Field Study's Man in E11 on being nowhere near the Utopian field of Neant

'The artist is driven - by the very fact of being an artist - to realise, to create in art, that which is not, which cannot be, because, as soon as it is realised in concrete terms (paint or words) it ceases to be itself. Consequently, it must fail.'

(Richard N Coe, Beckett. Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh/London, 1964).

I consoled myself that I might have succeeded by the very fiction of being an artist. My creation of a convincing puddle in a ready-made and authentic puddled landscape lead me to explore the failure of consequence and the consequence of failure, when attempting a mapping of the puddled Utopian field of Neant. I got nowhere or so I thought. I failed to fail. The problem with my piddling puddled piddles is the very selfish fact of my self being the art reflected by them. I can only continue to find myself when I am fantasized in virtual terms (). I contemplated the piddle (pictured above) for a very long minute and then consulted a certain Dr Foster - a self help specialist in puddle traversal. Wherever he was, he told me, without even a hint of regret, that he would not contemplate returning to the same old piddle. He suggested walking around the piddle, stepping over the piddle (don't look down!!!) or even avoiding the piddle all together by crossing the road. I couldn't help but look down as I stepped over the puddle. Didn't I mean piddle? For a brief and very coincidental moment I found myself as an extra in a homage to Nicholas Roeg's, Don't Look Now. 'don't look down!!!' has Venice transposed to Leytonstone.

Later, while paddling further out into the shallows of my piddle, I found myself in a situation demanding less frivolous and superficial contemplation of the self (and others) in a watery landscape. I was attempting to cross the Thames in the midst of a nuclear holocaust. John Timberlake's, 'We Are History', at the Beaconsfield Gallery, had the self and others digitally captured and fully operational (immersed?) in a simultaneously explosive/implosive moment of existential traversal.

our experience of

We Are History, John Timberlake - Beaconsfield (Gallery) 20th September 2014

obscured to avoid a breach of copyright.

'Fully operational'? We don't know if our traversal of the mushroom clouded river-scape was what the artist, John Timberlake, had in mind. I think the images above show our best effort to participate in the 'performative' dimension of the depiction of an apocalyptic moment. I was about to congratulate my fellow field student on his survival of the moment when I realised that his immersion in the installation setting had been so much so that his self had been altered by a donning of the palette of an apocalypse. Why was there no wet paint sign? The extent of his immersion in the apocalyptic moment was a source of great anxiety to me. I wanted to forget it, bury it but he was a walking radiating embodiment of the set. I worried that the balance of his metaphysical implosivity/explosivity might be disturbed by the vicissitudes of central London, and our precarious traversal of them, including those of the real River Thames. I feared he might, at any moment, unfold map-like into a full scale (1:1) recreation of the installation.  Our minds had, doubtless, been altered by our participation. But how?

As we sought to conceive of an escape from the former ragged school it seemed that buildings were imploding everywhere and Michael Horden had returned to project a vision of absurd post apocalyptic civic society. A new queen, Mrs Ethel Shroake of Leytonstone had come to preside over the desolation and the 19 subjects who survived the nuclear annihilation. We headed for the Science Museum, hoping it was still there. We thought we would find insights into the alteration of our minds and so find our way out of the apocalyptic terrain so artistically instilled in our consciousness.

Mind Maps: Stories from Psychology  presented us with an array of tools, materials and apparatus used over the course of several centuries to understand and heal various states of mind. The exhibition was introduced, via a video, by Samira Ahmed. Ms Ahmed addresses exhibition visitors from a variety of locations, some of which appear to be in or of the urban landscape - treated filmically to signify the urban landscape as a sort of frenetic nervous/neurological system. At 1min56secs I was standing behind Ms Ahmed looking out from a rooftop at a sprawling urban panorama when, alarmingly, buildings started to collapse again, imploding just like at Beaconsfield, and the ghosts of Timberlake's mushroom clouds rose up from the horizon. I asked my fellow field student (still wearing a palette of the apocalypse) if we could watch the introduction again to ascertain if this was a genuine repeated moment or something more unique. No, I did not see the clouds again at 1min56secs. No, the buildings were not imploding but I started worrying. What if I cannot go for walks anymore without 'seeing' atomic bomb mushroom clouds and imploding buildings? How would I cope with the recurring visions of so many ends my mind cannot bear thinking about all or even just a few of them? What if when I play back all my digital photographs and movies, in the expectation of happy and reassuring memories, I see end after end after end in a manner similar to that experienced at the Science Museum. End overload!

I was in a mess. Where could I look? I found myself comforted by the cognitive behavioural therapy library section; the  Reading Well  books on prescription. Which one would I pick for my fictitious dilemma? 

3 spaces where images of the Reading Well section might have been posted

The contrast of this section with the content of some of the other sections was all most comical were it not for some knowledge of the pain and trauma of some of the other therapies and what might be considered as the abusive and exploitative contexts in which they operated.  

We were supposed to be looking for the map which would help us best find a way out of the apocalyptic mind-scape - to the least haunted view. To get to the end of this post I tried to employ a form of trilateration to create a Leytonstone orientated triangle. 

Point 1 is a site of a puddle somewhere in Leytonstone into which you can step (when it has rained) to return to 'The Bed Sitting Room' (1969). Queen Ethel still presides there. Queen Ethel and her subjects can offer advice on survival (?) of an apocalypse and/or how to overcome fear of total nuclear destruction. Absurdism is their preferred counter-therapy. We could consider this puddle, and the possibility of others, as a sort of homage to the cinematic heritage of the area. You would have to take care which puddles you step in. There is a puddle within which a little lady in a red raincoat terrorizes visitors. 

Point 2 is the location within E11 where you would stand to watch the end of........? One of the difficulties of this lies in knowing when you are in E11 and when you are not. Some research on this boundary has recently come to light. This point is a sort of adoption of the 'make your own damn picture' (of the apocalypse) approach to art. The field of E11 might be littered with landscape studies which explore the potential of various viewpoints for the end of....... This is a potentially therapeutic activity.

Point 3 is very close to the end of...... but not quite there. It has to be more or less equidistant from Points 1 and 2. The problem I imagine discovering in the mapping of a Leytonstone E11 triangle is the failure of Point 3 to remain as itself, as a means to be connected to Points 1 and 2. Points 1 and 2 (and maybe 3) can coincide to create a possibility of being nowhere near the Utopian field of Neant and failure to reach the end.