Saturday 31 October 2009

biblio

Just bought a few books:


Jean-Jacques Schuhl, Ingrid Caven £4.35


Dennis Cooper, Closer £2.99


Alfred Jarry, Adventures in Pataphysics
£8.09

Legowelt - Equestrian 707

Seeing as it's Hallowe'en:

Friday 30 October 2009

call


As each season turns, so a new Yuck 'n Yum deadline rolls around once more. Send any art ephemera etc for consideration to: submissions@yucknyum.com

Thursday 29 October 2009

west coast boys


I-f

There's an article appear in FACT magazine about Paul Langlade's photos of the leading lights of the Dutch electro scene: LINK

The same site also hosts a superlative mix by the legendary purveyor of disco arcana I-f that's currently the talk of the scene's Dundee outpost: LINK

Wednesday 28 October 2009

I-BE AREA

On Thursday 12 November Glasgow's Tramway will be screening a film called I-BE AREA by the young US artist Ryan Trecartin. I'm hoping to attend, and here is a sample of the delights in store:

Monday 26 October 2009

Self-Portrait Day: My Halloween Costume


allesfliesst

Time to celebrate another wonderful Self-Portrait Day on Dennis Cooper's blog. I have the honour of the being the first guest to arrive at the party: LINK and part two is here: LINK

haul

Having got paid last week I bought some bootleg classic Italo vinyl reissue action. Only cheap, mind:


Number One Ensemble - Gipsylon, £9.99




Yellow Power - Yellow Power, £9.99

Saturday 24 October 2009

column



Hot dinner party chat topic of the week has been the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin on Thursday's Question Time. Most insightful of all the comment has come from a couple of posts on Mark Fisher's k-punk blog:

LINK and LINK

Friday 23 October 2009

Halloween poster competition

The DCA are having a competition to design a poster for their forthcoming Halloween cinema screenings. Here is my video nasty-themed effort:

Thursday 22 October 2009

Nine Trades in Norway

The bedroom in this film belongs to the super-talented Norwegian artist Kier Cooke Sandvik. His beautiful drawings were featured in the summer 09 issue of our art zine Yuck 'n Yum.

Eagle-eyed viewers will recognise one of my Nine Trades prints at 0:40

Wednesday 21 October 2009

grand tour


My prints were handed out around Cupar today by our band of soi-disant YYADAs, and you can find a full update here on the official Yuck 'n Yum @ Cupar blog.

Tuesday 20 October 2009

nerves

Extract from Agota Kristof, Yesterday:

Today I start the idiotic routine again. I get up at five o'clock in the morning, I wash, I shave, I make some coffee, I set off, I run to the main square, I get on the bus, I close my eyes, and the full horror of my present life stares me in the face.
The bus stops three times. Once in the town and once in each village we pass through. In the fourth village is the factory in which I have worked for ten years.
A clockwork factory.
I lay my face in my hands as if I were sleeping, but I do it to hide my tears. I cry. I've had enough of the grey overall, I've had enough of clocking in, I've had enough of starting up my machine. I've had enough of work.
I put on the grey overall, I clock in, I go into the workshop.
The machines are running. Including mine. I only have to sit in front of it, take the parts, place them in the machine, press the pedal.
The clockwork factory is a huge building that dominates the valley. All the people who work there live in the same village except the odd few, like me, who come from town. There aren't many of us, the bus is almost empty.
The factory produces spare parts for other factories. Not one of us could assemble a whole watch.
I have to pierce a hole in a particular part, the same hole in the same part for the last ten years. That is the sum total of our work. Place a part in the machine, press on the pedal.
This work enables us to earn just enough to eat, to live somewhere and, above all, to be able to come to work the next day.
Whether it is dark or light outside, the neon lights are on all the time in the huge workshop. Soothing music is piped out of loudspeakers. The management think the staff work better with a bit of music.
There is this little chap, one of the workers, who sells sachets of white powder, tranquilisers which the village chemist makes up especially for us. I don't know what it is, I buy some occasionally. With this powder, the day passes more quickly, you feel a little less unhappy. The powder doesn't cost much, almost all the workers use it, the management turns a blind eye, and the village chemist makes a killing.
Sometimes there are outbursts; a woman gets up, shouts:
'I can't take any more!'
They take her away, work continues, they tell us:
'It's nothing, her nerves are shot.'

Monday 19 October 2009

action

A few photos of myself hard at work last week in the DCA's print workshop:





Sunday 18 October 2009

fest


Richie Cumming reluctantly makes a unique soi-disant fashion statement

To Cupar yesterday for the Arts Festival, where Yuck 'n Yum are distributing artworks to the public. What with me still being half-crippled I held fort in the town centre shop, divvying out zines and information and selling the odd badge to festival-goers. The day's YYADA Richie Cumming has written a blog on the official Yuck 'n Yum @ Cupar site: LINK

Friday 16 October 2009

dream

Extract from Daniel Lux, Camden Parasites:

