Emitron occasionally appoint an ambassador from their ranks to observe those who distract their existences by philosophically expressing themselves through musical refrain. The following report by Ruth-Ann De Junno concerns a performance by an experimental sound duo ‘Eleanor’s Electronic Euonymous’.

In whichever coastal town Eleanor’s Electronic Euonymous found themselves performing, they marked their presence by purposefully appending to benches, bus shelters and beach huts, plastic multicoloured badges emblazoned with their florid moniker. Residents generally responded apathetically to these environmentally offensive pinarounds, though occasionally a puddle of butter-hearted locals would be drawn to the events they heralded. It was in East London, in the hindquarters of a Gin Palace named The Hoover Rooms that EEE overwhelmed an audience with their ferocious anti-performance...

Constructed especially for the evening, and propped upon a hexagonal soil-covered stage, was the derelict frontage of a summerhouse around which were stacked hundreds of peach-coloured paperbacks. This papery palisade, which leant unevenly against a line of parched festival trees, was crowned with dozens of stuffed birds; ravens, rooks and swallows, arranged (in order of height) as a petrified queue of long-dead Old Worlds, patiently prepared into stillness by long-dead taxidermists. Tied to the trunks of the withered conifers were card crates of varying dimensions covered in peculiar clusters of black funnels. This entire earthy scene had been built upon a large burlap rug of which each corner was clamped into the claw of a slightly undersized mechanical crane positioned at the sides of the stage.

Inside the summerhouse, looming behind the misted-up marsh-dipped glass panes, were two six-foot figures resembling paper robots. Their arms were encased in beige jointless cardboard cylinders, and in place of eyes, nose and mouth, was a single monocular paper nozzle. One of the figures tapped at the steamed glass with some sort of iron club, while the other waved a wooden racquet.

The sound of hammering, grinding cranks, crunching leaves and snapping twigs could be heard from elsewhere. This seemed to agitate the pair and they wielded their batons as weapons, proceeding to smash their way out of the already weakened conservatory. Hacking through branches, books and birds, they forged a path to the front of the stage. After forcibly dragging themselves forward, they each twirled several times in a kind of ungainly dance, revealing to the audience an entanglement of paper pipes (mounted upon their caramel-coloured backs) that tapered out into a peculiar phonographic horns.

Earlier that evening, prior to the commencement of this performance, a number of circular souvenir guides had been lavished upon the audience. These paper discs promised attendees a spectacular light show, and it was this that illuminated the entire pastoral diorama before them, roasting the festival trees, veranda, leaf litter, and the two carded mechanoids in multicoloured hot-lights. This bright collage included tribal masks, watery-eyed-infants and sepia-washed, cloud-scarred moonballs that rhythmically dissolved into suns in semi-eclipse, erupting volcanoes and swirling fires expulsed from launched rockets.

Their arms were encased in beige jointless cardboard cylinders

The performers vaguely synchronised their jolting and jouncing to the rhythmical audio score of crumpling, howling and hissing. They clambered upon the books, embracing one another as they ascended, trampling the delicate stuffed birds underfoot. Then, after flailing their cylindrical limbs, they collided into each other amid a mid-air clattering of club and racquet. But this awkward joust abruptly ended, for the two roustabouts flounced to the floor after an ill-measured half-scuffle and, what had initially appeared as a kind of choreographed mechanical ballet, devolved into a pathetically affectionate play-fight between flimsy brother automatons.

At that moment the cranes lit up, extending their metallic arms amid a thin, gassy whistle of gyrating pistons, and screams of grating joints. Their steely claws grappling the corners of the burlap drew the whole slowly skyward. Furniture, instruments, books, trees, soil and the two roustabouts were forcefully thrown together, struggling as a writhing mass of ‘things’ three feet above the centre stage. The horrendous muffled sound of the fracturing glass, grinding metal and shrieking, permeated the pre-recorded sonic rasps, as the claws of each crane met above the parcel of concealed shapes. Just as the cranes appeared to buckle and lock, a tear appeared in the burlap bundle’s underbelly before the contents, now thoroughly unsorted, burst out and spilled to the stage in a disgorging of stuff.

The two performers rose up from the silt mash besmirched in soil, half unsheathed from their sodden cardboard armour, and stepped forward in front of the destroyed things (now ablaze). Each held up a mysterious slimy tentacled thing (that resembled some peculiar sea-creature or pig’s heart) aiming it at the bewildered audience. The bulbous sacks were then squeezed simultaneously, squirting a murky ‘something’ upon uncovered heads and unshielded faces, just as the projections ceased and the stage was plunged into darkness. A hesitant ripple of (pre-recorded) applause was then heard, as some of the onlookers realised that the residue on their clothes and faces was some kind of foul-smelling ink. The emission of an obnoxious, nasally, guttural honk marked the end of the performance that had lasted precisely eight minutes. Great.

This article was originally published in Emitron 1

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On the 13th January 1986, a hall in a Great Cathedral situated in a Northern region of England was filled with 2,078 especially invited academicians, who had endured the 2nd hour of a pre-recorded introductory philosophical discourse (entitled ‘Le Show des Cheveux’), and had become progressively weary.

