Silo

So the year that was January has come and gone then, and whilst the US moved one goosestep closer to what Orwell portended as a vision of the future, here on planet Mercury, we were making a fresh start. Laying down roots. Buying the farm or at least a two up two down.

Folly perhaps, given a time when one should seriously be considering migrating to a cave on Easter island. 

Still, this is me, knuckling down in the new studio space, which I've taken to nicknaming the "Silo", since it's comprised of a couple of old shipping containers, just a stones throw away from where I sleep.

The mornings are bone cold, and I daresay come the summer months, I shall feel like a boiled frog, so whilst there's future plans to refurbish, in it's raw state, it's fitting domain for a series set in Hell.

Bon Vayage.

Aldous Huxley

“…most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Another painted sketch, flexing the painted portrait muscles, while I busy myself for the next series. In this picture,Huxley reminds me of a cross between Jarvis Cocker and myself in my early 20’s .  I think that’s around the time I first read Brave New World. Then of course, it was still a work of fiction, or at least a cautionary tale. Like Orwell’s 1984, I suppose its become a sort of manifesto for the contemporary morass we live in. The Deltas intellectual malaise that is now the modern idocracy. The cultist anathema of the solidarity circle, now the evangelical right wing and the indignant Trump supporter.  Somas sleepwalkers….well, name your poison.

Dark days indeed.

The book had enough of a seminal impact on me to title one of my pieces after it, back in 2014 for my series Purgatorium. I’ll be making an announcement about its follow up series in the new year.

The blind patriot will eat himself

“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”
― George Orwell, 1984

9″x 14″-ink on paper

I say this with full knowledge that I could pull a fistful from a grab bag of ominous portent since Inauguration day, but one of the most distressing things in the wake of Trumpocalypse is the continued willingness of his supporters to be completely blinkered by their cultish loyalty. Even in the face, it seems, in what are glaring, verifiable truths.

I’ve seen this on the other side also-and I get it, there’s comfort to be had in the consensus of delusion that no matter how much your party lies, it will never tell porkies as big as the opposition.

Except to say that within the space of a few days when both his strategist and press secretary have owned up to deploying a mind-boggling multiverse of ‘alternative truths’, even when challenged on the veracity of crowd size and voting fraud,  one need not pole jump to reach for the dark specter of Orwellian doublethink or 2+2=5.

Indeed, I read today that the book that was meant to be a parable of dystopian fiction, is currently a best seller. Old George would be stoked were it not the reason for the season.

I mean fuck me, dip into any page and you could pull out a passage that could be a manifesto to the times we live in. I found at least a dozen in the first few minutes of prefacing this page.

Which is why I knocked together this little drawing ‘The blind patriot will eat himself’, portraying as it does the self-cannibalism and mental gymnastics that the nationalist will go to in service of the body national.

My continued plunder through old Adam Curtis documentaries particularly feels like watching a play by play.

To which end, I recommend his series “The Living Dead” on Youtube. Watch it before the web goes dark.

I wish I felt like I was kidding.

We live in scary times indeed.

Who watches the watchmen

It's the 25th Anniversary of Chernobyl today, so one could be forgiven for thinking that this study was painted as a response to that.

In actuality, it was more generally about paranoia, the notion that depending on one's belief, something all knowing, omnipotent and powerful sits forever on the periphery watching our every move. It could be God, Big Brother or Extraterrestrial depending on your preference.

As a nice aside, My wife thought it looked like the cover of an old pulp novel, so I threw together a quick comp, just for fun in Photoshop.

George Orwell

'Orwell'
Oil on Canvas
11" x 14"

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

George Orwell

So, George Orwell-soothsaying, scribe of totalitarianism, a harbinger of future assimilation-that eternal jackboot on the throat of the proletariat.

'Orwellian', has now become a vernacular as common as lobbing the stink bomb of Nazism, on any legislation or party one refutes (or should that be 'refudiates?')

It's all come to pass in one form or another of course- Doublethink, Newspeak,historical revisionism, peace through endless war with an unseen assailant-was he merely anticipating an endpoint, or did he unwittingly become the architect of a Bible for demagogues and tyrants to cherry pick from?

It doesn't matter, we'll never see his like again, the 'powers that be' would never allow it.

And Another Thing....Faux news

One of the most profound and disturbing things for me upon arriving here in the US for the first time, was observing the way in which prime time network news is relayed here. Tuning in to see what was going on in the world, revealed itself to be a veritable minefield of wry sarcastic opinion often served with a side order of the histrionic, presumptuous, deceptive, self righteous and fallible-depending on which side the network was batting for. Be it O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Comlbs or Olbermann-trying to swim through the sewage of muck-raking verbage, and soap box finger wagging, merely to make sense of it all,and discover some actual world news of the day,was akin to having my head encased in concrete.

Except it wasn't news relayed as factual, dry reportage, as it is in the UK-it was shouted with a shook fist, filtered through some scary party rally cry, where the fires are stoked for the viewers to eye each other suspiciously, and seeth and bait for blood through gritted teeth, and all the underlying fears of Mcarthyism are spewed through your cable, 24-7.

Is it any wonder then that in this twenty first century, that there are factions of such frightening extremes.

Now of course as a result of an erroneous comment that Glenn Beck made about Obama being a racist and hating all white people- his show is hemorrhaging advertisers. That's some splendid news for once-with a little further coercion, hopefully he will dig a hole big enough hole for himself to fall into.

Perhaps Beck and O'Reilly and their ilk, believe they are like Peter Finch in the excellent Sydney Lumet movie from 1976-Network-'Not going to stand for it, and Mad as hell'
Whilst I'm not adverse to the social order being shaken up a little from time to time-révolution-the context of that movie was unifying, not spitting bigotry, hellfire and damnation vitriol five nights a week.

At the end of the day, the doctrine of democratic free speech for all is one which I embrace , but if news is subjective, driven by agenda, opinion, and an allegiance politically or otherwise, then what you are left with is nothing less than a tenet of Orwells thought police.