The months continue to move forward, we’re now fully into the second half of 2020. My life continues to feel weird and very unproductive during this time. I’m applying to lots of things, although unfortunately none of the major opportunities I’ve applied for were successful. It was to be expected, but mass rejection is painful, nonetheless. Even though I have so much time at the moment, I don’t have anything big to be working towards, other than my own art production. It’s just a shame that I don’t have something big that I’m working towards, whether that’s a solo show, commission or curated exhibition. Maybe something will happen, maybe something won’t, who knows. In any case, my normal job/life won’t be going back to any sort of normal for a few more months, at least. It’s been almost 5 months, and being in London during this time has become to feel incredibly pointless, making me re-think the point of living in London in the future.
So what have I been doing? I went back to Suffolk for a bit, and then went to
Finland for nearly two weeks with my partner, who’s Finnish, for a wedding. It
felt incredibly nice to be in a country that, for them, the coronavirus is very
much in the past, with many people I spoke to only having lost a week or so of
work during its peak. It was very odd, but so nice to actually be with people
for the first time in five months. I didn’t think it was such a thing, but I
slowly realised that I’ve been in a constant state of stress since this all began,
and especially whenever I leave the house. Anyway, let’s get onto what I’ve
been doing with art.
Even though I probably haven’t been successful, I’ve been working a little on
the video game project that I proposed for Science Gallery Bengaluru. As I
mentioned in last months post, it’s basically a forest/village that you as the
player wander around and explore, examining the small details of the space for
clues as to what has occurred in the environment. It’s probably the most
‘walking sim’ like game you could make, although I like the open ended-nuss of
it, and the fact that it really isn’t a game, more an interactive experience.
Anyway, I worked on it for a bit, and have been dipping in and out. I haven’t
used the software, Unity, for a while, so it took a bit of getting used to, but
I think I’m in a good place with it now. As an aim, I’d like to just have a
build that I can upload online and have other people able to play it, which
means creating a menu screen and pause menu, something I haven’t actually made
before. Anyway, progress is slow but I’m happy that this is something that I
can just tinker with for a bit. If I am successful with the application,
however, I would love to be able to work on it full time and to actually make
it into a fully-fledged playable experience. That would be very cool, but I don’t
really see that happening. Here’s a few screenshots from the work in-progress.
I’ve then been making more drone paintings, depicting drone attacks in various
locations. I really like how these are looking, and would love to do a show of
these works, accompanied by other drone based sculptural works, perhaps… Looking
back through my practice whilst I was updating my website a few months ago,
drones have been such a recurring theme in my work for some time. Below are
some pictures.
Speaking of drones, I was sadly unsuccessful with the ARCUS residency in Japan, which is a real shame. I rarely build up things that I apply for in my head, as of course the odds are that you’ll ultimately be unsuccessful, but my partner had been really excited about me getting into the second round, which in turn got me excited. It just reinforces the fact that I should never get too excited about opportunities I apply for.
Anyway, I also applied for another Science Gallery open call, this time for the
Melbourne venue. I applied with two different projects, one being a video
installation of my recent video I Wish I'd Been Born A Balloon. I’ve been
thinking a lot about how I’d like to exhibit this piece, and slowly came to the
conclusion that it would be fantastic to have the video viewed through a
virtual reality headset. Not a fully VR one, as the video isn’t a 360 video,
but one that will force people to have the video close to their face in an
attempt to fully immerse themselves into the experience. The idea takes very overt
inspiration from how professional drone racers pilot drones with VR headsets
on, basically piloting the drones from a first-person perspective. This way of
viewing the work will hopefully enable the audience to become intimately
connected to the plight of the drone within the piece. Alongside the headset,
I’ve been thinking of seat designs that people would sit in, and came up with a
number of options. As the work is speaking from the perspective of a black
hornet drone, one idea was to create seats that looked like the cells of a
hornets nest, whilst others featured bean bag or airplane chairs. We’ll see
where this goes, but I would love to show this piece in a physical context at
some point. Someone recently mentioned to me that I don’t really make video
installations anymore, which made me a little sad. I don’t not make them, it’s
just I don’t have a studio anymore, so I wait for these physical opportunities
to come about before making physical installations. I would love to have a
studio, but it’s not the most economically viable thing.
