Simon Glass
News and Musings
June 28, 2011, Kincardine, Ontario:
If paradox is the answer, it must also not be the answer.
In his introduction to The Book of Dead Philosophers, Simon Critchley objects to the notion that the life of a philosopher is not significant. He notes that most histories of philosophy “wester” and “bester”, that the history of philosophy considers itself to begin with the Greeks. He is “highly dubious as to whether the spirit of philosophy can be separated from the body of the philosopher and deeply sceptical about the belief that philosophy makes progress of a scientific kind.” (pp. xxxiii – xxxiv) I guess the notion that there is a positivistic element of philosopy arises in the Enlightenment. Does philosopy progress towards the Truth? A hermeneutic or deconstructive approach to the lives of philosopers does not preclude this.
A small bird raises its head and sings the same tune repeatedly. Its branch bobs in the breeze. Clouds sail from the west and cover the midday sun.
For Joseph F. Graham in Philosophy in the Cratylus, language was made to tell the truth. But falsehood – erupts? rings? flutters? – in every word (a word for “hides” that begins with “f”).
May 29, 2008, Jerusalem:
Certainly the Book of Jeremiah was redacted after his death. But even during the reign of King Josiah, vassal first of Assyria, then of Egypt, it may not have been that hard to predict the rise of the Babylonian Empire and what the land between the Euphrates and the Sinai peninsula might have meant to them. The destruction of the temple could have been foreseen.
And what does the Rebbe Derrida say about religion? "In principle, it is possible to sanctify, to sacralize the unscathed or to maintain oneself in the presence of the sacrosanct in various ways without bringing into play an act of belief, if at least belief, faith or fidelity signifies here acquiescing to the testimony of the other -- of the utterly other who is inaccessible in its absolute source. And there where every other is utterly other. Conversely, if it carries beyond the presence of what would offer itself to be seen, touched, proven, the acquiescence of trust still does not in itself necessarily involve the sacred." ie.: religion is potentially psychotic.
It's very hard to watch "my people" treat the Palestinians so poorly. What catastrophe may they be bringing upon all of us?
See Jeremiah 4:23-27
May 2, 2008: I have accepted an offer from the Ontario College of Art and Design to be Assistant Dean, Faculty of Art as of July 1. This is a tenure track position and will pretty much guarantee that the next three years will be a chance to make a difference and one of the best learning experiences of my life.
April 27, 2008: You're all invited to the launch of Prefix Photo 17. Prefix is the internationally distributed Canadian photography semi-annual magazine. The entire suite of ten prints, "The Ten Commandments/Prohibited Weapons" will be reproduced together with an essay by historian, curator, and Derrida scholar Dr. Louis Kaplan. See you at the Prefix Institute, 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto, 1st floor on May 1, 2008 from 7 to 10pm. Click here for details.
January 2, 2008: I'm happy to report that a complete suite of prints, "The Thirteen Attributes of God", has been acquired by the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, silver prints, 20x24", framed to 31x35", year of production, 2001. View the work on this site under artworks>Thirteen Attributes of God or just click here
November 4, 2007: It's clear that I need to go back to the Middle East with 4x5 equipment to shoot with in the desert. How long did it take Jeremiah to get from Jerusalem to Egypt? There's no description in the Book of Jeremiah of the journey which must have taken months at least. Were his guides and companions ancestors of today's Bedouins? Did he stop at Ein Gedi? These are some of the questions I will try to answer before a return trip, hopefully in May. Meanwhile, finding equipment on ebay, like a 90mm f/4.5 Grandagon is proving to be a royal pain in the butt.
September 28, 2007: You are invited to the upcoming launch of "Pro Forma", an anthology of artists' projects and texts on art and language. My annotated translation of the Story of the Tower of Babel is anthologized there. October 10, at 7pm, at YYZ Artists' Outlet, 401 Richmond Street West, here in Toronto.
September 28, 2007: Do I have some kind of middle-aged artist's syndrome? I can't remember the last time I had any kind of artist's block. Usually, towards the end of a body of work, I'd have some kind of sense of the beginning of the next one. And once I got started there would be permutations and shifts along the way but, I was always able to move forward. Well, I've had the book of Jeremiah on my mind for some time now but, another series of prints feels, at the moment tiresome.
Is the artistic object dead? If it's coughing up blood we ought to diagnose. I'm certainly still capable of being stimulated to thought by objects in galleries. But it's clear that there is more activity -- and innovation -- on the net. Have you ever experienced a web based project in a gallery? Could have stayed home, eh?
This website has been built with Go Live, an application that is now more or less obsolete but, I recently had a short lesson in HTML (talk about obsolete). For recent experiments, view http://webspace.ocad.ca/~sglass
June 27, 2007: I've just accepted an offer from the Ontario College of Art and Design to be Acting Chair of First Year, Faculty of Art.
May 26, 2007, Jerusalem: Hebrew, formerly solely the language of Torah and of prayer, is now a secular language as well. In the 1920's, Gershom Scholem, Hebraist, wrote to his friend Franz Rosenzweig, Yiddishist, about his reservations, his confessions of ambivalence about making Hebrew secular. But, then, the "secularization of language" is "just a manner of speaking". Still, we walk over an abyss ...
February, 2007: "On the Tower of Babel" is my new suite of prints. This work combines English typography, Hebrew calligraphy, computer code, colour and gold leaf.
The confounding of language undoes the tower at its most elemental level ...
My annotated translation of the story of the Tower of Babel is to be published in "Pro Forma", a collection of artist's projects and essays edited by Jessica Wyman, by YYZ Press in the fall. A launch date will be announced soon.