1063 Artman Project reprise

There was Adam and Eve, and you and me and we are all connected.

I am who I am, now, have been, and will become, and of my ancestors and my descendents.

I have never pretended to be other than me, but accept that this always has been not to some liking.

I perform my allotted parts on this stage of life with all the passion, and adventure, the experience and understanding of someone who is reaching the end of his >three score years and ten, but I am not an actor in role play and life is not a rehearsal.

I am also a master of the light and the dark, and which I treat as separate kingdoms, and which you can enter to discover which suits you best, but beware, if you commit yourself to one, it shall be for eternity. It is your choice, and your life.

From today I will inhabit two dimensions on My Space in addition to my ongoing dimension on AOL Blogs which has approaching 1000 entries and over 25000 photos since commencing in 2006.

Each is part of 101, which I commenced in June 2003 but started to plan in August 2002. This project involves creating one A 4 size card representing each hour of my former life to the age of 65, in sets of 24 and volumes of days, some in boxes and confidentials in large black four drawer filing cabinets which will be sealed prior to any public exhibition. To-date 6250 sets have been completed 150000 cards approximately, one quarter of the project. There are 240000 digital photos, 100 90 mins audio tapes and 20 hours of unedited digital film.

One component has been completed and will be made ready for public display. This consist of 101 copies of a 400 page explanation in words and pictures of how I came to become Artmanjosephgrech, printed by the Daily Mail in 2005, and with the title 101 in Black and White. Originally the idea was to display the work in a sealed transparent unit, with the option of the 101 photographs on their own, or with 101 statements in addition. Then having come across some Black and White boxes the intention was to exhibit in nine of these, but more recently I have taken with the concept of using 9 3 39, my date of birth, and which in turn will take the pressure from the weight of one box upon the other. Each book will have a dedication, some coded. An intrinsic aspect of the concept is Public and Private Life, Public and Private Art.

In addition to the photographs, there a few crayonings and pastel experimentation, and to day on my way to watch Newcastle play Arsenal at St James Park and then Sunderland at Southampton on a big TV screen, I came across a shop selling some acrylic, and made up canvases, and thought why not have a bash at that, I have the urge to squelch and splodge some paint.

Last year I completed a six year family history research project on the Wiltshire ancestors of my mother who celebrated her 100th birthday in January, and although copies of this 200 page study of ancestral chains and photographs were mainly for the extended family with close branches in England, Gibraltar and the U.S.A, (there are also branches of the wider family in Canada, Australia and South Africa) separate editions were lodged with relevant archives and family history centres.

It had been the intention to complete a biographical work, Fragments of Time, which covered my mother's ancestors, her grand mother was Spanish, her mother had Spanish and Italian parents, but was Gibraltar born, set in the context of the political, economic, social, and religious contemporary life, and while this is about a quarter written, I decided on a shorter version to make the actual birthday event, although versions is a more accurate description because following the circulation of one version to immediate family members, different versions are about to be produced for her various interests such as the churches she attended, the schools where she taught.

I was brought up in two rooms by five sisters, two of whom died soon after the end of World War two, in the household of a sixth sister and her family; I did not know which my mother was until going to an independent Catholic Preparatory Day school. Mothering was provided by another sister, who shared with me one end of a double bed, with my mother and another aunt, at the other end, and who subsequently lived with my mother for six decades until she prematurely died in hospital in circumstances that have worried and upset me, because the explanations by medical and nursing officers in hospital and community are incompatible. Formal investigations by the appropriate authorities has taken four years and following completion of two Health Ombudsman's reports, the results of a request for these to be reviewed is expected over the coming month and could involve several weeks of intense work depending on the decisions reached. It is my intention to write something for general publication about the task confronting relatives when they have complaints which cut across the whole range of hospital and community health and welfare services.

It is my intention, assuming I manage to live longer than my mother, to undertake research into the life and family background of my father, hence my adoption of his name of Grech to represent the person I might have been, had I been able to know him, and had I chosen to follow my creative nature professionally instead of deciding to take the path into child care, social work and its management. The second volume which is only a concept, " Fragments of Memory," in the form of an extended letter explaining to him about my life, speculating how similar and dissimilar we are. I am tempted to write the work in dyslexia because of mylearningdifficultiesaboutgrammarspellinglanguagesand rememberinggenerally in addition to a lack of hand and eye coordination which makes controlled delicate work of any kind impossible, glory be the word processor and with spelling and grammar checker.