The other work I applied with was Fair Game, the sculptural installation that I
would love to get made, featuring a number of 3D printed robot dogs. The one
good thing about not getting these applications is that as I apply to more
things with the same/similar project, the work is slowly being refined and improved
upon. This work in particular has gone through many iterations, and I think is
much better for that.
Responding to Beverley’s military history, for The Treasure House commission I am proposing to create a sculptural installation featuring a number of 3D printed life size robotic dogs, with their forms inspired by the real-life robot, artificially intelligent dogs currently being produced and sold to companies and corporations by the American company Boston Dynamics.
In 1878 the Victoria Barracks in Beverley were built, used as a home base for recruiting and training young soldiers. During the First and Second World War, many recruits were enlisted to the East Yorkshire Regiment at the barracks. The Victoria Barracks were disposed of many years ago, but there is still a military presence within Beverley and the surrounding area, with several Army Reserve Centre’s in the region.
The proposed sculptural installation imagines a not so distant future, where these robots are being utilised by army reserves in Beverley and around the world and charts the evolution of the military-industrial complex, from recruiting human beings to building AI robots. Placing these works within The Treasure House, and in front of the entrance to the archives, will inspire conversations around Beverley’s military history and how war, and the world, has significantly evolved in the past 100 years.
The title of the new artwork, Second Variety, is inspired by the 1953 short story of the same name by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Set in a world where war between the Soviet Union and United Nations has reduced most of the world to a barren wasteland, the story concerns the discovery that self-replicating robots originally built to assassinate Soviet agents have gained sentience.
The artwork would be made up of five or six freestanding 3D printed, camouflage
painted plastic sculptures. Each sculpture would be the same size and scale of
an average dog, in both standing and sitting positions. The works would be
placed around the lobby area, so that visitors would be able to walk through or
around the works. In the attached images are 3D models positioned in
pre-existing photographs of the space and a virtual mock-up of the environment.
Each sculpture would be placed to allow access to the hallways and entrances.
Accompanying the physical works would be an online component. As part of my
research into Beverley, and during my site visit to the venue and town, I would
take a number of photographs. These would be used as source material for
paintings featuring the robot dogs in different parts of Beverley, prowling
around the deserted town. The paintings would be photographed and exhibited on
a dedicated website, accompanied by historical writings about the military
history of Beverley and a fictional text imagining that the town has become
overrun by the dogs, after they had become fully autonomous, escaping the
nearby Army Reserve Centre. The images, historical and fictional texts, would
be posted to my social media accounts, with a total reach of over 15,000
people. The physical paintings could also be exhibited at The Treasure House,
if that were a possibility, providing further context to the sculptural works.
I was unsuccessful in this application too, which was a shame, but it was for
£8,000 which is a lot more money than I’ve ever had for a project, so I
understand. However, if you don’t apply to these things you won’t even have a
chance.
Another opportunity that I applied to and haven’t been successful for is the Stanley
Picker Fellowship. I was never going to get this opportunity, but it’s good to
put your work out there, and to be seen to be applying for these types of
things. My application was focused on my research into drone technology, and
can be read below.
Through the fellowship I would continue an ongoing body of research-based
work into how drone usage is slowly shaping society and having an increasingly
large impact on the human experience. In the project I am exploring both
military and commercial drones, looking at how drone usage has become
normalised within society as a tool for delivering packages, surveilling
communities and documenting wedding receptions, whilst disregarding the
militaristic background of the technology.
The project’s output would focus on a new video installation, alongside a
series of paintings and sculptures, charting the history of drone usage around
the world.
