago, a slight nod to Van Gogh.

That's all nonsense, what has happened is some stagnation and austerity following the sub-prime mortgage crash, coming on top of the economic consequences of globalisation. People feeling the pain of the stagnation, are vulnerable to the false promises of opportunists and populists, to restore life to how it was before. It's happening all around the world, but the promises are hollow.

Its like the Brexiters over here. They are basically going Grrh ahh Grrh ahh sovereignty, Grrh ahh Grrh ahh reclaim our borders. Anyone who questions it is some sort of traitor to our great nation, or can't bare to loose, remoners.

It's happening everywhere, there is a great documentary on the BBC at the moment, where Ed Balls, a well respected politician, travels around Europe talking to populists. In every country the message is the same. The established party's have taken their eye off the ball and large parts of the population feel left behind. So a populist party comes along and promises to put right their grievances. To make their country great again. Millions of people then vote for them, not thinking about what is really going on. That an opportunist, or an extreme right, or left party is saying whatever is required to win their vote, simply to get into power. Once they get into power, the promises are discarded and they follow their own agenda. Usually they will throw some scraps of short term prosperity to the masses by cutting taxes, or protectionism. Or fuel nationalism by blaming someone over there for their troubles, or divide the nation against itself, to create chaos, or blind partisanship.

In every case it results in political and national division making the world a more unstable and dangerous place.

And when the shit hits the fan, whose fault is it? It's them over there, those corrupt politicians, or those people who don't love their country.

These populist leaders should show more respect for the people and their nations and rule with responsibility, integrity, seeking cohesion between groups, rather than division. Their irresponsibility could cause a fall of civilisation and mass suffering.

And what is really to blame, bankers playing Russian ruollete with sub prime mortgages. Maybe the populists should be putting the bankers in jail.

While at Trump's victory rally today he shouts,

I'm Spartacus

Interestingly as the COP26 climate change summit which will be held in Scotland in November is being arranged there is a stand off between the government and the SNP. Apparently the government is trying to exclude Nicola Sturgeon from the event. Johnson is terrified of appearing on stage with her, just as he was during the election campaign.

He is the best asset of the SNP, everything he does hastens indyref2.

Its satire, in the film, everyone who was on the same side as him stood up and claimed to be Spartacus in the expectation of certain death, to save him. Is this what the republicans senators are doing?

Somehow it doesn't have the same gravitas. How Ironic that Spartacus dies the same day that the senate falls from grace.

I'm Spartacus!

Only my cartoons have been surrealist in that way. For more serious art, I followed a course somewhere between abstract expressionism and abstract art. I never found myself wanting to try proper surrealism, because I see it as a technique which requires a lot of commitment and a certain disposition, in which surrealism comes naturally. For myself, I am quite surrealist in my character and humour, but when it comes to art, I am more interested in aesthetic and painting techniques.
Dali developed what he called the Paranoiac-critical method, which is a psychological language which informed his work and through which the viewer can interpret the imagery. So his work is like an exploration of his subconscious mind.

This is a cartoon I did during the Iraq war, it is of a Dream I imagined Tony Blair having in which everything goes wrong and he finds himself decending into hell. Blair is the green fellow, the guy with the cross is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, Bush and saddam Hussain are the other skeletons.

Now that the negotiations with the EU has started. Johnson and Gove are jibering about not having any alignment with the EU because we need unfettered freedom to stride the world. They have both just said that we don't need a trade deal with the EU, implying that they will just have to accept whatever we offer them.
Yesterday the government told some journalists from certain media establishments they were not allowed into Downing St because the officials inside are now going to decide which favoured journalists they let in. At this point all the journalists walked out and it's now a news story.

Also today it has emerged that Ryan Air is starting a recruitment drive and the applicatants must have full unrestricted right to live and work in any of the EU countries which they fly to. So does that exclude all UK nationals from applying?

Yes, I entirely agree, well said.

Shakespeare is full of stuff like this. He is the Quentin Tarrantino of his time. He writes great dialogue but the stories are garbage, even seemingly nonexistent at times

Your criticism of Sheakspeare's work is divorced from reality and it's focus on plot is naive. You should appreciate the context in which it was written and performed.

I realise now that my definition of modern art is more narrow than the academic definition. For me it was the 1950-60's, with abstract expressionism and conceptual art, I suppose this was the epicentre. With pop art emerging from it with Warhol. I agree with your experience, although I didn't get it in the way you mean, I don't think. For me it was an intellectual understanding, or realisation of what they were saying, but I didn't like it and saw it as largely pointless. I do accept that it needed saying and that they went about it in the right way in order to do that, but it wasn't for me. I was more interested in artists like Dali, Klee, Picasso, Kandinsky. I grew up with a print of Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus on my wall, my mum had bought when we went to Barcelona when I was I think 6 years old, I don't remember the Dali museum, but I remember the reverence for the work and contemplated the painting many times as I was growing up.

For me I saw the modern art movement through the prism of this painting and subsequently through Dali's other work.

There is a quality of transformation in the minds eye from one thing to another, or the appearance, or hallucination of something else, things not being as they seem, or seeming to be something else. An interesting take on the world of art.

You implied it. Have you purchased some art?

(To save time)
If you have purchased art, then you have done this, " I will decide what art is".