The Black Flag (band) logo recreated by pinning four black bin-liners to the wall. Ideally, those bin-liners will have been bought from a hardware store in Hermosa Beach, California (where the band originates from).
nostalgia
Sab-bed Bloody Sab-bed /
A full-scale marble rendering of the bed from the front cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ album cover.
Margate t-shirts /
A series of printed t-shirts that reference the key businesses of my Margate youth (most of which aren’t there anymore), in the way people covet vintage stores selling old American utility workers shirts etc:
Brandybucks, Martell Press, The Kent Hotel, Pisces, The Cottage, Franks, Thorleys, Club Caprice, The Golden Curry, The Ship Inn, The Nayland Rock, Baba Kebabs, The Badge Shop…
Googie Signs /
A series of Googie-style signs designed for places/businesses that don’t exist (but sound like they might). Possibly then rendered in Blender or other-such 3D software.
“Dinosaur World”
“Jimmy’s Dogs and Valet”
“World of Chicks”
“Bowsher’s Automotive”
Memory Tree /
An adolescent tree sapling planted as a communal public artwork, where local residents are invited to come and tie or chain items of sentimental value to it.
As the tree grows, the items will slowly become consumed by the expanding tree and become part of its fabric, forever. A living time-capsule.
Blackboards /
Fill a room/gallery with blackboards, so it looks a bit like an exhibition of Joseph Beuys blackboards from his lectures, but the diagrams on the blackboards are copies of blackboards from scenes in films, such as when Lieutenant Harris is writing on a blackboard in front of the new recruits in the first Police Academy movie.
Piano Squawk /
Get a pianist to write the score from a short video I have of my daughter, aged about 2-years old, randomly pressing keys on a piano in the corridor of a local arts centre and making squawking noises to listen to the echoes.
Then have that score performed by professional musicians.
Etched Zine /
A hand-printed, hand-made, publication based on the aesthetic of Louise Bourgeois’ ‘He Disappeared into Complete Silence’.
A series of short autobiographical stories, typed on a typewriter, on the left hand page, with an etching that illustrates that story on the right hand page.
Include stories such as when my uncle went boat-fishing and caught a 6ft shark, but when he got home my auntie wouldn’t let him in the house with it, so he went to the local park and dumped the dead shark in the kids paddling pool.
Or when my family went on a package holiday to Spain and on an evening excursion my Dad got drunk with a friend he’d made on holiday and then proceeded to break into the coach that had taken us there. In the process, they turned on the windscreen wipers and couldn’t turn them off again, so there was just our two families sat on the coach waiting for everyone else to arrive back at the end of the night, with my Dad and his friend creasing up laughing about the windscreen wipers.
Or the time I was out playing in the ashes of a large bonfire with my brother and some friends and I picked up a breeze block and threw it and it hit my brother in the back of the head, so he ran indoors and told my Mum and Dad I’d thrown a lump of wood at him, and I thought it best not to correct him that it was a breeze block.
Or the time a teacher at school pinned my friend to the wall by his throat and pulled his fist back to punch him, before catching himself on, because my friend belched in class.
Or the time I was on a last train back from Birmingham with my wife and singer called Bob Catley walked past and I said, “Didn;t you used to sing for Magnum?” and he replied, '“Still do!”, so he sat with us until Burton-on-Trent where he was being met by Girlschool’s manager. But then after Burton-on-Trent, he reappeared, as he’d expected the doors on the train to open automatically and they didn’t, so he missed his stop.
Or the time I went to L.A. with my friend and we got drunk at The Rainbow on The Sunset Strip and had to get a taxi all the way back across L.A. to our hotel, Downtown, and whilst I ran up to the room to get the money to pay the taxi, the cab driver pulled a gun on my friend.
Or the time Patrick Smith and Nicholas Smedley had a fight at break-time and Nicholas Smedley spat in Patrick Smith’s hair.
Knuckleball /
Learn how to throw a knuckleball, as referred to in baseball.
“A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown to minimise the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion.”
Battle Jacket Fiction /
A ‘battle jacket’ (cut-off denim jacket covered in band patches worn by heavy metal fans) covered in patches of fictional heavy metal bands.
Hiraeth /
A digital screen/monitor attached to a computer showing every tweet, in real time, that contains the word or hashtag ‘hiraeth’ in it.
Hiraeth is Welsh word meaning a deep longing for something, particularly one’s home.
Often described as an untranslatable word, as there is no direct translation in English, I’ve just translated it for you.
Walk on the Wild Side /
A performance, that becomes a video, of the drummer from a Mötley Crüe tribute act riding on The Scenic Railway at Margate’s ‘Dreamland’ funfair, with their drum-kit strapped onto the ride, playing along to Mötley Crüe’s song, ‘Wild Side’.
The original video for the song famously features Tommy Lee playing his drum-kit in a hydraulic, revolving, cage.
As a former resident of Margate, employee at Dreamland, and (then) aspiring rock star, this work also contains autobiographical meaning.
Burning Guitar /
An electric guitar, on a stand, plugged into an amplifier, feeding back, doused in a flammable liquid and set on fire.
This could be a performance that later becomes a video, sound work, and/or photograph.