For some time, I have been researching and producing works related to drones,
considering how they have been used in wars around the world and as tools for
extended surveillance tactics. In a recent video work I looked into how drones
evolved and changed from their early beginnings as helium balloons, creating a
research based narrative that was spoken from the point of view of a nano
drone, a device primarily employed in military zones to peer around corners and
over high walls.
Currently, due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, drone use has expanded, with
drones being utilised around the world to ensure successful lockdowns. As drones
continue to be used and produced, the appearance of them will become the new
normal, allowing governments to further harness their power.
During my time at the fellowship I would spend time investigating how drones
are used, both in England and around the world, researching and looking to
speak with representatives from certain manufacturers who have been producing
and developing drones for many years, such as SLAMcore, who is developing a
drone that is led by algorithms or Drone Defence, who produce anti-drone
equipment in order to protect government buildings and billionaire super
yachts.
A turning point for drone use in the UK was in 2018, when hundreds of flights
were cancelled at Gatwick Airport following reports of drone sightings close to
the runway. With 140,000 passengers and 1,000 flights affected, it was one of
Gatwick’s biggest disruptions. The incident caused a media firestorm, with mass
speculation as to who could have caused the incident, as well as highlighting
the lack of regulatory framework to protect against the misuse of drones.
Through this investigation into drone technology I would be looking to create a
new video installation, alongside a series of sculptures and paintings,
charting the history of drone usage in the UK and around the world, tracking
the devices impact on crime and mental wellbeing in the country as well as
depicting the devices being used in different industries.
Alongside speaking with representatives from drone manufacturers, I would also
spend time searching for and speaking with citizens who use drones, either for
work (in agriculture, film, delivery services or as part of racing leagues) or
pleasure (drone hobbyists). The interviews and conversations conducted with
these individuals would be recorded and archived, to be used in future works in
an effort to chart the technological impact of this multibillion-dollar
industry on the human experience.
As always, I’m continuing on with my Trophy Hunter series. I created my
first female focused work, which I felt worked and looked really great,
portraying Laurene Powell Jobs as a trophy hunter. I’ve made 29 works in this
series now, 11 of which have sold. As I keep repeating in this blog, I’d love
to do a solo show of them, now that I’ve moved away from Zuckerberg and begun
making more. I’d love to do a series of large-scale works, accompanied by 3D
printed heads. I’ve been slowly collecting 3D models of billionaire’s heads,
that I would love to get printed at some point. I’ve been applying to a few spaces
with this idea, of a solo show of these paintings with 3D printed sculptures of
the heads. I applied for a show at this space in Oxford, and in Taiwan. Below
is part of my submission.
The proposed exhibition, titled Hunters, would include parts of an ongoing
body of work exploring billionaires in the tech industry, and how, due to them
having an unprecedented amount of money, they can do whatever they want, whenever
they want, many life-times over.
The exhibition would feature a number of paintings, portraying various tech
billionaires as trophy hunters. Trophy hunting is the act of hunting of wild
game for human recreation. The trophy is the animal or part of the animal kept,
and usually displayed, to represent the success of the hunt. The game sought is
typically a large or impressively ornamented male, such as one having large
horns or antlers. At the end of a successful hunt, the hunter will usually pose
next to the slain animal for a photograph, to be distributed to friends and
family members.
The works were originally inspired by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of
Facebook, and a personal challenge he had set himself, to only eat meat he'd
killed himself for a year. Zuckerberg had entered into the challenge in an
effort to be more thankful for the food he had to eat. He felt it was
irresponsible not to remember that the animals he ate used to be alive.
In a 2019 interview with Rolling Stone, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stated that
there was a year when Zuckerberg was only eating what he was killing and had a
penchant for goat meat. Supposedly he would stun goats with a taser, cut their
throat with a knife and have their bodies sent to a butcher to prepare. Being
served goat for dinner whilst attending a dinner party at Zuckerberg’s house
was Dorsey’s most memorable encounter with Zuckerberg. The original trophy
hunter works, depicting Zuckerberg, imagine that he took this interest in
animal killing further, becoming a trophy hunter.
