“It must have got embroiled in a kind of inverting spiral, I mean one of the coils of which, instead of widening more and more, grew narrower and narrower and finally, given the kind of space in which I was supposed to evolve, would come to the end for lack of room.”
The Unnameable, Samuel Beckett
“The dynamic between photo and paint becomes one of revelation and concealment, of seeing and blindness, of playing one dimension against and with the other, and of creating ambiguities between them.”
Siri Husvedt
“The way I sometimes block out parts of some pictures, for example, is part of a flirtatious game I play with the viewer. If I show you everything, it’s going to be ho-hum. If I make a picture a guessing game, I might capture your attention for a little bit longer. There is a hierarchy of vision that I’m interested in attacking and breaking down. If you look at a photograph of people in a room, you’re going to look at their faces first. You’re not going to look at a book that’s on a table. What I try to do is make you look at the book on the table.”
John Baldessari
“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.”
Rene Magritte
Anderson Shelter
The Anderson shelter was designed in 1938 by William Paterson and Oscar Carl (Karl) Kerrison in response to a request from the Home Office. It was named after Sir John Anderson, then Lord Privy Seal with special responsibility for preparing air-raid precautions immediately prior to the outbreak of World War II, and it was he who then initiated the development of the shelter. After evaluation by Dr David Anderson, Bertram Lawrence Hurst, and Sir Henry Jupp, of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the design was released for production.
Anderson shelters were designed to accommodate up to six people. The main principle of protection was based on curved and straight galvanised corrugated steel panels. Six curved panels were bolted together at the top, so forming the main body of the shelter, three straight sheets on either side, and two more straight panels were fixed to each end, one containing the door—a total of fourteen panels. A small drainage sump was often incorporated in the floor to collect rainwater seeping into the shelter. The shelters were 6 ft (1.8 m) high, 4 ft 6 in (1.4 m) wide, and 6 ft 6 in (2 m) long. They were buried 4 ft (1.2 m) deep in the soil and then covered with a minimum of 15 in (0.4 m) of soil above the roof. The earth banks could be planted with vegetables and flowers, that at times could be quite an appealing sight and in this way would become the subject of competitions of the best-planted shelter among householders in the neighbourhood. The internal fitting out of the shelter was left to the owner and so there were wide variations in comfort.
Anderson shelters were issued free to all householders who earned less than £250 a year, and those with a higher income were charged £7. 1.5 million shelters of this type were distributed from February 1939 to the outbreak of war. During the war a further 2.1 million were erected.
The Anderson shelters performed well under blast and ground shock, because they had good connectivity and ductility, which meant that they could absorb a great deal of energy through plastic deformation without falling apart (This was in marked contrast to other trench shelters which used concrete for the sides and roof, which were inherently unstable when disturbed by the effects of an explosion – if the roof slab lifted, the walls fell in under the static earth pressure; if the walls were pushed in, the roof would be unsupported at one edge and would fall). However, when the pattern of all night alerts became established, it was realised that in winter Anderson shelters were cold damp holes in the ground and often flooded in wet weather, and so their occupancy factor would be poor. This led to the development of the indoor Morrison shelter.
At the end of the war in Europe, households who had received an Anderson shelter were expected to remove their shelters and local authorities began the task of reclaiming the corrugated iron. Householders who wished to keep their Anderson shelter (or more likely the valuable metal) could pay a nominal fee.
Because of the large number made and their robustness, many Anderson shelters still survive. Many were dug up after the war and converted into storage sheds for use in gardens and allotments.
Wikipedia
“It’s a cat and mouse game where I give them clues. It’s like a great detective story where the writer leads you to think you’ve got it all figured out, then, ‘Ah hah! No you haven’t!’ Or kind of like when a woman enjoys being flirtatious instead of saying yes on the first date.”
“‘What do we consider art? What’s order and chaos? Is it genetic, cultural, where do we get these values?’ To me the outcome is less important than the thinking.”
“Back then, I said that I was trying to work against my own good taste because I figured that good taste is going to come out anyway, no matter what you do, so there’s no reason to work at it.”
“The way that I’ve always put it is, ‘If I saw the art around me that I liked I wouldn’t do art.’ So really it’s about trying to satisfy yourself – you think of something that you’d like to happen, and of course you never get there, but you can work at it.”
John Baldessari
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.Burnt Norton, First Movement – T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
“Sight says too many things at the same time. Being does not see itself. Perhaps it listens to itself.”
“If we do not know where we are going, we no longer know where we are.”
Gaston Bachelard
“A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.”
Edward de Bono
“When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.”
William Shakespeare
“Nothing again nothing.
‘Do
‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
‘Nothing?’
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’”The Wasteland, T. S. Eliot
My name is Ian Talbot and I am an artist and photographer living in London.
This blog is intended as an insight into the research, thinking and connections that precede the projects I undertake. I will also show new and experimental work. Naturally, not all of the work shown here will eventually make the cut. These are very much 'works in progress'...
You can see a complete collection of my work at my website:
Ian Talbot :: Objectively Speaking