Fieldnotes

matranson — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 07:49:20 +0000

He looked down. His gnarled and dirt-crusted nails carefully rotating the matchbox, the sound of surf smashed on the shore behind him. His brown back cooled by a breeze, broad with muscle taught from toiling in the burning sun. His index finger pushed the inner match tray out of the box. A memory escaped like a perfume. Inside was a yellowing note wrapped crudely in cellophane and taped at either end to waterproof it. On the paper someone had typed in a straight line ‘I just heard you’re still alive so if you’re reading this say your prayers cos I’m coming for you’.

matranson — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:47:05 +0000

Malford enjoyed the second hand shop. He’d wandered down to the end of the floor in a shopping mall frothing with weekenders keen to spend. So much for sale and yet nothing was here. A woman selling fruit looked at him longingly as he passed. Malford was probably the first customer she’d seen in an hour. As he was about to turn back he noticed some old cameras in a shop window. Behind the cameras sat an old Super8 film camera, it’s black and chrome case leaning against a deep sea diving light. Malford found the door and went in. They had everything. The lives and experiences of other people stacked up in a labyrinth of short corridors. A German solid-state amplifier; a Chinese compass encased in chrome; a Japanese poster of old film cameras; American electric guitars; a Thai soldiers’s helmet replete with camo cover, hardly scratched; switch-blades; stamps; foil pictures; crossbows; archer’s arrows; karaoke microphones.

He could have spent all day in there. He had to buy something. Not so much to own the thing but to remind him he’d once stood in the shop, in case he never came back. He chose an analogue light meter. It came in a little pouch. The dials on top were still clear and the glass unmarked. He had no idea if he’d use it, perhaps just keep it in his pocket, but there was something already comforting about owning it. It was already a totem. Two minutes later he left the shop and the light meter was his. The price hadn’t mattered.

Champignon (excerpt)

matranson — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 07:26:19 +0000

ASH: (Telephoning emergency services) Come on–come on…
MAN: You calling someone, mate?
ASH: Yeah. Hello?–yeah I need to report an accident. Ambulance please. Shit. Hello?–yeah, an ambulance. How long will–
MAN #1: Should we move him?
ASH: I’m on Squirrie Street, East London. Er– yeah– I’m outside Tescos
MAN #1: I’m gonna move him
KAREN: Ash. Ashley?
ASH: I’m on the phone–yeah
KAREN: You’d better call an ambulance
ASH: It’s a car accident. Someone got hit, knocked off a motorbike
MAN #2: Don’t move him. Wait till the paramedics get here
KAREN: Did the police call you?
MAN #1: Alright. Are you a doctor? There’s no blood
KAREN: How did they know?

That From Which We Hide

matranson — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 05:49:20 +0000

My plant was dying. I’d moved it from beside the window, “it shouldn’t need much light or water” she had said. I had stroked its leaves.

“Don’t do that”. She stared at me.
“Why not?”
“Would you liked to be stroked like that?”

I stared back, ready to laugh. She stood resolute with her hands in a green apron. Years of early morning work etched on her face like warpaint. I bought the plant for fifteen quid. And now it was dying because I couldn’t take care of it. And now it suffered, leaning on the wall like an old man.

Dream Within A Dream

matranson — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:35:44 +0000

One of the themes underpinning Philip K Dick’s fiction is Authenticity. Recently, I followed a link to a film trailer called A Bigger Splash, a 1973 film by David Hockney. I am familiar with Hockney and his work, yet when I watched this trailer I had the uncanny feeling it was a mockumentary; a pastiche of the past. I had absolutely no idea whether a real film called A Bigger Splash existed at all. As I watched, I couldn’t follow the plot of the trailer because I was too busy scrutinising everything else: the quality of the picture (was it shot on film?); the settings; the editing; the actor playing Hockney, for a sign that it was (or wasn’t) authentic.

We seem to have reached a tipping point with images, both still and moving, where people are easily capable of emulating yesterday so that it is indistinguishable from today. With a little craft, our images can be placed in any era of photography that has gone before and our films include a level of imitation and subtle nuance that can make it a challenge to realise they aren’t from the time they are imitating.

Clearly it is no longer enough to look at something from the past because it simply reminds us of the past. There is an added dimension to our visual culture where we know that the image is recent and it retains an essence of the present, yet it has been manipulated to also look older than it genuinely is. In this sense our images are a mise en abyme: a dream within a dream. We’re doing this en masse with photography apps and we’re watching it on YouTube and in the cinema. And then we have this kind of stuff too.

I have been bouncing this idea around since I saw the trailer for A Bigger Splash, but the metaphor lies succinctly in PKD’s The Man In The High Castle in which the character Childan owns an antiques store selling Americana. All the items are assumed to be of historical interest, yet many are of doubtful authenticity. This means the timeline from the past to the present is corrupt and historicity is thrown into confusion.

The double-bind here is that A Bigger Splash was genuinely made in the 70s. Here is the trailer, see what you think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2sEkXKxQs8