A fresh perspective

I am a fan of art, in particular the Impressionists like Monet, Manet, Pissarro and Sisley; however I have never written about art or done an art review.

One of the highlights of my travels was a recent trip to the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. My girlfriend and I like to visit the independent galleries as well and on one such trip recently I was privileged to view an exhibition by Paul Selwood entitled ‘Perspective Cut-outs’, a series of wall mounted sculptures.

I have included a pictorial link that showcases the exhibition: http://www.wattersgallery.com/artists/Selwood/tinsheds09.html

Perspective Cut-outs – Paul Selwood
Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney

It's amazing how easily the eye can be tricked into seeing things that are not there; how easily the mind can be entertained by manipulating dimensions.

MC Escher pieces always fascinated me; the way he bent the laws of dimension, the eyes and mind fooled into seeing something that does not, or cannot, exist.

In Selwood’s work, the viewer is offered wondrous perspective – shapes that seem to bulge outwards from the wall, hovering above the polished concrete floor – seemingly three dimensional pieces that, as it happens, are nothing more than two dimensional.

Upon first viewing it seems you are seeing a solid, wooden, carved sculpture; a piece with substance and form. As you move in a 180 degree arc, around the objects, the laws of perspective are reversed; instead of a side view offering more detail, it offers less. This is a curious experience as the brain is tricked. You know you are seeing something as it is, yet it seems manipulated. And the wood is not wood, it is graded and worked steel, shaded with rust and human effort to create the illusion of depth and perspective.

Also the pieces are large. You feel as if you could walk up and climb on the structure, or if tired, recline on one of the horizontal arms. When it becomes apparent that the structure is in 2D, 5mm thick, and mounted on a whitewashed wall, it is hard to fathom.

‘Perspective Cut-outs’ is a triumph. Selwood has achieved evoking instant emotion from the viewer; awe, wonder, gratification and disappointment. Although simplistic in form, the pieces are complicated in effect; fooling the brain into seeing something that does not exist.

This is art to be experienced, not just viewed; changing the way I view perspective forever.

Time after time

Throughout human history there have been sacred items that civilizations have sought, treasures they have craved. Wars have been fought over these items, countries ravaged, people slain; all in the pursuit of mystical items such as The Ten Commandments, the Holy Grail, and the Book of the Dead.

People have also sought that which should not exist, the stuff of legend, living only in myth; Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Santa Claus, the woman who likes test cricket, an Australian not fond of vegemite.

I have been on my own quest, searching for something without a face, the composition I am not entirely certain of, but which all people know exists and influences the lives of every person on Earth.

I am in search of ‘Time’.

All my life I have heard of this mysterious enigma but never known what or who it was referring to. After some preliminary research I have ascertained the following:

Time is something that a number of us do not have enough of. Often I have heard “I’d love to, but I’m out of time” or “Not enough time today” and wondered how do you get more? Will I wake up with a fresh batch tomorrow morning? Is it something the cat may bring in and toss at my feet?

Time must be a tangible substance, probably similar to ink or glue. Hence why you hear that Joe Bloggs has “Too much time on his hands”. Poor guy. That stuff is hard to get out.

You may be able to create more time in your own backyard – if only you could build your own ‘Time machine’.

Time is also something that is easily misplaced. ‘Can’t find the time’, ‘where did the time go?’ Slippery little character this ‘Time’. Evasive.

Maybe Time has fled the country, gone on holiday – this must be what people mean when they refer to ‘Time travel’. He probably got there on his own steam as “Time flies”; seemingly even more so when you’re having fun.

When you arrive at your friends house, huffing and puffing, gasping for every last breath, very late and are greeted with “It’s about time”, does that mean you have someone or something to blame for your tardiness? Bravo.

There is a link between Time and human existence though. A planet must have a human population, not just plant life, insects and dinosaurs; otherwise it is referred to as “the land that time forgot”. Did he forget to put humans on there? Bit of an oversight. Oops.