In an attempt to conclude the monotonous dialogue upon tonsorial art, a folically-challenged delegate clothed in a moss-coloured ulster positioned himself at the lectern, calmly leant forward in a flourish of a skyward gazes and contemplative soughs, and attempted to nod the speech to an end. He then announced to the assembly, behind cupped hands ‘The modern world is a slick machine that converts negativity into lucrativity!’. He then added (almost warbling) ‘Has noble sovereignty finally dislocated the populace by repeated subterfuge?!’.

From the spectatorial assemblage before him rose a vast forest of extended extremities, each pointing to the ribbed vaulting above, hands raised in a brief moment of unification of those who wanted to revitalise themselves through active involvement; to have their opinions (at least) heard. However, the impassioned riposte (from a rather nettled audience) was interrupted by the pounding of wooden swing-doors from the very back of the hall, followed by the rhythmical grind of metal. The latter sound (which was not dissimilar to the rasp of rusted bedsprings being sensuously depressed) originated from a several coils of steel, loaded into each underheel of a mysterious figure, who scuffed along the central aisle in the direction of the oak pulpit at the front of the hall.

In addition to being the sole cause of the aural disturbance, the figure had many startling features. The most prominent peculiarity swayed above a pair of dark shoulders; a colossal hand-painted papier-mâché mask whose face had been sculpted as a kind of pouting phantasmagorical varmint.

Below this flimsy glazed visage flowed a silky raven-coloured cloak, which occasionally parted at the hem to reveal the peaks of black pixie-boots, which tapered into cloven hooves. At every second step the figure stumbled, and, reaching out with one white-gloved hand, attempted to right the tottering papery mask. Eventually (whilst clutching outwards), for all the cranking and craning, the figure slipped up five steps, and stabilised itself by grappling a microphone affixed to the lectern. An amplified squeal was discharged from the public address, to reverberate about the cloisters.

As the audience-born murmuring abated, the seven-foot stringless marionette ceased its rhythmic nodding. For a large portion of the spectators, whose lagging attentions had been rearrested, the papery head (now purposefully counterpoised) took on a celestial significance. It was so perfectly aligned below the Cathedral’s latticework of lime-glossed spandrels, and so evenly framed within the decorative columns of fruit coloured marble, and had become illuminated by a soft lozenge of pink that shone from a spherical pane of glass exquisitely etched with a crimson-coloured quatrefoil.

Its sleazy smirk was one of permanence pitched in a darkened gloss, and it was this silent sneer that had absorbed the entire assembly by its absurd drama, a drama that threatened to tighten its clasp like a formidable talon.

Then, after a phlegm embroiled cough, the individual began to recite what was later referred to as ‘the final semi-sociological terror play’.

‘I declare that we have been wrongfully wrenched from our sinless subculture by your perfidious Albion and cast by its languid tendrils into an dispassionately altered realm, marred by mediocrity, exaggerated by overexposure, ridiculed by the persistence of literary dissemblage and ploughed into the pestiferous pulpy marrow of the mainstream. Our honourable worldview has been frantically exploited from every conceivable angle, forcibly assimilated into cultural norms that have diluted and transmogrified our ideas into triviality, while we form an irrepressible loathing for ourselves and our work, as our inspiration collapses into a murk of creative indifference, after which our identities are degraded, rendered inferior and expendable by a sinister blend of apathy, commercialism and materialism.’

‘We feel dread. We feel sad, cringing below our easels like old dogs, heavy with a sense of inimitable dismay, begrudgingly scrutinising page after glossy page mercilessly overburdened with superficial ‘reflections of reality’ in the form of slick pseudo-utopian endorsements that THEY inform us is ‘simply our world’ posed back to us. Oh Thy Wretched Wastrels! Forever disorientated by the compulsion to hoard the potentially fatal slew of these compendiums besmirched in fads and flimsy trends, punctured by a hollow mockery of their pledge. Thy scornfully annotated conceits! We wish to convey that we believe you have the power to control that which overwhelms our minds and souls. We feel dread, we feel sad…’

A tender laugh (full of the jejune readiness of June-coloured fruit), at that moment spilt from an ambry at the end of the great hall, and echoed into an infinite softness. The palpable disregard it carried for the vainglorious verbiage immediately severed the speech in two, and transformed the atmosphere in the hall from tainted tension into delectation.

Was this temporary paralysis an indication that the Emitronian was in the grip of a profound fear?