Alongside the paintings, the exhibition would feature several life-size 3D printed
heads of different tech billionaires, positioned on the floor around the
gallery space, transforming into trophies themselves.
The exhibition will be a comment and critique of how the 0.0001% spend their
time and money.
Through the creation and exhibiting of the work, I will further my, and the
publics, interest into the lives of billionaires, utilising the exhibition to
educate and inform others about the unprecedented amount of wealth that the
wealthy have access too, and how powerful they are within society.
I expect this exhibition to prompt conversations and dialogues surrounding
economic policy, taxation, globalization, exploitation, fairness and equality.
I was working with Petra Szemán for a little while on her solo show, which opened
on isthisit? on the 15thJuly. I think it’s a really special
exhibition, full of secret moments that will reward viewers that spend the time
exploring the exhibition. I know the majority won’t do this, but I think making
the experience interesting and interactive, more so than previous shows, is
really worth it, and will hopefully add a lot more to Petra’s work. Here’s a
link to the exhibition, and below is part of the small press release - www.isthisitisthisit.com/to-go-off-screen 
There are moments, whilst navigating through digital spaces, that we find
ourselves in areas that we're not supposed to be in. Whether its typing in the
wrong URL and being transported to an unfinished web page, or falling through
the cracks of virtual worlds in our favourite video games, these instants of
disconnect are small windows into other realms, hidden layers of reality that
prop up our on and off screen lives.
The act of going off-screen, exploring the hidden infrastructures embedded
within certain aspects of digital and physical life, is an important part of
Petra Szemán’s investigatory practice. Szemán is an artist who specialises in
moving images, combining hand drawn animations with real world video footage to
create complex artworks that interrogate our increasingly fictionalised daily
lives, dissecting how human beings perceive our past and future selves.
to go off-screen is a solo exhibition of Petra Szemán’s work, featuring all
four parts of Szemán’s recently finished Monomyth: gaiden video series,
exhibiting for the first time the fourth and final part, Monomyth: gaiden /
Master of Two Worlds (2020). Throughout the quadrilogy, Szemán explores her
relationship to her digital avatar Yourself, as well as the processes involved
in the creation of a multi-layered image world.
Accompanying the videos is an extended interview between Bob Bicknell-Knight
and Szemán, speaking about the series, her practice and artistic influences.
The exhibition is made up of a number of pages, connected via custom dancing
emojis, transforming the viewing experience into a simplified point and click
adventure game, best viewed on a computer.
What else? I’ve been invited to be in a couple of nice upcoming projects,
although all of which have little to no fee, which is fine but saddening. The
first is basically an online festival/fair, called ARTBO | Fin de Semana based
in Colombia. My recent video piece I Wish I'd Been Born A Balloon is a part of
it, invited by Juan Covelli and Juan Cortés. I was also invited to show a video
piece on the side of EP7 Paris in September, basically a huge wall of a
restaurant/space, which has many LED panels attached to it, invited by Carlos
Sanchez Bautista. One of the things I applied for was successful, a – kind of –
artist billboard in Kassel. It’s basically two billboard spaces attached to a
building that used to be a post office, beside a road in Kassel. It seems like
a really nice idea, and will show two of my Amazon artworks. Although it
involves no money, I’ve really liked the idea of having my work on a billboard
for some time, and haven’t actually exhibited any Amazon based paintings yet,
so this is a nice opportunity.
I continue to apply for things with my Amazon video idea. At this point I’m slowly
being convinced that it’s either just a really crap idea for an artwork, or
that I’m terrible at writing applications. Below is part of an application to a
fairly new online space called Quote—Unquote, who were looking for videos that featured
a collaboration between the artist and someone outside of their profession. I
thought the idea of collaborating with an Amazon employee/Union representative
would have been quite an interesting perspective to take, but unfortunately I was
unsuccessful.
For Quote-Unquote, I will be collaborating with the GMB Union and Amazon
employees, to explore the power of public speaking in creating a collective
voice.
