PRINTED MATTER magazine
october 2014 issue
PRINTED MATTER is half journal. The other half is fun with an iMac and a few photos over the course of a few evenings during the week. It’s written in English, but it’s mostly thought out in Afrikaans. It appears monthly, or so. It consists entirely of photos culled from iPhoto on the iMac, which serves as a sort of collective shoebox for images I made with the iPhone. It’s an attempt to escape and circumvent the ‘i’ - the ‘invisible’, electronic photo, and for that purpose Printed Matter is primarily produced as a ink and paper publication. Most images are mine, a few belong to Adeline, via the inevitable ethereal, omnious photostream that tangled our lives in so many ways. That’s all for now.
I have this notion to draw thirty drawings on a Gautrain ride from Park Station to Pretoria. Why thirty? I don’t know, it sounded like a nice round number and it would give me about a minute and half to do each one, which may be challenging. This here isn’t the first drawing with that intent, it’s just a drawing. I can’t remember where I drew it but it may have been sitting at the station, or in the office. Or in bed during morning coffee. Drawing for me has always been an impromptu ritual. So perhaps Picasso went through that ritual seventy thousand times during his lifetime. Or perhaps only once or twice.
Rosebank. We walked back hand in hand from Piza e Vino, and just before we reached Gautrain station I looked up and there was the shiny green Holiday Inn tower above us, and a sickle moon behind it. I couldn’t catch the moon on film, so to speak, but the tower looked pretty. I put the iPhone away and Adeline pressed the button at the lift with the ‘C’ on it. Concourse. We loved Gautrain. It probably loved taking us home after a romantic pizza too.
Roast vegetables, a kitchen ritual. A firm favourite with us, and of course the obligatory slices of Meze haloumi and small tomatoes. But this time there were exotic mushrooms as well. Expensive. Shasimi, and a few other names I can’t remember. Because rituals are there to be adapted and changed. Into new ones, just add mushrooms.
The View
From the parking garage at Gautrain Park Station, that is. Mostly the view is unimpressive and rather grey dull, but especially during the height of Gauteng summer, during the balmy post-thunder shower time of day it had moments of brightness, or bright enough that when I opened it in Dynamic Light on the iPhone the colours would, in the parlance of the day, ‘pop’. Become ridiculously bright and unnatural but somehow stimulate some obscure brain chemical enough to bring about a feeling of wonder. Which was good enough for me, and my handful of Facebook friends.
From The Roof
Let me say it in big letters.
Gautrain. Train, bus, station, parking, gold card, bus stop, turnstiles, commuters, everything Gautrain. A few times a week I took part in this sort of a piece of theatre. Each time I joined in it was an hour and fifteen minute act that perhaps, for this period in my life, was the setting for most of the images I created. For which I’m glad. I enjoyed the stage. I liked Gautrain.
It had been a long time coming, the photomarathon. It’s a long story. In my head, that is. And then it became a process to get it out of there and into the street. I took many images during this time that all had something to do with the photomarathon. Sometimes we walked around in the messy streets of Brixton and Mayfair, perhaps teasing fate, to see if we’d get mugged or harassed, and if we’d be okay. We ended up being fine, so we knew when if happened it would be fine. Perhaps the angels were watching over us.
When Mom phoned, she asked: “How’s the little one?’ That was Lexi, of course. She was fine, thank you. She was in the sock drawer, here. Which means she was happy. She wasn’t that little anymore, compared to, say, two years ago when I found here hidden away in a remote corner of the yard. Every cat chooses a home at some point in their lives. No exception here. She chose us. And yes, every month’s backup on iPhoto contained at least a dozen Lexis.
I don’t know what this is. It’s an incomplete puzzle yes, but I don’t know of what. I’ll ask Adeline. She’ll know. Nice image, anyway.