Gottwood Logo

Gottwood Electronid Festival. The facebook group is up and running so check it oot. We got there in the end. A simple logo with some groovy photo and hand drawn typefaces for the artists.....oh and an owl....obviously...i seriously dont know where this owl obsession has come from......

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=340397008898&ref=ts

Dominic Nottingham - Charm in Chaos

I think there's so much charm in the chaos of youth. It may not be clean or correct but our antics, however we wish to pursue them, create adventure within us. Adventure is something I fear people are losing. These photos seem to capture the essence of what it means to be free and I guess oppose my previous notion on neoslavery. A nice weight to even out my mental see saw. But essentially. Without the chit chat. These photos are beautiful.

Ingredients to Here

Memoires of a Pomtavia. ocki magill. 28.02.10

Neoslavery

A new piece, off the cuff, for Some Think Blue magazine. A piece on neoslavery. What I understand of neoslavery is that essentially if you are bound by materialism or "things" then you are a neo-slave. A new slave. Our lives are comparatively free compared to our ancestors yet sometimes we, like them, are trapped by our own being. Ooh its a bit heavy to be honest. But anyway here is my little neoslave.

http://somethinkblue.com/

The Meaning of Life

Me and my flatmate have been sporadically discussing the meaning of life and this morning, whilst struggling to paint my nails at all well, it came to me. Its Love, right? I mean come on, seriously, you dont need to be a balding grey haired academic with a colourful waistcoat to work it out......Its the reason and being of everything....the reason why we sing, why we wear mascara, why we ice a cake and why we feel guilt.

The only reason we do things or atleast the only reason I do things is for this totally intangeable ominous thing. Whatever I do, wherever I go I always feel like I'm on my way to it. Maybe, in fact, the life that I live in loves shadow is making me the doormat upon which he dusts off his feet.

I recently lost a friend. I wanted her to fight for our little love....our friend love....but she didnt.

I recently lost a friend. I wanted her to make a surprise picnic and play me all our favorite "us" music....but she didn't.

I recently lost a friend....I lost a friend cos she let me and my little love thing down.....and it sucks bum to be honest!

I love too hard and I think I might be suffocating it.

Illustrative photographs by Kerensa Purvis http://kerensapurvis.blogspot.com/

Gottwood_Festival Branding

Gottwood Festival is being set up by Tom Elkington and Tom Carpenter. I'm in charge of the branding and thus far we've had multiple ideas about the direction of the logo and the collateral graphics but I think these images show a more refined theme gwarn on.....do we need the owl and the camper?

Clich here for more info and tickets http://www.gottwood.co.uk/

Holy Crap _ Scrabble on Facebook

Yes yes oh yey. After trapesing the net for other mad scrabble fans such as myslef I found nothing. Nowhere where I could share my passion for words and word games specifically so holy crap my heart hit the ceilign when my partner is crime Ally Magill ( sibling less old) invited me to The Scrabble Ball....Ill be wearing double word shoes, a blank dress and a constanant fascinator.....sorry it was called The Scrab-Ball.....

You're invited. Word love shared.

http://apps.facebook.com/livescrabble

( Illustration : something I did for Callum and Josh at the Free Studio)

Soundcloud_Facing the Fear

Dear Stage Fright, Bog off! I'm taking a ticket to freedom valley. Transportation? a sound cloud...apparantly. I may not have the voice of an angel or one that haunts the hearts of the vulnerable but in this case I can learn how to let go of one thing that holds me back.

I sing everyday alone.

Last night I embraced a longneck of cider and my newly strung guitar (which i play irrevocably badly) and off I went up on my cloud.

So here it is people. Four walls no more.

http://soundcloud.com/ocki/tiger-mountain-peasant

Insight Magazine_Performance

My piece on performance for Insight Magazine, Oxford.

Un_CAN_ny?

When I was at school I remember being informed that more Americans die from vendingmachines falling on them than those killed by sharks. Upon researching this seemingly ridonculous statement it appears that basically in a twelve month period in america (obviously) two vending machines tipped over and killed two people whilst in the same time period noone was killed by sharks. So for anyone who does have a vending machine fear.....fear not!

Anyway because of this bollocky-bill story I now have a mild aversion to drinks machines. Everytime I go type in D42 or F39 I watch as the claw hesitates and I panic in a moment. "Oh fuck its doing to D45..... if I get blooming cherry cola it'll break my frickin heart". Its so funny that im now referencing this emotion cos it really is a strong one.......my heart almost misses a beat at the thought of not seeing my sprite can or my coke can clunk to the bottom of the retrieval drawer.