The proposed video work, provisionally titled Pickers, would be an animated
film composed of the outside of an Amazon Fulfilment Centre, accompanied by
text and spoken word testimonies from employees who have previously worked, or
currently work within Amazon warehouses, detailing the working conditions and
long hours.
The work will be an exploration of what happens within an Amazon Fulfilment
Centre (warehouse), where Amazon workers (called Pickers) load trolley's full
of items, to be loaded onto trucks for next day delivery.
The focus of the new video would be a slowly revolving 3D animated
architectural model of a Fulfilment Centre, complete with delivery trucks
arriving and leaving the facility, alongside people walking in and out. This
will continue throughout the video, including background sounds of trucks
driving and quiet murmurs from workers arriving and leaving.
Alongside this there will be a selection of voice-overs accompanied by animated
figures, providing anonymised testimonies of different experiences from
individuals who work or have previously worked within an Amazon warehouse. For
the project I’ll be working and collaborating with these employees,
interviewing them about working within the retail giant. Speaking directly to
these individuals will enable me to break out from my own echo chamber, which
has been continually influenced by the mainstream media and their reporting on
Amazon workers.
Accompanying the individual interviews, I’ll also be working with the GMB Union
and interviewing one of their representatives, focusing on the role of public
speaking in contested spaces where union representation has not been achieved.
The video will be exploring Amazon and how its warehouses are monuments to late
capitalism, utilising hundreds of human bodies to collaborate with intelligent
machines in order to fulfil order after order and product after product. The
piece will be an investigative artwork into Amazon's ethical and moral compass
with regards to their employee’s mental health, questioning whether they
overwork their staff and undervalue their unique human sensibilities in favour
of hitting corporate targets.
Also, the big news, is that I finally applied for Arts Council Funding for what
I do with isthisit?. It’s taken me over four years, and a global pandemic, to
get to this point, but I’m really glad that I’ve at least submitted it, and
would be so excited if it was successful. The money would be used to pay a
number of artists, writers, and myself, for the duration of a six-month online
exhibition program, culminating in a book and online panel discussion. Who
knows, I hope I’m successful, but as I’ve seen over the past five months, I
haven’t been that lucky lately with my applications. I should hear back in
early September, so we shall see.
I’m still waiting to hear about what will happen to my exhibition at Broadway Gallery.
It was supposed to come down in April and its now August. Who knows what will
happen.
I think that might be it for art-based things. I’m just continuing on with
applications and four or five projects. I haven’t written any more of my book
for a little while, and would also like to start designing the book of
simulated studio views at some point. I guess it’s one of those things, where
you’re unsure when to stop doing something and document it in a book. I guess that
would be the point of having an exhibition. We’ll see I guess.
So, for the first time in five months I actually went to see some exhibitions.
Not in London, but in Helsinki. The first, and best, show that I saw was Ed
Atkins’ Live White Slime at Kiasma. The exhibition featured a work that I’ve
been wanting to see for many years, a piece titled Safe Conduct, which is basically
a meticulously crafted parody of airport security displays. It’s a haunting
work, which was well worth seeing. Other works in the exhibition included quotes
and little poetic texts which had been stitched onto parts of the walls and
artistic panels, alongside a compilation of actual airport security display
videos. It was a very well put together exhibition, which I’m really glad I got
to see.
Also in Kiasma were a few other shows, one of which was Mad Love, a show
featuring the Seppo Fränti Collection. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show that’s
been organised around a collector before. Well, I’m sure I have, as obviously I’ve
been to spaces that are ‘collections’, but it’s never been so overt. Next to
every other piece of work (all of which were paintings) there would be a small
text about why the collector had bought the work, what mood they were in at the
time, why they like pictures of the water, etc. It was very odd, but interesting
to witness. In terms of the collection, I wasn’t really a fan.
