It seemed to me that troglodytes
painted the things they saw to better understand them.
If they saw some kind of massive elk or boar in the forest they'd go
home and paint it on the wall of their cave. Reducing the animal to a
simple image might've made it comprehensible to a troglodyte's rudimentary cognitive abilities. That was my theory anyway. You see, I too found the world outside my flat
to be an incomprehensible place and that's why I thought cave painting might be
of similar benefit to me. As I said to the nervous looking girl who
sold me the poster paints down the pound shop, 'maybe it is the
purpose of art to make sense of reality'.
I decided I'd go out and do whatever it
is I do all day and then come home and paint what I saw on my walls.
Rather than sabre-tooth tigers
and mammoths, I covered the walls of my flat with depictions of
suburban life - things like bent bus stops, crumpled bags of Tayto, an
umbrella I saw stuffed down a drain and a schoolgirl that gave
me the spaz face from the window of a passing SUV.
However, I started noticing how the
bulk of my work related to the gigantic shopping centre that towered
over the leafy streets of my timid village. Almost all of the images
were nothing more than replicated brand logos - Harvey Nichols, H&M,
HMV, Hollister, House of Fraser, Little Hitler's Haute Hut - all the
well known names. I realised that my environment was thoroughly
colonised. A few questions occurred to me. Were these logos art? In my attempt to make art that
recorded life, was I merely making art that was a record of other
art? Was the ultimate aim of art, from
its inception to now, to replace reality entirely? Is art the creator
of reality and not its reflector? Trees, clouds, animals, even people
(genuine living people, not people on billboards or people who may as
well be on billboards) didn't really get a look in. My surroundings
were a prescribed range of aspirations and aesthetic ideals. I found
it all a bit alarming. In fact, I found it fucking shocking.
There was only one thing for it. With
resolute determination, I decided to get pissed out of my mind. Booze
had provided great succor to those before me who had lost their
environments to colonial forces. Many Australian Aborigines and members of native American tribes spend their time staggering
about the place in piss stained slacks so ...when in Rome.
I went to the pub.
I found Professor Isaac Delahunty
sitting up at the bar. I was delighted. He was just the man to
confide in. Isaac had been the head of an anthropology department
before the university closed it down to fund more vocational
pursuits. These days, Isaac could be found drinking away his
redundancy as he scribbled notes for a study he claimed to be making
on the life of the suburban sop (a study that I suspect will never be
completed). Isaac jokingly referred to himself as as an
anthropolopissed but he was the only one who laughed at this little joke. His was a
terrible wounded laugh.
I told Isaac what I had been up to and
what it had got me to thinking and he told me something astonishing.
Isaac said that the troglodytes of yore weren't painting what they
saw but actually painting what they wanted to see. Isaac said that
the troglodytes were the 'ne plus ultra of solipsism' (he spoke in
that fancy way you'd expect of an academic, albeit with a slight
slur) in that they thought the world did not exist until they
witnessed it and that the world was influenced by their expectations.
That's why they only painted animals. They were painting what they
hoped to catch for dinner. By meditating on it, the troglodytes
believed they were bringing the creature into being. 'Why didn't they
just paint the thing ready cooked and save themselves the bother of
having to go out and kill it?' I asked. Isaac shrugged and said 'they
may have been the precursors of those that
theorised the Observer Effect but that
doesn't mean they weren't a bunch of dopes. I mean they lived in
caves for fuck's sake'.
I thought about what Isaac had told me
and, after about fifteen pots of porter, I made it my business to go
home and fashion a new reality, one free of consumerist colonisation.
I staggered back to my place and on all the walls of my flat, every
inch, I painted a jungle. A wild jungle, overrun with all sorts of
exotic creatures from past, present and God knows when. I was working
away for hours, accompanied by Krautrock classics on shuffle and
several bags of carry out. I worked fast. I was in a frenzy. I
eventually collapsed.
I woke up hours later and saw what I
had done. It was quite a sight but it beat what was there before. My
head hurt though. It was all a bit hard to take in so I got to my
feet and left my place in search of Solpadeine and a breakfast roll.
Once I was on the road I was, well, how should I put this? Taken
aback? Shocked? Absolutely fucking traumatised?
I think the latter sums it up best. Yes, once I was on the road I was
absolutely fucking traumatised to see every
inch of my suburban village tangled up in vines. I could hear the
screeching calls of monkeys and the distant roar of lions.
Pterodactyls wheeled in the sky above me
and a couple of Triceratops were fucking outside Spar. When I reached
the shopping centre I saw a pack of jackals chasing a zebra down an
escalator and a Siberian god-bear futilely trying on a pair of slim
fit chinos. There were people around of course but they were in
pieces, scattered limbs and organs.
I felt bad. I could have painted an
equitable Anarchistic society living in peaceable harmony but in my
drunken state I had opted to create this feral barbarity. Many people
had lost their lives. The army were probably on the way and the whole
thing was bound to end in an appalling conflagration. I'd be lucky to
survive myself. Worst of all though, the most tragic thing about the
entire scenario to me, was how badly rendered everything was. It all
looked like it was painted by a demented child. If this was to be the
end of what passed for civilisation, it
could at least have looked nice. All the creatures had bandy limbs
and lumpy heads. The vines were scribbly and unimpressive. You
couldn't even tell what a lot of the stuff was supposed to be. At one
stage, I was chased down the road by something that looked like an enormous lobster crossed with an elaborate mathematical
equation performed by Jackson Pollock. It all looked completely crap
and it was all my fault. It all just amounted to so much sigil
bullshit. Even the pub had been destroyed by, ...well I'm not sure really. They looked like musical notes, octave clefs I
think, covered in fur and with fangs. Who knows what they were meant to be.
Beats me, ...I never could paint pissed.
