Page 20 - Studio International - September 1967

under information (black) saturation, the frequency of
gunnery, roller-painting and plumbing books, and
`Eventstructure' film-these have been comparable to painting (as we the individual marks and the inference of non-exist-
think of it), to books, to writing as we think of it, and ence as part of frequency. There was something
so on; they are in some degree all of them and the kinetic about the static form that didn't tell until it
difference between them has carried the meaning. became clear that the time-signature of motion is
Music too, particularly with film. And there is another different in category from the time-signature of fre-
category Of event, in the referring and referred to. quency. The static was felt to be more kinetic than
This is usually called 'literary', a term of abuse but movement in a work but in a way that didn't appear
probably applied to notions that don't construct too to the 'kinetic' movement. The actual moving peopled
well anyway. events like the play and the bookplumbing are com-
parable as much to lab experiment activity as to other
The reversed book idiom began in 1954 with a spray- art.
gun mark. From the standpoint of mathematics this An artist in the social event has a function of priority
offered an absolute non-reducible primitive event, regulator and experimenter, operating on levels
the incidence of a vanishing-small black on an exten- between his group and the life of the planet. They are
John Latham sive white over a minimal instant; followed by a pro- in collision most of the time. We have just been pass-
liferation of similar characteristics all comparable in ing through a phase in which priorities were thought
simple terms, giving a primary explosion. The inci- to work out independently of individual preference,
dence of a book in this situation was dramatic on all and profit-motive has been the most respectable for
series (too good taste) and took several years to individual behaviour.
This September a new series in the SKOOB
digest. A good half dozen of them were obscure Eventstructure as currently understood has taken
tradition will take place at the Rotterdamsche because the series was not clear: there's not much the intervening thirteen years to develop and while
Kunstring, Holland, with John Latham and of a tradition in visual maths but there was something seeming to be totally viable it is not mature and is
Jeffrey Shaw sponsored by the Dutch Arts important about the surface white becoming volume not to be assimilated in a day either.
Council in co-operation with the Gallery. The
following is a statement about the theory of
'Eventstructure' that Latham has been work-
ing on since he first came upon the properties
of the spraygun in 1954.

Structure now is Eventstructure. The separation of
time from space, things from goings on - gives a very
thin and unstable worldpicture that necessitated an
explosion of non-existent 'entities' by which the world
is explained or described ... semantic schizophrenia.

An artist works now with the whole historical context
tied into the single move. What used to be called a
medium is now a series - painting is such a series,
so is theatre, or writing, one uses the tradition to
measure from. There is only one medium, that every
artist uses within his chosen series, and it is, simply,
DIFFERENCE.

The key to Eventstructure turned when I realized that
a work is simultaneoulsy five categories of dissoci-
ated events, each in some degree a meaning carrier.
Sensuality doesn't tell this, but a whole new principle
of control in form becomes intelligible, offering a
critique to behaviour that puts current language in
startling lights. The borderline between steady-state
'things' and change-of-state 'events' is arbitrary. It
rests on a particular time measure characteristic of
brains and it is necessary to see the relations between
the frequency of small events and the durations of
longer ones. A 'thing' is experienced as such because
it is a compulsive image. Change-of-state 'things' as
in live nature are also compulsive images but on
different time-coordinates. Long-term cycles are
another range of compulsive images. What we The final episode in the series 'Bookplumbing' at The wordless play-now 'Juliet and Romeo'-starts
experience as life is the collision of relatively stable Better Books was called 'Windfoamdream', during with a SKOOB film made from a piece that hangs
(compulsive) images, the 'Energy' of which is a func- which a boy was papered up in a hammock and in the Tate Gallery. Two figures move into the stage
tion of the stability or compulsiveness latent in the hoisted to the ceiling-being connected to the world in front of the screen heavily dressed in paper
structure. What I hear of atomic physics has no below by way of a long plastic pipe, a very accurate books and other paraphernalia. They are left
quarrel with this nor the hesitations in theoretical sound carrier. almost blind and immobile at the end of the film
psychology, but whereas these departments speak What went on below was a mounting 'storm' except for some simple characteristic movements.
different languages, Evenstructure provides a frame- situation with quantities of paper chopped and They collide, and having come to each others'
work for a non-specialist to get a good grip of any sub- circulated by fans, black rain, and lightening notice they conduct a slow process of identification
ject and relate it to any other. It gives the artist a basis represented by an abstract film. Crowd noises from through insult, anger, excitement and so on until
for regarding any situation as carrying potential a tape-recorder with volume control. The foam was they are free of paper. The play ends with a decapi-
opportunities for action. a chemical mixture poured into book constructions. tation. The new production introduces inflatables
When the storm was over the boy was blown free by Jeffrey Shaw.
So far as Skoob is concerned-paintings, spray- of his hammock by inflatables.
82