part two
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	november, 1959 - or "musicality" the refrain has obvious connections to sonics the birdsong sound as a way of territorializing a space of delimiting a space the neighbours radio, for example
but i want to think of musicality also in terms of thought patterns the melodic landscape of thoughts thoughts as an unvoiced song with the same feel for movement that music has this ‘feel for movement’ is what i’m interested in the movements of thought i experience with the paintings of turner a musicality of sensation a melodic landscape of thought with harmonies and discord

november, 1959 - or "strolling through the clore" what is it to stand in front of a painting? shall we go away and write something? write about what? how it made you feel? did it work for you? etc.

use some biography use some art history contextualise and criticise something etc. there is the ‘object’ and then there is ‘me’ maybe… or to be in front of it and thinking thinking it… i’m just walking strolling with my friends through the clore gallery we’re just talking that’s all can we see the object, the thing, the painting in isolation? for me, no how then can we think of it? i want to think of being in some kind of chaotic sea of forces all kinds of forces coming together memory as a force colour, light, heat and sound as forces a sensory landscape of forces heterogeneous blocks "each is a landscape, plus a man’s soul" hardy wrote this about turner's water colours in 1889 17 we can think about these ‘heterogeneous blocks’ as a variety of different ‘milieus’ "from chaos, milieus and rhythms are born…" 18 "milieus are defined by a component, they slide in relation to one another, over one another…" 19 "every milieu is vibratory, in other words a bloc of space-time constituted by the periodic repetition of the component" 2o what here is space-time? in front of a painting blocs of space-time are produced melodic landscapes of sensation melodic landscapes of sensation that are produced, that have a duration blocs of sensation "imagine ones self in molecular microscopic conditions" 21 the harmonising of other milieus, musical chords of sensations the vibrations of milieus patterns of thought musical assemblages wave patterns interference patterns seeing as thinking… deleuze in conversation talking about music: "there is a whole line of thought which tries to establish sonorous lines, not all in comparison with, but which would pass by way of or find in the sonorous world something analogous to optics…a new sonorous space which would take account of certain optical phenomena…" 22 a melodic landscape of light periodic repetitions the waveform of a musical note a sine wave a periodic repetition light waves vibrating molecules wave particle duality thought patterns vibrating chemicals neurons memories intensities sliding in relation to one another rhythmic characters happenings at the microbiotic level chemical bodies… the ‘interior milieu of composing elements’ and an ‘exterior milieu of materials’ 23 what i am and the painting, but not just that… its not just what i am that is fusing and mutating with the painting, the painting is mutating and fusing with what i am an aparallel evolution a mutual deterritorialization becoming-painting this moment in front of a work in front of a turner painting a chaotic sea of forces comes together… as i studied one of the paintings my foot caught something on the floor. it was a small circular brass plate with a hole in the middle. they are used to place the barrier poles in. i remembered that in tate liverpool, where i worked for five years, we used these holes to play ‘gallery golf’. we designed an 18 hole course. we named the holes after the nearest painting. i remember the ‘picasso hole’ quite well.

december, 1959 -or "a painting as a site of intensity" a painting as a production site of intensities but a site that can be revisited intensities that can be reactivated

the way brian massumi describes the deleuze and guattari’s concept of the ‘plateau’ is useful: "the word ‘plateau’ comes from an essay by gregory bateson on balinese culture, in which he found a libidinal economy quite different from the west’s orgasmic orientation. for deleuze and guattari, a plateau is reached when circumstances combine to bring an activity to a pitch of intensity that is not automatically dissipated in a climax leading to a state of rest. the heightening of intensities is sustained long enough to leave a kind of afterimage of its dynamism that can be reactivated or injected into other activities, creating a fabric of intensive states between which any number of connecting routes could exist" 24 "each segment of deleuze and guattari’s writing tries to combine conceptual bricks in such a way as to construct this kind of intensive state in thought. the way the combination is made is an example of what they call ‘consistency’-not in the sense of a homogeneity, but as a holding together of disparate elements (also known as a "style"). a style in this sense, as a dynamic holding together or mode of composition…" 25 let us think here about painting as a site of intensity an intensity producer a bloc of sensations a melodic landscape of sensations when i visit this site, when i visit this ‘monument’ there are vibrations between milieus between what i am and the painting the painting as a body what i am as a collection of intensive sensations and the painting as a body intensities are reactivated

monday, january 9, 196o - or "looking at painting" paul klee wrote in his notes in september 1914: "i should like to create an order from feeling and, going still further, from motion" 26 what does he mean here? chaotic intensities momentarily harmonised the momentary creation of a home sometimes, sometimes, sometimes…

