Spaced out

Interesting challenges on a project I'm working with at the moment. I recently recieved a commission to produce photographic work which will be permantly installed in the new Health & well being centre, opening on the Antrim rd.
Its quite an interesting building and I certainly feel encouraged to be selected amongst a number of local artists.
I have been given two spaces to work with. One is a ground floor cafe with two seperate walls to work with, which is fairly straightforward. The 2nd is a top floor beautifully designed staff canteen with views overlooking Cave Hill & West Belfast through a series of simple but elegangtly placed windows.
The areas I have been given are the spaces between the windows around the circumference of the wall. This creates several issues, as the space is already in a way a work of design/art in the way it has been architecturally created and presents the outside landscape to the viewer. Any added visual material will not only contend with the view but also break up the continuity of the entire wall.
It is an interesting predicament to overcome before I can create the piece/pieces and how they are be mounted on the wall.
In some way the work needs to respond to the space itself but also the world outside without intruding but sit comfortably within it.
Answers on a postcard too.....

Careful now

Boop me up baaby!

BOOPY DOO I DO! 01/01/07

Well I said life was gonna change in a big way soon, just didn't know it was gonna happen right now!

Went to Jonny & Susan McEwens New Years Eve party to spin some tunes and wing the New Year in with a chilled night of good tunes, a bit of craic and a few friends.
I ended up proposing to Boops in front of everybody on one knee about half one in the morning, my headphones plugged into the mixer as a rudimentary mic.

I near well shat myself as I uttered the imoratal words of 'will you marry me' and all wee boops could do was bawl her wee eyes out for an hour as people danced on the backround and I made some attempt to play on into the wee hours.

So she never said yes, as she had always said I had to ask her dad 1st, so mr mojo here had to traipse round to the McElroy household bright and early on New Years day and do the honours.

Thankfully we cleared promptly off to Barcelona for 10 days where we recovered from the shock and found a wee ring and needless to say we are now happilly engaged!

R.I.P The Soul Godfather 03/04/33 - 25/12/06

A sad day for music heads everywhere. The Originator, the soul power, sex machine, funky drummer is gone to the great gig in the sky.

Time for thanks for one of the greatest musical legacies and uncompromising musical influences the world has ever seen. He's black and he 's proud in Belfast N.I as much as in Brooklyn NYC.
Respect from all the hip hop samplers, funk soul bruddas, Drum n' Bass heads and every DJ that spinned his tight ass soul tunes to a dance hungry crowd.
Respect J.B
Sofa Kid
26/12/06

Space between

Just been away for short break to Vienna, emphasise the short here; Left Fri night, returned Sunday night. Somewhere in between 'we', (Boopy doo and I) found enough time to explore some groovy boheme clothe shops, have a wee trawl through BLACKMARKET RECORDS - a treasure trove of German house/funk/deepsoul/beats delights where I disappeared for several hours & experience the 'real christmas market' - with hot mulled wine and charcoal cooked wedges. Forget City Hall christmas market guys, these are the people that invented it! Apart from that we lazed in supercool austro-germanic cafes and watched the wooly attired pensive Austrians swan by..

Heard 'Pepe Bradocks - Deep burnt' epic deep house tune in one of these and spent the rest of weekend with it in my head.I memorised the sound and didn't find out what it was till I got home.

Was a press trip for Boops, so while she gathered some info all I had to do was take the odd photo and stay in a 4 star hotel ( shucks someones got to do it, Definitely a place worth more exploration, would like to have uncovered some real life Hundertwasser and checked out some vienna nightlife of the Kruder & Dorfmeister variety. Save that for next time.
By the way they have some of the best transport systems in Europe, for example you can check in your bags at the railway station and you don't have to lift them again till you step off the plane back in Belfast. Comon Ulsterbus!!!!

A TIME FOR...

There was a time, when there was time for, blogs, books, walks in the rain, long lost photography trips on a sunday afternoons, late evenings looking for something to do.

Things have changed around pretty fast, funny I didn't even notice. Some tiny part of me laments it but thats quite ridiclous cause I hated it. Not going to go into details but life may never be the same again and its a freeing yet daunting thought.
The challenge now is to live life as it happens. Makes me think of one of my favourite quotes from HAGAKURE - Book of the Samurai (the narrative basis of the brillant 'GHOSTDOG' by JIM JARMUSCH)

"There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing left to pursue."

'Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai' by Tsunetomo Yamamoto

I mean we should celebrate the cold, hard, empty times as much as the dreamy fulfilled good times right?