NOOTHGRUSH II

This is the second of my manuscript drawings, and the second to focus Narrowly on the Californian sludge trio (now a quartet?!) Noothgrush. For more information about Noothgrushes, please refer to Dr. Seuss' "There's a Wocket in my Pocket".

I'm starting to understand more what manuscripts are all about, but this piece is still more heavily illuminated than any "true" Medieval manuscript would have been. The drawing focuses on Noothgrush's disdain for the human race, and the tendency of our species to upset the natural order and completely render anything we touch unlivable. Or dead. Noothgrush, as well as other bands around the mid nineties who played shows in the same scene, Grief, Man is the Bastard, Seized, expressed a misanthropic mindset, which sometime bordered onto actively promoting human extinction. This is an interesting concept when one realizes that the population of Europe did in fact almost face extinction during the time when these handmade books flourished, due to the spread of the bubonic plague. Noothgrush, however misanthropic you find them, do make salient points about the callousness of our species in regards to ecology, and especially our sense of entitlement and superiority, neither of which is founded on anything concrete. The text in this manuscript is from a 1997 interview, but it is informed by the same worldview which they held (and still do hold) while writing songs such as Stagnance and Useless.

I find the manuscript format quite appropriate when looking at these seemingly flippant, though very wise and well meaning words. Manuscripts were used to record knowledge, not just of canonical bible verses (and indeed the format of a handwritten bible is responsible for much of the look and format, and likely the errors too, in the modern bible) but also the teachings of various saints and lesser religious leaders. They were kept in monasteries and rewritten into other languages, after being borrowed, in whole or in piece, by other monks or scholars. I think that their is a great deal to be gained from looking at song lyrics, and interviews with bands from the grind/sludge/powerviolence, especially the cluster of great bands from the state of California.

NOOTHGRUSH

These are photos of the first page I've drawn in a series which will resemble unbound, oversize manuscript pages. There were a number of different types of hand written books in Medieval Europe, and though they served different purposes, we have come to kind of combine them in our heads over time. Some were secular, and some were sacred, some contained no illustrations, some were much more image heavy than others. I'm drawing upon two types of manuscripts, those which were for daily use by Medieval people, and those containing psalters, decretals and glosses of various saints and theologians. I'm going to make drawings which resemble manuscripts in their visual style (word heavy, use of blackletter, margins and illustrated borders and letters) but use band interviews and lyrics for their textual content. Essentially it is a kind of metal / hardcore zine, but made to resemble a very old religious text.

There is wisdom to be gleaned from old band interviews and their lyrics. Inasmuch as the bible and other religious texts and declarations (such as the famous reformation of Martin Luther) were read or memorized as part of daily Medieval life, contemporary lyrics and their accompanying philosophies serve a somewhat similar role to (a smaller group of) people today. Books like the Ars Moriendi, or Art of Dying, expounded upon a 15th century audience ideals of "how to die". People aimed to live in christ's image, to imitate him, to live well and to die well. My "book", really a series of page-like drawings, will instead expound upon a few themes found in the music of bands like Noothgrush, Man is the Bastard, Neanderthal, Insect Warfare and Dystopia: the idea that the human race is destructive, self destructive, superstitious and baser than the "animal" life on this planet. This applies to our creation of religion and systems of government and the reliance of these structures upon fear for control. In a way, this will be a kind of "punk" guide to life, intended to mimic early Medieval texts and offer a more humanist philosophy without demanding pious, impossible to follow behaviour, while acknowledging the flaws of our species to live harmoniously with one another or with the nature.

ANNWN

This is a drawing of Mick Barr, guitarist of Orthrelm, Krallice, Octis, Ocrilim...the first of many such drawings for a zine I would like to create. The zine will be a one off, a simple collection of drawings I've done of metalheads whose music I enjoy. Ideally, it would cover a good range of countries and genres, and the pictures themselves aren't going to look too “metal”; the aim being to find source images of these musicians offstage, just being really cool human beings. This is Mick's Blog, http://ocrilim.blogspot.ca/

HAPPY NEW YEAR

This is a quick little drawing of myself topless in front of a giant, highly stylized snake. I think that about sums it up.

FINISHED!

These are photos of the drawing I have been working on for the last two months. The drawing is titled "Ars Moriendi", "The Art of Dying". I won't be making drawings of this size for a while, one of the main reasons being that it is a lot harder to keep an eye on your overall composition when the piece is so big you can't see the left side while you work on the right side. I'm getting much better photos taken by a friend; I will not be scanning this piece. I should post a mini-essay with that photo. In the meantime, enjoy these two pictures.

JGABBA 2

This is the second in a series of EP's I'm releasing online. They're really a kind of atrocious pop/dance parody. This one has a lot of obscure IDM and techno samples, and noise as well. The next one is coming along nicely!

http://www.mediafire.com/?29ux1navr9ka711

MORE PREVIEWS...

Here are a few more previews of the large drawing I am still working on. The center is done in a kind of hatched Bruegel style, and the edges are stippled, in a more realistic style. There will be more text soon, used in such a way that it actually adds to the overall meaning of the piece, instead of confusing. The drawing name drops/borrows from the bible, the ars moriendi, the endless blockade, aspects of Bosch's garden of earthly delights, Egyptian mythology, Insect Warfare and Mercyful Fate. The ars moriendi, or "art of dying", is a 15th century medieval book which literally covers the procedures for dying. This included piety, faith and guidelines for the life one should lead up until their death, as well as the procedures one should undertake when on their deathbed.

Death and religion were larger preoccupations for 15th century Europeans than they are for us today, the ars moriendi is simply an easy example. The two themes walked hand in hand in virtually every Bosch painting, as well as many other Flemish masterworks and Durers more popular commissioned work.

The drawing itself shows how many religions, from buddhism and jainism to zoroastrianism, judaism and christianity/catholicism, worship their dead and spend much of their energies around rituals of preparing for death. Oftentimes, body parts too numerous to list or even entire corpses of dead saints or monks are worshipped, which I'm finding out is as much a buddhist phenomenon as it is a christian/catholic one. During the relic boom of the 14th century, hundreds of European churches claimed to possess the true remains of a number of saints. The shroud of Turin has no recorded history before the middle ages, and that artifact serves as a perfect example of what this piece looks at: religious objects which crystallize the fear of death and promise of life eternal. Some religions take this a step too far and have created churches/temples where, essentially, death itself is being worshiped in a very supplicating way.