Anyway this is dedicated to The Drinks Machine. For killing people, causing heart palpitations and definitevely quenching thirst with aspertame. ( and I love the way the choocie ones swirl to deliver a Twirl....or a Kitkat etc......the image works better with a Twirl)

Today I'm Dressing Up

Its fallen upon me to once again make myself look as foolish as possible in light of attending a dress up festival. I love to dress up. I love everything about it. The newness and foreign feel of the viscose materials on your skin, the colours you get in photos and the new persona you seem to carry along with your cape wig or mask. Dressing up, I feel, is seen as play, as a jovial game that accompanies, more often than not, the art of self intoxication and general tom-foolery, but for me it feels like luxury, like a treat..... it's like shopping on Diagon Alley...its not quite real.

Kate Bush and Natash Khan both look to costumes and fancy dress as a way of reliving their childhood and keeping in touch with their nostalgia. They use dress up to illustrate different people within their own personalities. Their sudonyms Babooshka (Kate) and Pearl (Natasha) represent themselves in a new light and I guess for me its the same.

So, at lunch, I'm off to "Snog the Frog" to find me a costume and a sudonym.

NATASHA KHAN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXS5DrJGvYo

KATE BUSH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syDT1MHmvOI

photographs by Pamela Klaffke http://www.etsy.com/shop/pamelaklaffke

The Fridge Sledge - Courtesy Of Beuys

So here is the idea I mentioned yesterday....it's almost like the instruction for a fridge stored within Beuys famous sledges. Now I ask myself should I combine the two images....... and is the bright pink too cliparty.....I ponder....

Butterly Beuys

This is the first crack at a piece for an Oxford based magazine and the word i'm working to is PERFORMANCE. So, my plan is to take Joseph Beuys' conceptual and static pieces and add movement or a certain performance to them through illustrating them. Also along with my inability to use non pastelly colours I guess the performance itslef might also just be me changing it, changing these infamous pieces into something theyre not ie. into unimpressive unmoving illustrations......hmm...gonna keep thinking and playing...my next move was to maybe take one of his famous sledges and punch a circular hole in it with a fridge in the removed cylinder.......ooh not sure...anyway deadline is the 6th of march so I've got a week.

"Lets Do Real Stuff"

So basically, I, like many, am easily installed like any computer programme on my laptop. Sit, type, link, new tab, watch, laugh, click etc. Guilt and consciousness are only ever realised as soon as get my eyes are removed from the hot screen. And now with a bunch of the gee stuff (thats guilt) I've decided formally to uncomplicate and just do more, i vow to do more away from anything that has a web address.

Last night I went to an outdoor cinema in Centennial Park, Sydney, and I became aware that life has gotta be about doing. right? I made a pact to never say no to an opportunity upon watching 'Yes Man' in May 2009 but along with that I've made a new pact to get up and do stuff every evening. Even if its to make a paper airoplane to have a throwing competition.

Whether its a casual game of scrabble, buildin a den or going on an outing I think we've gotta do more and if we all do more then maybe we'll conterract the new gravity we've developed-a monitor based gravity-and reach out to things with tactile qualitys.

I am painfully aware of my youth and even more aware of the thought of wasting it.

IDEAS FOR DOING:

1. Bake a cake -decoration is the most sublime form of happiness

2. Go somewhere new- take a camera and a friend and just go find a new place (I found Narnia yesterday- coming soon...)

3. Write a poem - Pick two random objects and write a poem about them

4. Buy a throw away camera- The spontaniety and beauty in the process. Throwaways will proceed that of a digital forever. plan not. snap a feeling (and when you get them deeveloped get them 4x6 with white borders plus a disc)

5. Speak to someone you wouldnt normally- In a taxi, on a street, in a bookshop. I find if you invite conversation or innitiate one you'll take something away from it.....I reckon every person you meet has the ability to teach you something.

6. Have a Garage Sale Car Boot sale - Noones ever got enough money anymore and we all have way to much "stuff" so stop saying you'll put it on ebay or take it to a charity shop geta few friends make some tea and cakes and invite people to pay for your hand me downs. (102 Pitt Street Sale coming soon ft artwork, pizza, kissing booth, clothes, and shoes)

7. Scrabble - a nessecity for the 2010 do-er!

Valentines Day

For anyone fearing it, don't. I say embrace it i mean it may feel like this day is all a set up to haunt you and your fundamentally sad love life but i figure if you embrace the notion of love and not just its absence in your life upon that day then i guess it makes the day all that much more wonderful. This was my notion this morning as I arose to the whizzing of my fairly ineffective fan. So off i went to purchase eggs, flour, sugar and all the nessecary items along with red food colouring and sweets of the the "rouge couleure".

A disaster! my fairy cakes turned into cavernous biscuits....they formed a shape like that of an egg box, a mountainous sheet of sugarry snappery.

My to-be-victoria sponge was a flop- in every which way and on rising decided it was far too impatient so just belted out and covered the contents of our oven, I reitterate, covered!