It seems that Time is a worthy adversary, one which can both assist us and threaten our very existence. You need to be quick to get a piece of Time’s action. There is no room for error; you cannot miss your opportunity…especially if you are male as we all know that “Time waits for no man.”

If that is the case I think I’ll get my sister or girlfriend to continue the search as I ponder just what “A stitch in time saves nine” refers to? Beats me. One for Google or Wikipedia I think.

Rare, medium or well-done?

I could feel the clammy mixture of sweat and sunscreen on my pale, exposed limbs as I trudged the 475km from our parking space to the maritime wonderland of Balmoral Beach. Unseasonably warm temperatures had set the alarm bells off in our heads, instructing me, and thousands of others, to drop our Sunday chores, adorn ourselves in beach wear, and converge on the beach like homing pigeons returning to their nesting place.

My limbs had not seen direct sun for a while; I was therefore blessed with a public sector tan, my legs glowing like freshly painted pickets on a Truman show fence. I was not alone. There were a vast sea of pasty bodies littering the sands, the first heat of spring had surprised us all, and many of us were unprepared for its fiery wrath.

Once a position had been staked on the sands, cream has been applied, the business of doing very little commenced. Some do this with a book, others a casual chat, some with booze; some just lay there and contemplate nothing. The end result is the same; row after row of exposed flesh, sizzling away in the spring sun. If Aliens arrived at this location, they would see a human barbeque laid out in front of them; choices for all tastes.

* Tourists fresh off the boat or public sector workers – RARE;

* More regular devotees of the sun, or those blessed with an olive complexion – MEDIUM; or

* The old timers, those who view the sun as their best mate, constant companion, ones with skin that resembles a leather hide or the covering from an American Indian drum – WELL DONE.

With a salad of fresh trees and shrubbery, these alien beings would find few dining establishments better suiting their needs than an Aussie beach.

The scene resembled a summer’s day at the beach; the sun was belting down, the breeze was warm, people were scantily clad; but this was a mirage. Upon shedding all clothing bar my rarely used board shorts I ventured to the water’s edge. This is normally a slightly upsetting experience; there are parts of the anatomy that do not take cold water too well, so I was on high alert. What greeted me was a bolt of electricity, like a taser had been propelled into my legs. Instant numbness is a strange phenomenon; the limbs fail to move, walking becomes impossible. I felt like the T-1000 in Terminator 2 when big Arnie poured the liquid nitrogen over the refinery floor. Except I could not snap limbs and keep walking, that is the stuff of Hollywood escapism.

So, numbed from the waist down I decided that although it looked like summer, this spring beach dish is best served dry and I made a beeline for the sand. A painful lesson had been learned.

Aside from the arctic water, the trip to the beach was an enjoyable one, something to be replicated in the coming months. Due to the military precision of my girlfriend’s sunscreen application, we remained protected - pasty and unburned. In the modern world of sunsmart practices, designer beachwear, and SPF 1900+ bridge paint sunscreen, the process of gaining a tan is very difficult.

But we’ll all live longer right; at least until the next cancer link is made and we can’t breathe air, or sleep anymore. Maybe caution should be thrown to the wind and a good roasting of the limbs is required after all. I’m off to set the dial to medium-well done and we’ll see if any of these aliens want to dine on me for their main course.

A not-so-good catch

What is the fascination with being able to catch? We spend large amounts of our lives feverishly trying to catch something. So much time, energy, concentration, and resource is dedicated to the pursuit of ‘catching’. 

Early morning we run down the street, slice of toast between our lips, shoelaces half tied, trying to ‘catch the bus’. 

People down on their luck, out of work, out of relationships, broken and downhearted pray to ‘catch a break’. 

If you are seemingly attractive, successful, wealthy, healthy, generally desirable, you are viewed by society as a ‘good catch’. 

