Black Cloud Ben Jeans Houghton Words
Iris Priest
“Past things have futurity” — Walter Benjamin, The Metaphysics of Youth, 1914
1854 Ben Jeans Houghton
when you were formed atoms waned halved moon in audience for time
come to rest
free
prelude in my memory was the loudest absence the moment before naming one morning her mother burnt all of their family photographs in a bin in the garden she did not break stride nor breath nor tear akin to the germinal vessel as with all beginnings a change took place a shifting of states Your father on his knees each body is a grave
lymph and node stand aghast as sulphur tears all moves through air as ocean the lumen glow flattens the shadows of her face eyes wild and wet glisten glassy each follicle beams and blinks plotting the presence of the dew laden light she bites down in the face of it swallows halves tongues the hole wet penny the charged air avalanches
tooth split centre
flint cut
rolls in gum
heat haze glacial singe the downy hair of face be guest bilious flows of chroma light run cut swathes through figure or ground ebbed indelible blind soil and street heavy metals stain lichens heart for decades yet neon torrents of molten elements form new compounds gorge live virgin metamorphosis not yet classified retina floods sour
iris eclipsed iridescent
rolling waves of burnt chorus hair spectators break phantasm ripple
bolt through the crowd sear skin skin seared
all fingers
stone soars; inert rupturing muscle breaking bone a hundred eardrums burst in unison tinnitus rains people spin mouths agape air blanch cheek
screaming neighbour sing
the occult of alchemy unknown disaster born of industrial extraction unnaturally proximal concentrated elements leave no god to blame lore palm in palm, waxen and clammy pad, he thinks of the solace she offers , the adolescent language that he does not have the words to escape air settles tang on tongue arsenic tallow ink in water roll into lung
the sheel of light licks faces aglow and affect as blinks slow like hands clapped a brick sails the breeze tips her head splits her crown scalp dividing in perfect symmetry salted birthing wet bone kissed by air inaugural cut to knee she pisses herself for the first time she dies topped up phone called home
It’s beautiful
Ben Jeans Houghton Black Cloud Published by CIRCA Projects Printed in an edition of 100 This book is published on the occasion of Black Cloud: further reading, an event hosted by The Literary & Philisophical Society, Newcastle, to launch the Black Cloud project, which comprises of this publication and its sister print Black Cloud No.6; produced as part of CIRCA Projects’ limited-editions series. The series supports the organisation through the creation and selling of affordable editions, prints and multiples made with artists from CIRCA’s programme. All funds raised are directed back towards the exhibitions and events programme, which specialises in presenting and commissioning works by both established and emerging artists at a pivotal point in their career.
Editors Notes The illustration on page 10 is reproduced courtesy of Newcastle City Library. ‘The Great Fires of Newcastle and Gateshead. – Sketched from the High Level Bridge’. Illustration from The Illustrated London News. October 14 1854.
Editors and Concept: Ben Jeans Houghton, Sam Watson, Adam Phillips Design and Copyediting: Sam Watson Proofreading: Tori Watson Printing: Billingham Press © 2012. Ben Jeans Houghton, the authors, CIRCA Projects. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Acknowledgments Dawn Bothwell, Ffion Davies, Globe Gallery, Aaron Guy, Dan Holdsworth, Jack Lowe, Rebecca Morrill, Charles Napier, Alistair Robinson, Kuba Ryniewicz. The Black Cloud project was accomplished through the generous support of Arts Council England, North East; Henry Moore Foundation; University of Sunderland and Canon Bill & Jeanette Hall Fund.
Ben Jeans Houghton
CIRCA Projects
Ben Jeans Houghton maintains a diverse practice in various fields, including Sculpture, Installation, Film, Photography, Drawing, Performance and Writing. Since graduating from Northumbria University in 2007 he has gone on to exhibit internationally across Germany, Greece, Japan, North Africa and South Asia, whilst regularly exhibiting in the UK with organisations such as BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; CrASH, London; SpaceInbetween, London; Globe Gallery, Newcastle; Cornerhouse, Manchester; and ACA, Northumberland. During the beginning of 2012 he will begin work on a new commission in Washington DC, USA, and a piece of fiction for a book published by Corridor8.
CIRCA Projects is a not-for-profit curatorial arts organisation established in 2009 by Sam Watson and Adam Phillips. Its main goal is to present the viewer with coherently researched exhibitions and projects that are embedded in the present. CIRCA Projects’ work is mainly based in the presentation and production of new art works and projects within lens-based and time-based practices. From the start the organisation has aimed to encourage a critical discussion around ‘contemporary art production’ – stressing the importance of talks, debates and lectures in order to create an access point to art and its contexts.
He is currently working on a new film titled THE OCELLI, as part of the Arka Group, which will be presented in a solo exhibition with CIRCA Projects in the Summer of 2012.
Through exhibitions, screenings, talks, publications and commissions, in both gallery and off-site contexts, CIRCA Projects works with artists – both established and at a more formative stage of their career to promote exciting new practices and critical dialogues.
Iris Priest
www.circaprojects.org
Iris Priest has been working as a writer and artist in Newcastle upon Tyne since graduating from Cumbria Institute of the Arts in 2008. She has written extensively for artists and arts organisations throughout the region, and for magazines and journals including Corridor8. Iris holds a studio at the NewBridge Project where she is also co-editor of the arts magazine CANNED.