painting as chaos the late turner’s as chaos it’s not all of it that appeals it may only be a certain section of the canvas a certain passage mark it with a circle draw a circle around one of cezanne’s apples on the table corner draw a circle around a ‘picasso foot’ this circle becomes the home this home is not fixed the circle may move all kinds of factors are involved a threshold is not a line this circle is our ‘steady pace’ our circle is what ‘makes sense’ if only for a moment it resonates and vibrates it pulsates it is alive the rest of canvas outside the circle is chaos but it is necessary for the home to exist this doesn’t happen on the canvas or in the mind there is no subject or object it is the in-between all we have are rhythms harmonies and discord the in-between "between that which is constructed and that which grows naturally, between mutations from the inorganic to the organic, from plant to animal, from animal to humankind, yet without this series constituting a progression…in this in-between, chaos becomes rhythm" 27

january 2o, 196o - or "the organic and the inorganic" let us think about rhythms between milieus between organic and inorganic what i am and the painting the painting and what i am

in his book ‘a thousand years of nonlinear history’ manuel de landa talks about an "organic chauvinism that leads us to underestimate the vitality of the intensive processes of becoming (what he terms ‘self-organisation’) in other spheres of reality; "we forget that, despite the many differences between them, living creatures and their inorganic counterparts share a crucial dependence on intense flows of energy and materials. in many respects the circulation is what matters, not the particular forms that it causes to emerge. as the biogeographer ian g. simmons puts it, ‘the flows of energy and mineral nutrients through an ecosystem manifest themselves as actual animals and plants of a particular species.’ our organic bodies are, in this sense, nothing but temporary coagulations in these flows: we capture in our bodies a certain flow at birth, then release it again when we die and micro-organisms transform us into a new batch of raw materials." 28 on ilky moor the worms’ll cum an eat thee up…

february 1, 196o - or "having rhythm" the rhythm of memory the rhythm of the sea the rhythm of the flash of the light house rays the rhythm of life;

"the sea moaned- more than moaned -among the boulders below the ruins, a throe of its tide being timed to regular intervals. these sounds we’re accompanied by an equally periodic moan from the interior of the cottage chamber; so that the articulate heave of the water and the articulate heave of life seemed but differing utterances of the selfsame troubled terrestrial being- which in one sense they were" 29 rhythms between generations between avice her daughter and her granddaughter genetic rhythms i chew like my granddad at a glance i can see his face in my reflection who is your father? it doesn’t have to mean anything we can disrupt all this depersonalise as affirmative we don’t have to listen to our father where is your father? wiz mi fatha? he is at the dentist having his teeth pulled out by mr tordoff the seventy odd year old dentist with thick nicotine stained fingers fingers that think as the nurses hold down your arms, tordoff holds the gas mask over your face you fight and break free a line of drift you’re running down the beach with the nurses in pursuit you wake up on a settee with blood dripping from your mouth into a bucket and another cat has been strangled in royston "oh come with me to the rolling sea where the weather is calm and still we’ll have some fun and laughter with the adventures of portland bill" 3o yes, i am in the privet hedge it’s blossoming, i’m walking back from work i can smell the blossom it’s drifted, wafted through space and time "he stretched out his hand upon the rock beside him. it felt warm. that was the islands personal temperature when in its afternoon sleep as now" 31 i’m slouched in the armchair with a strawberry yoghurt watching postman pat a-level maths it’s a beautiful summers day outside it’s a beautiful summers day outside i can hear steady pounding of a hammer my sister is about one year old she’s riding on mi dads back the pit is in the background always there, looming…

march, 196o - or "marks on the floor" the clore gallery has some strange marks on the floor. in one place especially. there is an ovular shaped mark about 2 ft by 1ft. in the past the gallery had guards in every room. they would sit in fixed positions, day after day, year after year. over time their feet gradually wore away the varnish. gradually eroding the surface of the wood.

i stand on the spot where the chair used to be and try to imagine the amount of hours people have spent here, fixed in place. i try to imagine the glacier of thoughts that has moved through this space. most of the thinkers that sat here have moved on, retired or died. what did paul klee mean when he said; "i cannot be grasped in the here and now. for my dwelling place is as much among the dead as the yet unborn" 32 can we ever be grasped in the here and now? i look over to a wall of turner i wonder if it’s possible to soak up the light reflected off of these paintings through the membranes of the skin can this light lodge in my pores? can it enter my bloodstream? affect the chemical make up of my body? vibrations between milieus, between external and internal milieus my granddad wouldn’t have thought so, if it couldn’t be seen with the naked eye then it didn’t exist. i remember how he would listen in disbelief at adverts selling products to unblock pores "holes in skin? dun’t talk daft…some people’ll believe ote! " i remember a photograph by andreas gursky, a german artist it was a photograph of the carpet in front of famous works of art at moma in new york. i remember being interested in the idea of a camera being a machine to catch light. light reflected from a pollock. the light itself the light from a painting here, the carpet captures light in its fibres this reflected light is confused and chaotic it’s the same light that our eyes would have focused and ordered but as it’s reflected from the carpet it has become chaotic the message has been scrambled, disorganised, unordered it is beyond meaning, asignifying, yet it is still the light from a pollock

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