If you are absent from work or school and there is work that needs to be done, your boss or teacher will invariably remind you that there is ‘a lot of catching up to do’. 

If you are able to drag yourself out of your warm bed on a cold winters morning, braving the chilly air, people will tell you this is a positive thing as the ‘early bird catches the worm’. 

I have never been a fan of catching. When I was a small boy I was unable to catch; catching was a skill I had to be taught. Catching does not come easily to a lot of us, it is something we have to strive for, something to relish when attained. Well, not all catching. 

I have been very successful these past few days in the catching realm. I have achieved something that many of my fellow Sydneysiders have been unable to this flu season. I have caught a cold. Why anyone would want to catch a cold is beyond me. 

Surely it is a case of the Cold catching us. I see the Cold as a dark, spectre like being, akin to the grim reaper. This wraith follows us all, waiting for an opportune time to strike. 

It is not like any sane person would trail Cold around town, down darkened alleys, in and out of hospitals, doctor’s surgeries, schools and shopping malls. We have better things to do with our time than track a Cold, the prize of catching him being spending a rotten week in bed, doped to the eyeballs, full of mucus, watching daytime television. In short, Cold is someone you don’t want to catch.

Now that I have learned to catch and have proven I can catch something as revered as a Cold, I am turning my attention to another important pursuit, cutting. I have so much work ahead of me; venture to a university to ‘cut class’, head to the supermarket to ‘cut in line’, annoy my boss so she tells me to ‘cut it out’; there is a lot to this cutting escapade. 

In fact I think it is time to cut this piece short.

My phone's ringing...or is it?

Wonderful things occur while we sleep. Our body regenerates and our mind rests, ready for whatever the new dawn will bring. Occasionally, the night will bring strange injuries, aches and pains with no apparent origin. This morning I awoke, uninjured, to find that my mobile phone had performed an incomprehensible advancement while I slept.

While on the train to work I generally leave my mobile phone in my bag, set on silent mode so my morning commute is free from any early morning hassle or employer related work ‘disaster’. Today, my phone, seemingly happy in its leather cave, was primed to perform its new amazing feat.

Without warning, a tingling sensation similar to when my phone rings began in my right pocket. This struck me as odd as I normally carry my mobile in my left pocket. I curiously reached into my right pocket to pluck my phone only to find my wallet and thin air. This puzzled me as I was fairly sure that my wallet was not equipped to vibrate as it had no moving parts or vibrate function. This posed a number of puzzling and confronting questions:

Had my phone pulled a ‘swifty’ on me or was I perhaps going slightly mad?

Was my phone really a Transformer, capable of morphing into a wallet? No.

Was my phone capable of vibration ventriloquism? No.

Was my phone hiding in my wallet? Unless it was the size and thickness of a credit card, then again, no.

Once that was established and I had regained my composure I then wondered what would cause my leg to vibrate as if a phone was pressed up against my flesh. I had heard of ‘phantom phone rings’, where our brains are so trained to the ringtone or vibration of our phones that we falsely hear or feel them, so I decided to investigate.

Wikipedia*, the collector of human knowledge, had a section on Ringxiety which is “described as the sensation and the false belief that one can hear his or her mobile phone ringing or feel it vibrating, when in fact the telephone is not doing so.” False vibrations are not well understood and the causes are said to be neurological or psychological. Therefore, the false vibration appears to be the 21st Century human version of Pavlov’s salivating dogs.

So, along with a number of other mild disorders that our modern day population is afflicted with, we now have Ringxiety to add to the bulging list. I think that Nokia should consider this phenomenon and put a team of their brightest minds to work on designing the world’s first wallet phone for men. Most men carry a wallet and a phone so to combine them into one functional device is the next frontier of science.

I'll be keeping my eyes and ears peeled for the new Nokia Mobilet, and let my wallet do the talking the next time I head out shopping with my girlfriend.

* Wikipedia’s information should be treated with scepticism as it is written by regular joes like you and I.