By this year of 1980, smack usage permeated into the upper echelons including politicians' brats, even parts of the neo-aristocracy. Smack also spread up to the murky North, appearing on council estates. It didn't take long before I figured out Clarissa and the art school crowd were into gear, wanted it but found it difficult to obtain. They wanted smack as a status-enhancing symbol, something they could boast about at dinner parties in the year 2000. They didn't have a clue where to score as dealers wouldn't touch them. If these rich kids got nicked, they'd always squeal to the law, who'd get their address books into the bargain. Slinging them into a cell for an hour guaranteed to spill their guts. I decided to take a calculated chance, fill a market gap. So I finalised the business, collecting their dough, shooting off to the dealers, skim for personal use, overcharge, get fares for taxis, pocket the money, bunk fares on the tube. This represented a regular source of income. Although they guzzled champagne as a main tipple, smack soon took a hold. Clarissa participated, keeping it to a weekend basis. But for many of them these weekends became longer, Thursday to Monday, some at the stage where they wanted gear Wednesday after sweating it out all Tuesday. They'd beg me to score, waving cab fares and banknotes under my nose.
The art school provided another source of income for my enterprising spirit. They all needed materials like sable brushes, me writing down thickness to order. Also watercolours, cobalt grey flavour of the term. Art shops proliferate in the West End, with display cabinets usually unlocked. I even lifted an easel complete with stand, a helpful customer opening the door for me. I flogged the stuff to the would-be Rembrandts and Van Goghs. High-grade morons, they didn't know this to be all stolen, me spinning an implausible yarn about my father owning shares at Winsor and Newton. Believable, as most of their parents owned companies and sat on mountains of cash. These were by far the most idiotic bunch I'd come across, only their monied background cushioning them, protecting against the real world. If they weren't studying here, the boys would have been clicking heels at Sandhurst, girls doing photography or running non-economic dress shops. These people's parents owned mines in Southern Africa, a famous chocolate brand dating back to imperial days, were film directors, even the odd political connection surfaced. In other words, the stinking rich. I wanted some of this but it was all a narcotic-induced dream.

Sunday 11 October 2009

Saturday 10 October 2009

Y'nY @ Cupar09


Scotland's premier art zine Yuck 'n Yum is participating in this year's Cupar Arts Festival. There is now a lovely website to help keep you updated with news of all the artists, YYADAs, blogs, pictures and writings. Nice one!

Friday 9 October 2009

outcast

Extract from Jean-Paul Sartre, Saint Genet:

The child senses that a woman tore him from herself, alive, covered with blood, and sent him rolling outside the world, and he feels himself an outcast. Ever since his birth he has been the unloved one, the inopportune, the superfluous. Undesirable in his very being, he is not that woman's son but her excrement. And we shall see how insistently, with what masochistic pleasure, Genet will later compare himself to filth, to a waste product. Psychoanalysts have observed that children often feel a parent's death to be a condemnation; the mother goes away so as no longer to see her unnatural son. The abandoning of a child signifies an even more radical condemnation! Is it a mysterious sentence that is punishing him for having committed the crime of being born? Is it a prophetic verdict that is making him pay in advance for future crimes? In any case, the judge is unknown, the child is ignorant of the charges and of the law, but the condemnation attacks his existence itself and eats away at it. Beneath the supposed innocence that adults have conferred upon him is hidden a sense of elusive guilt. Being nobody's son, he is nothing. As a result of his fault, disorder has wormed its way into the beautiful order of the world, a crack has appeared in the fullness of being.

Thursday 8 October 2009

print


Most gratifying to see that my review of the Thomas Hirchhorn show (as written in the DCA café the morning after the opening) has finally appeared in top Scottish listings periodical The Skinny: LINK

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Automatic Drawing Project (Service Class) - install

So the prints have now been framed and installed in the third-floor meeting room of the bank. There has been a great response to them and there will hopefully soon be a grand opening reception complete with drinks and snacks and the like. For now I have taken a few photos, sadly not all of which have come out too well due to the reflections in the glass. Hopefully there should still be enough of sufficient quality to give you a sort-of-idea:


Ashish Sharma - Untitled


Ben Robinson - The Intense Organism


Paul Harris - Untitled


Steven Thomson - Helping Hand


Carol McGovern and Lisa Robertson - Untitled


Cheryl McGuinness - Untitled


Adam Redpath - The Happy Carrot


Carol McGovern - Hello

Tuesday 6 October 2009

preview

From the Nine Trades blog:

All being well, today ought to see the completed Automatic Drawing Project (Service Class) installed on the walls of the bank's third-floor meeting room. Last week we sorted out which prints will make the final cut. Later on they will hopefully be framed and resplendent in the workplace.



Sunday 4 October 2009

set

Yet more launch-related info, this is a list of records that were played by myself during Friday's festivities:


Nightmoves – Transdance (UK club mix) (Copilote)


Nacho Patrol – Africaspaceprogram (Kindred Spirits)


Grackle – Desert Acid (Musiccargo version) (Supersoul Recordings)


Hypnotic Samba - Hypnotic Samba (ZYX)


Sharpe & Numan - Change Your Mind (Polydor)


Ganymed - It Takes Me Higher (Creole)


Connie Case - Get Down (Strut)


Alexander Robotnick - Made In China (IBM edit) (Crème Organization)

Edward Shallow live @ Yuck 'n Yum


...seeing as how I'm burying this blog under an avalanche of Yuck 'n Yum-related spam, here is a video clip of the mighty Edward Shallow. It's an extract from his live Nintendo Gameboy sound performance on Friday night.

Saturday 3 October 2009

autumn 09



STOP PRESS! Yuck 'n Yum's autumn 09 issue is now online and available for your delectation: LINK

autumn 09 launched

So last night's launch of the Yuck 'n Yum autumn 09 issue turned out to be a capital success, and we're all feeling ever so pleased with ourselves. Lots of punters in attendance for some red-hot DJ action from stella999 and the FlexiDJs plus a virtuoso live Gameboy performance from the mighty Edward Shallow. I took plenty of photos and here are a few of them: