width="500" />fuck understanding, live in confusion
—my Lit professor (via womyneyes)
I don’t consider myself overly nostalgic. I typically take things from the past (from pop culture to family photos) and somehow break those images down. I erase the identities in family photos. I either draw VHS tapes with permanent markers or reproduce them as pixelated images. My two overall themes are memory and change. So the memories typically come from my youth. I remember in the early 90s when I was in high school, I thought the 80s were so uncool and terrible and I would never look back fondly on that time, but it really was a special time. Bright colors. Max Headroom. The Goonies. The NES and digital technology in the early phases. I think using memory and change as my main themes, I’m really concerned with mortality. Not concern or fear or death, but that human element of knowing that we are limited. I think using personal memories rather than a generic idea of memory makes the mortality association more subtle or balanced.
Young Critic Engaging with John Lavery’s “Portrait of Anna Pavlova” (1911)
I’m always curious to hear how something was made—though I have no interest in why an artist did something, or what his work means. Like with Jackson Pollock: I’m always interested in what kind of paint and canvas he used, I just don’t want to know what he meant. You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.
—Soderbergh, hero extraordinaire (via vinylisheavy)
(via kenbaumann)
I am pleased to announce that my new book, ONE, a collaboration with Blake Butler & Vanessa Place, is now available from Roof Books. It’s an experiment wherein I asked Blake to write the exterior perspective and Vanessa to write the interior perspective; then I assembled the two into ONE.
Here’s the jacket copy:
From the room inside the room, from the house inside the house, memories of a one-legged father and various acts of jurisprudence haunt the mysterious creature who writhes in somatic isolation from one waking nightmare to another. Here, two writers have produced textual bodies: one speaking for the interior and the other describing the exterior, while a third writer has assembled these two bodies into a single grotesque symphony of chimerical language. A hitherto unprecedented collaborative experiment, ONE defies categorization and heralds a new approach to exploring the boundaries of authorship and narrative.
And here’s the blurb from Dennis Cooper:
In theory or even usually, three contemporary majors like Butler, Higgs, and Place interlocking works inside a single book would leave users fannishly dissecting more than reading, but One is something way else. It’s as sublimely integrated as any single-minded novel I can think of, but with this absolutely crazy mega-wattage. I.e., not since Ashbery and Schuyler co-made A Nest of Ninnies, but, whoa, even more so.
You can get it on Amazon.
At Barnes and Noble.
At Books-A-Million.
Or through Small Press Distribution.
If you are interested in reviewing it or conducting an interview, please email me!
bright
stupid
confetti
is back!!!
50 years ago today Jean-Luc-Godard’s Vivre sa vie premiered in France.
A day late, but worth commemorating. One of my all-time favorite films, made by my all-time favorite director.
ONE
written by Vanessa Place & Blake Butler
assembled by Christopher Higgs
published by Roof Books
From the room inside the room, from the house inside the house, memories of a one-legged father and various acts of jurisprudence haunt the mysterious creature who writhes in somatic isolation from one waking nightmare to another. In ONE two writers have produced textual bodies, one speaking for the interior and the other describing the exterior, while a third writer has assembled these two bodies into a single grotesque symphony of chimerical language. A hitherto unprecedented collaborative experiment, ONE defies categorization and heralds a new approach to exploring the boundaries of authorship and narrative.
Coming Soon
ONE
A Collaborative Experiment
Written by Blake Butler & Vanessa Place
Assembled by Christopher Higgs
Finisterrae (2010)
Finisterrae, “a bizarre, belated debut feature from 45-year-old writer-director Sergio Caballero” (Hollywood Reporter)
Finisterrae, “an absurd joke filmed photography Eduard Grau, one of the most impeccable of late, which tells the story of two ghosts, whose ordinary appearance a couple of sheets with holes to eye. One night, in a parking lot, decided to put some action to their boring lives and penitents, and rush to make the famous Camino de Santiago, so stop being human and become ghosts.” (Desist Film)
