I’ve been quiet here recently because I started an MA at the beginning of the month and it’s been a major life change. Not sure at the moment if I’ve done the right thing, but time will tell. For now, I only know, I get to Friday and collapse, cuddle in with the kids on the sofa and watch trash TV.
However, last weekend, I tried to incorporate my desire and need to see art constantly with the kids’ need to be anywhere that isn’t in front of a computer. And also have some time with my mother, who is abandoning us for her own life for a few weeks. I mean, really… How very dare she?
We set off for the Hayward Gallery to see Gerhard Richter’s small and free exhibition of drawings, many made during the lockdown times, although there are older ones too. Despite the middle child deciding it would be fun to pretend be Frank Reynolds at a gallery (from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – have you seen the episode? It was mortifying), which felt excruciatingly inappropriate, for the rest of us, the visit was just right. Short, manageable with children, and Richter’s conflicted conversation with blotches, squiggles and geometric lines probably perfectly reflected my own current internal tension.
Most interesting for me though, was a drawing in one of Richter’s books in the gallery shop which looked so much like some AI experiments I’d been playing with. See below. Anyone can make these pictures. The platform that built the engine provides the facility for free here. To make mine, I typed out a copy of a condolence letter which I’d received from a distant relative after my father died. I had been looking at various death related documents shortly after I began the MA, when we were asked to consider nothingness. I never used my experiments. But I do keep thinking about the whole process, so here are a couple of screenshots. The resemblance between these and a Richter drawing I noticed in his book is startling, even though the initial images the AI generated didn’t look anything like his work. Perhaps these impressions are as inappropriate as the child’s Always Sunny one. I can’t work it out.
This weekend, there are weird bubble critters at the Tate Modern to see and perhaps some burgers to devour too. Computers games can’t be avoided so maybe I’ll join in with those for a break from all this serious thinking I’m faced with. And perhaps things will stop being so quiet here, as I adjust to my new life… let’s see.