The final exhibition at Kiasma, Shadow Zone by Liisa Lounila, was subtle. Lots
of simple videos and ‘moving images’, with a few interesting moments. One
particular piece that I enjoyed was a collection of bread ties that had been
collected by the artist. The ties, which had various sell by dates written on
them, were arranged in date order. I thought it was subtle and quite sweet. The
other work I enjoyed was a seven-minute long moving image, capturing the evolution
of a rock over the course of several years. The word treasure had been spray
painted on the rock, and whenever it started to fade it would be re-sprayed by
an anonymous person. I enjoyed it’s subtleness.
It was the first time I’d visited Amos Rex, which was quite cool architecturally,
although sadly the actual exhibition was basically a degree show, with the show
featuring a selection of artists aged between 15 and 23. I think it’s a nice
idea, and there were a few artworks I did enjoy (like any degree show) but the
experience just felt odd and unprofessional. Plus I actually paid to go into
this building, so it felt like a bit of a waste of money, especially after
visiting Kiasma.
Next up were the artist run galleries in Helsinki. After visiting the city around
this time last year, I spoke to an artist who lived and worked in Helsinki, and
they informed me that many of the artist run galleries require fees from
artists, running on an open call basis. We’re not speaking about simply a €50
administration fee, but literally paying sometimes €1000 (and over) to basically
rent the gallery space, crossing their fingers that their work will sell, or
getting funding from the Finnish government, with some of the funds being used
to rent the space. Remember, this is also through an open call process. Now,
how fucked is that? I’m very confused as to why this is even a thing, or
allowed to be a thing by artists who live in Helsinki, especially as everyone must
know you have to pay to exhibit in these spaces, thus making the exhibition
opportunity pretty pointless and incredibly translucent. Anyway, my point is,
that the next few galleries I’ll speak about are spaces that require incredibly
large artist fees to subsidize their rent.
The first up is Galleria Huuto, a particularly egregious example of this phenomena,
which has four different spaces within the gallery, three of which cost €1200
to rent and the other €800 for a four week exhibition. Now, I’m sorry for
speaking about this again, but that means the artists are literally paying a
total of €4,400 per month. The gallery doesn’t take any commission, but still,
it’s such a business and doesn’t even try to hide it. Like, fuck me… They had
four shows there, with the only one being of vague interest to me being a duo
show from Jane Hughes & Taru Kallio, kind of nice paintings and very
intricate drawings.
Another ‘artist run’ gallery is tm galleria, requiring €500 - €1000 to rent the
exhibition space. So yeah, they’re very much not galleries at this point, they’re
rentable spaces, with no actual programming. There was a duo show from Raisa
Raekallio & Misha del Val, collaborating on a number of hectic paintings.
Again, yet another artist run space that does this is Myymälä2, charging €850
for four weeks. It really blows my mind that this is a thing. They had a duo
show from Aino Aksenja & Selma Haro, full of flowers and subtlety, which I
didn’t truly understand.
The final space was Forum Box which, after researching, didn’t seem to be a space
reliant on artists renting, although who knows at this point. It was a group
show of artists who had graduated from the Free Art School in Helsinki earlier
in the year, mainly focusing on painting, featuring work by Inkeri Halme,
Benjamin Kassinen, Noora Kaunisto, Matilda Keränen, Anna Kurki, Sisko Pajari,
Sasha Rotts, Eeva-Marja Saarinen and Kati Sankala. It was not good.
Annd that’s it for art. Next up is films, TV, books and video games. Let’s
start with The Intern, starring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. It felt like
a very sweet experience, with De Niro becoming Hathaway’s intern, who runs a
very successful clothes company. Yeah, just a very sweet, nice film.
I finally watched Normal People, although that’s nearly two months ago at this
point, which feels like forever! It follows the twisting and transforming
relationship of two young people from a small town in Ireland. I enjoyed it,
especially the early episodes, which definitely reminded me of being young and
stupid, although as it moved forwards I became less connected to the characters
and their experiences. Also, the lack of Black and minority groups within the film
was off-putting, especially as, when these people were in frame, they were seen
as the ‘evil’ characters; the abuser, the nazi sympathiser, etc. Yeah, that
changed the viewing experience for me.