Now normally I'd see this as a metaphor but instead me and Cat, my hilarious and wonderful new friend and flatmate, have planned round two already and with this we, together, will conquer Valentines Day as an investment in love. The fact that Cat informally asked me to marry her so we can share each others passports in neither here nor there. The love cake will be appearing soon........

Love Valentines Day dont hate the love, love the love whether its found you or not.

Snail Mail

Rarely upon rarely do we go to the unbelievable effort of use the now foreign pen and paper to communicate. Post-its are as tactile as it comes for us tyoing robots. We hammer out words and phrases willy nilly all day......all day with little thought...well maybe not little thought but with ease anyway. I mean, an email or a posting is easy at the best of times. Keeping skype dates is the next level of commitment and the holy grail of perfect communication is the letter and its darling cousin the parcel. Upon a Thursday this week i received my second parcel since moving out here and the joy that lead me to physically skip up Pitt St is like no other.

The weight, the layered stickers, stamps and slightly smudged handwriting. " Ooh" she thinks, "Which end to open, which end". Upon opening such a gift the pieces roll out and paper unfolds. My darling sister Ally has sent me heaven in a vessel.

1. A poem called "PIGS" about flying cows and faeces

2. Black leggings

3. Butterfly earing studs-beautiful

4. A beautiful headscarf ( from a real vintage shop, as she highlighted profusely)

5. Marmite- to compete witht the Vegemite fans here...the only reaction I've got thus far has been "mmmmm yeasty"

6. Mini eggs- which me and my roomate inhaled upon an instant.

So in return I've sent her the most bursting bundle of joy and will send it tomorrow out onto the sea by seamail.

So this is me supporting snail mail and saying " I know its a hassle, all the bits are so tricky to sort out (envelopes, stamps etc ) but if you make the effort its a symbiotic brilliance and almost now an art form. You can enclose music images textures and thoughts and you dont have to cut and paste any links from youtube. So please indulge in Parcel Constuction and support Snail Mail.

White Block Beauty

Fffound.com never fails to provide brilliance. Simplicity being at the heart of it. I think when things are made in real life, away from the screen, real beauty is captured more readily. This may only be because i look it and say "Shit they actually made that" and whilst questioning my devotion to my work in relation to my free time i tend to ask myself, "Am I letting myself down by not pushing myself enough to go the extra distance, for designs sake". If the FreeStudio can do it, then why can't I? So this week my project is to make 3d things. Real things for real eyes. Project starts now.

Radiator and a Slug......

Threadless.com

http://www.threadless.com/ "a friday play, designs pending"

Laura and Marcus | Folk Love

I think, of all the loves that one can have, folk love would be the best. You'd wear flowers in your hair all the time, sandals on your feet (depite the rain) and life would be a banjo. You could be into cravates but also the flights of doves and you'd talk in lyrics and couplets. Maybe folk love would be like the BFG'S cave, you could keep all the moments in jars, coloured jars upon your window sill, next to the flower pots you'd been collecting. Yep, I think folk love is where its at.

Daniel Johnston | The Metro, Sydney

I'd discovered him somewhere back in early 2009. I was on the train and "Happy Time" came on from the film Kids and I remember just being enchanted by the sense of naivity on top of his agonisingly heartfelt and accomplished lyrics. He sounded crazy, he was crazy he is crazy. But crazy is beautiful.

After going on and on about my latest discovery one night, my dear friend Cecilia told me about a DVD, about his artwork, about his insanity and about his tapes. I watched it on Sunday and my allegiance was confirmed. His recurring themes, his manic mind, his pure heart. I had to see him...properly

So off I popped down to the Metro in Sydney, a common haunch for music lovers and general trendy folk all round. The levels of asymmetry in hairstyles blew me away as ever. I'm just a sheep after all. Next? A black out. Everyone out. "Onto the streets with you you raggamuffins". So in the rain we waited, ps I had faith a burning. always.

We piled in, chose our positions. Me behind the tall scary dude with long flicky locksome hair and Mitch next to the slow clapper (bastard man). He came on and silence hit the floor. The rumble tumble man that was dressed in a cowboy hat and an australia t shirt stood infront of some trippy projection and the night was born. Coloured lanterns hung above his head and I was totally there, hanging on every word. His mismatched chords and hokey pokey rythms tumbled in sarcasm and self loathing.

When you believe every lyric and you know every feeling they sing so darkly of, you cant help but fall ever so partmentally in love, right? I mean I am permantently leaning down to my new bike and saying, as I tap it softly on its crisp metal hubcaps "Speeding motorcycle, won't you change me? In a world of funny changes"

Devil and Daniel Johnston Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qtFPOxDMs4

True Love Will Find You in the End : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ucN4DActxA

Somethink for SomeThinkBlue Magazine : UNCONSCIOUS

Today I made a clown, an unconscious thinking clown.