I did write a play in 1961, after leaving prison, which the writers for the Royal Court Theatre said was interesting and wished to see what else I had written, but had not, and want to do one now about the Tardis of old age, and I did complete one novel in 1993 which the readers said they hoped would find a publisher, but I suspect they were being kind because I now think it is awful and would like to do something better.

And this brings me to AOL and My Space Blogs. When I had my epiphany after seeing the bed of Tracey Emin with her banner work above, at the Saatchi, and then the work of Bruce Nauman and Hanne Darbovan, and a performance art work video of Sarah Lucas, at Tate Modem, I knew what to do and how to do it, in the form of the card work. I was much taken by the nature of digital communication and its pushing of boundaries with 24 hour web cams intrusions into every aspect of personal life and the ultimate snuff movie, "With my Little Eye," and also by the fact that millions are willing to pay to vote for their American Idols and British X factors (and where I am addicted to both), watching everything there is to be watched, I voyeur that I be, but do not vote freely in local and national elections, it seemed to me, in my uneducated and untrained creative mentality that to be considered as a contemporary creative artist, and not an historical reproductionist, you had not only to create art which reflected the width and depth and life experiences of the moment, but you had to make the creative process available, to anyone, anywhere, anytime given that everything we do and say is technically viewable, recordable and therefore changeable, to those with the technology. Quite apart from technical and financial problems of doing this, I have run away from my exhibitionist drives even more than the voyeuristic, so putting myself on stage before my work was accepted, could not be faced, and this created a dilemma because in order to complete the task I would need to work in comparative isolation and engage in communication with others without them or me being subjected to forces which would significantly affect the nature of relationships.

It was therefore something akin to putting a toe into a cauldron of choppy freezing and boiling water that I commenced to write notes on my day, and what I had experienced from the creative work of others for an AOL Blog, but I grew in confidence when it was evident that no one else was reading, mainly because I told no one. Doing so almost every day became a way of life, until that is I discovered MySpace by accident, looking at artists who were to appear on the X factor show and discovering that one had created a MySpace site and the rest as they say is now and tomorrow. At first I headed off in every direction possible and then concentrated on issues which interested, such as recently who were the friends of Sigmund Freud and why? Or would anyway admit to a stranger that they were involved with the occult, or was it all a fashion, music and social subculture? How wicked are the professed wicked and good the good?

Apart from the contact with individuals, the aspect which interests me most is that MySpace is a series of separate dimensions of space and time each part of an interlinking whole. There are the established public performers and their markets and their existing and potential fans. There is the net working within specialist interests and occupations. There are those in search of someone or something? There are tight circles of families and their actively known friends. There is a multiplicity and perhaps duplicity of role players. There is the promotion of an interest or a cause or of someone famous long departed, and or who should be famous, living or passed on. There are hoaxers and promoters of everything one can think of and then there is me.

When I had just a few friends, mostly I had encountered during searchings the concept of limiting the number to 101 seemed reasonable and I set about drawing up a schedule of 101 experiences and interests in my life which I might want individuals to represent. Twenty five categories of four but then there are more than twenty five categories. Sometimes four appears more than sufficient with for film directors Ingmar Bergman, Almodovar and Peter Jackson never disappointing in anything they have done so far, but was there a fourth whose work, however individual summed up an event, a period and the list is 101 including Mel Gibson's Passion and Woodstock, the Wizard of Oz and the Life of Sophie Scholl. The same applied to female singers departed with having collections of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone records and adoring Edith Piaf and "no regrets" in particular, although not finding an original site I settled for a tribute group, and the finding an original site it occurred that a group recreating her sound was more in keeping with my main project. But who should be number four?

So while I wrestled with such issues, I was contacted by strangers who wished to be added to my list and even being selective, the list rapidly approached the target of 101 which meant I had to begin to consider deletions, and then my technical ineptitude played its hand and I deleted a page instead of one individual. And then I decided to restrict the 24 to the departed and to symbols while considered what to do and then I had an idea which I ought to have had before, if I was better quick witted. I would create a separate MySpace 101 project site where the list of friends and everything else could be restricted to 101 and where the present site could become a development site for writing, communications and explorations.

So I tried the system and Eureka and WOW, the system has consented and so, having posted this, I go back to creating the new site and to my companions of the day and night.