For some reason I’d never watched Thelma & Louise. It was a fun, overly
long, film. I think Wayne’s World, and watching that film about 100 times as a
child, ruined the ending for me. I’m sure that, when people watched Thelma
& Louise when it was released in 1991, the ending was amazing.
I’ve been wanting to watch Sorry We Missed You since it was released online
quite some time ago, but had been holding off as I knew it would be incredibly
depressing. It’s from director Ken Loach, and focuses on a father of two who
becomes a delivery driver, both self employed and working for a company,
situated right in the middle of the gig economy. It’s pretty fucked and unpleasant
to watch, the slow and painful descent into debt and being basically forced to
work. Yeah, the UK is fucked.
The Personal History of David Copperfield was a real roller coaster of emotions
and events. It was a truly absurd story, which was consistently funny and
slightly sad, telling the story of a young orphan growing into a man. I would
highly recommend watching, as Dev Patel is fantastic and it’s a very uplifting
experience.
I think Da 5 Bloods was a little too long for me, clocking in at 2 hours and 34
minutes. The story was telling, of reparations, Vietnam and racism, and was all
really interesting, but it just dragged on for way too long, sapping my
interest and intrigue. It focuses on four vets who return to Vietnam, searching
for the bones of their old commander, alongside the gold that they had buried many
years ago. I love Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X and BlacKkKlansman, but
this felt a bit too indulgent, akin to Quentin Tarantino and his overwhelmingly
long filmic experiences.
Then I watched Close Enough, a new animated TV show from J.G. Quintel, the
creator of one of my favourite animations, Regular Show. Close Enough is a lot
more adult than Regular Show, which was primarily aimed at young audiences, focusing
on a couple in their early 30s with a young daughter, living with two others in
a small apartment in the suburbs of a city, coping with life and everything
else. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season.
I watched all six seasons of White Collar, both a hilarious and terrible TV
show about the relationship between a con man and an FBI agent, working
together to solve white collar crimes. I thoroughly enjoyed all six seasons,
and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys both trash and fantastic TV.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is not an enjoyable TV show, but I seem to have watched many
seasons of it. I would not recommend watching it to anyone.
Another show that I would not recommend, Selling Sunset, a faux reality TV show
about real estate brokers in LA, selling houses costing many millions of dollars.
The show focuses on a firm, run by two brothers whose estate agents are all
women. It’s a very weird dynamic, that is uncomfortable and terrible to watch.
I’m probably going to watch season three though.
Gordon, Gino & Fred's Road Trip was a fun, very ‘lad-dy’ experience,
looking at two famous chefs and one master maitre d', travelling to various
different countries, eating fresh food and tasting experience alcohol. It was
fun.
A far better TV show, I May Destroy You, was a brutal, fantastic viewing
experience. It was challenging, painful and conflicting, bringing to the fore a
variety of different feelings and worries, surrounding women, Black people and representation.
Really great, and highly recommended.
Another great show, Shrill, focused on the life of an overweight woman and what
she goes through on a daily basis. It was both very lovely and funny throughout
it’s two seasons. I hope there’s more to come.
I watched Terminator: Dark Fate, which was a waste of my time.
Disclosure was an informative and interesting documentary, looking into how
trans people have been depicted both in TV and film for many years. Highly recommended.
Danger & Eggs was another animated TV show about the relationship between a
human sized talking egg and a young, danger obsessed, woman. A very hectic and
fun show.
Brave New World, the new TV show, was fun and didn’t take itself too seriously
until the end. In a society that’s controlled by drugs and sex, one man from
the outlands disrupts everything. It was packed full of so much sex that you
became quickly desensitised to the imagery. I read the book many years ago, and
don’t really remember whether the show has done it justice, but generally I
think it was quite enjoyable. I will be waiting for season 2.
Then there was The Old Guard, a film about immortal mercenaries transforming
events throughout history. I enjoyed the concept, and thought it was fine
overall.
I loved Palm Springs and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a
fantastic 90-minute comedy. It’s best for you to go in completely blind, but I’m
sure you won’t.
The Half of It was a nice Netflix film, rom-com about a teenager writing love
letters for another teenager, when in fact she is in love with the person she’s
being paid to write letters to, under someone else’s name. It’s nice and will
take up almost two hours of your time.
I really enjoyed Central Park, the new animated TV show by the creators of Bob’s
Burgers. It’s a musical about central park in New York. At first I was
incredibly weary of a musical animated series, but slowly I began to love the
characters and the park in itself. I would definitely recommend it, and hope
that it has a second season.
Japan Sinks: 2020 was an intriguing anime about Japan sinking into the sea. I
enjoyed it, although the whole story felt incredibly rushed, with characters
dying every other episode. I liked it, and how hectic the story felt.
The documentary Athlete A was quite astonishing, detailing the abuse of young
women by Larry Nassar, alongside the cover up by USA Gymnastics. It was pretty
fucked.
I also watched Chewing Gum, a TV show created by Michaela Coel, who then went
onto make I May Destroy You. This show, sadly, was not for me. A little too
much like an absurdist sitcom, with the humour not really connecting.
From watching the trailer, Irresistible seemed like it would be a terrible
experience, but actually it was a fantastic comedy drama, attempting to
deconstruct the absurdity of politics, both in America and around the world.
Really funny and great. Mackenzie Davis continues to be great in things.
Puzzle felt very sweet, a film about a suburban mother, disconnected from
technology and living her life as if it’s the 1950s, who slowly realises that
she’s living an unpleasant life, with that being revealed through her love and
dexterity for jigsaw puzzles. I liked it, and how genuine it felt.
Another sweet film, Days of the Bagnold Summer, focused on a teenager spending
his summer with his librarian mum, and slowly learning to love and respect her.
It was sad and funny, wrapped into 86 minutes.
A different discovery was PEN15, a TV show based in the year 2000, in a middle school
in America, seen through the eyes of two young women. The twist, however, is
that the two young women are in the 30s, playing 13-year olds, with all the
other children in the school being played by 13-year olds. This simple premise makes
for a hilarious viewing experience which I truly loved. The stars of the show, Maya
Erskine and Anna Konkle, are both 33, with the show presumably being influenced
and inspired by their own experiences.
I’m not sure why I watched Duplicity, a trashy spy comedy romance from 2009.
I feel the same way about How Do You Know, a terrible romcom that cost $120
million to create.
Another animated TV show, Amphibia, was great, concerning a 13 year old being transported
to another world, where talking, life size frogs and toads live a very human
life, running for elections and stealing peoples taxes. Season 2 is currently
being released, and I love it.
My final viewing experience was Clemency, where a prison warden, in charge of
undertaking executions at the facility, slowly changes over the course of the
film. It’s pretty harrowing, and fucked that capital punishment still exists.
The film is very deadpan, with small moments of humanity, but overall it felt
incredibly dense, with silent scenes being full of weight. I’m not sure if I
liked it, more impressed and appreciative of its existence.
I also played some things, the most prominent being The Last of Us Part II. I
enjoyed the experience overall, and had a lot of fun with the locations and the
little craps of paper that help to build and flesh out the digital world. Sadly
it felt overly long, with extra elements being hastily added on for shock and
awe, alongside the overarching critique of violence feeling a little like the developers
wanting to have their cake and eat it too. I dunno, I enjoyed it, but have
played far better games, ones that don’t force you to open 300 draws over the course
of 25 hours.
And finally, I read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, a book very much in the same vein as
1984, a seemingly utopian communist city, where everyone lives in glass
apartments, has sex at scheduled times and scheduled days, being controlled by
a dictator posing as a democratically elected leader. I enjoyed it, and am now
reading Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky.
I think that’s everything that I’ve been doing, give or take a few open calls.
I hope something happens soon, as I feel a little drained at this point…