The Emitron emissary, whose body had become petrified into complete stillness, raised the mask with two white-gloved hands to reveal a small ruddy plush, eyes unblinking and mouth agape. Was this temporary paralysis an indication that the Emitronian was in the grip of a profound fear; a sudden realisation that perhaps the address (which had begun heavily inflicted with a French intonation, yet digressed into a distinguishly British vernacular) was the subject of ridicule? Amid a ruffling of collars and cuffs, a number of the audience now stormed as one from the back of the hall in a hiss of coarse, angry syllables.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

It was later proclaimed that The Emitron Collective regarded the commentary offered by the bemâchéd orator to be an intrinsic part of a series of ‘Polite Interventions’ (or Art Jests), adding that they actually found contemporary existence to be ‘fine’. On several later occasions they attempted to circumvent further infamy by dictating precisely how their comments (if published) should be edited. They then withdrew from public fuss by announcing that a ‘brief yet vital restructuring period’ was necessary which, at the time, only seemed to fuel the mystery surrounding them. However, what was thought to only be a temporary period of societal abdication lapsed into almost two decades, by which time The Emitron Collective and all their bewildering escapades had largely been forgotten.

This article was originally published in Emitron 2

After the crouch – A very slow happening
Reached by semi-supplicating down a marrow-red tunnel, the viewer is treated (after straightening back), to a brilliant featureless milky vista. The vastly ambitious rectilinear dimensions of this prism-cum-gallery deny any easy or instant purchase, though eye and time collude to discern a spectral mazelike structure of flimsy walls, low towers, pillars, stacks and shelves.

In this high-contrast environment, the colluders work collaboratively with touch to make sense of the surroundings. Hand tells brain of angles, beetles and projections, and of materials such as wood, metal, plastic, rubber and cloth. Most of these surfaces are demi-smooth due to the uniform application of fresh emulsion. Wary-be the visitor though, for in places surface-snaking hands can be powdered-white, whilst simultaneously rendering physical transformation.

Scores of Art-traps, imbedded within the installation, are set to pitch without explanation, like some kind of giant instructionless buckaroo. A brush-past or a lean-on triggers crude mechanisms to tip, tilt, spill, or collapse piles of drawings, prototypes, unusables and workings-out, pocking the (hitherto white) floor with irreflective puddles of toffee, ash, custard and biscuit.

In this nearly-vacuum of foggy shapes, the eruption of venting traps and miniature junk-bergs shearing away from the whole, is only a little alarming to the visitor, as materials packed, compacted and forced into drums, cupboards, tins and tubes, comfortably slide into view, unfurling into chance-sculptures of their own. Occasionally amidst the monotonous tundra, a khaki pant [here] or a strawberry blonde [there] can be made out, accompanied by the distant sound of yet another trap un-menacingly lolloping its way downward.

* * *

This then, is the latest work by the Art Jesters Emitron. An enormous anti-archive, stacked high with their un-fleshed and un-fancied workings, put to better use now as fodder for an enormous and powerfully weak Art-gun.

The detritus generated by the group, once bodily navigated by an audience, is reformed into new works, both sculptural and philosophical in their nature. This Art Machine, representing the past prolification of the group, records and re-orders their past before our eyes.

Still, this is nothing more than a work in progress – at least until such a time when all the traps have been sprung. And then what is left; once the final mechanism rejoices in having to no longer forcibly hold back grubby sketches and twisted cassette tape?

With all the traps undone the archive will be rent asunder, displaying the seeds of thought and process, and will, in accordance with the artists’ wishes, be re-daubed white, transformed, made unreal or Hyper-real™, before being finally destroyed.

This article was originally published in Emitron 3

Sirs:
Since all attempts to contact you through direct private channels have been thus far ineffectual, we, the Station of Light 20/10 Commissioning Panel, on behalf of the Rail Authorities and our partners, have been forced to make this notice, which we now issue to you and your associates, a very public affair. Consider it please, a collective expression of hope, that the art world, the public transport sector and the wider community – having been made aware of the full extent to which you have tampered with the spirit of public life in this country – will henceforth regard your company with the contempt it so readily merits. It is hoped too, that by way of stemming this contempt, you; Emitron, will immediately cease to carry out, provoke and inspire the petulant misdeeds and disturbances which have recently afflicted the public spaces within our operative control.

The misdeeds to which we refer (and upon which further comment is offered below), have been perpetrated in the railway concourse, with increasing regularity since a proposal authored by you and submitted to the Station of Light 20/10 ‘Your Call’ Commission, was necessarily rejected.

The reasons for this rejection were manifold. We tire of reiterating them. We do so here to merely illustrate once and for all, the full ignominy of your schemes.

In the first place, the proposal was not received on time. For this reason alone it could not have been considered. Furthermore, it failed to adhere to even the most basic of our application guidelines (as clearly defined in our application companion instruction pack). In addition to these invalidating factors, we wish to inform you that everyone who has yet attempted to digest your proposal has agreed that your agenda is too vague and ambiguous be judged adequately, ultimately proving as elusive as your company. Any concepts that are capable of being expounded from the texts, appeared at once to breach a number of the safety, sanitary and ethical regulations as clearly defined in the latest draft of our company directive. It was therefore a satisfactory judgment, in light of your application proposal being regarded by all who saw it as entirely unsuited to the Station of Light 20/10 ‘Your Call’ Commission, that it should be rejected. And so it was.

The supporting notes to your proposal seemed to indicate that the 48-page document itself was to serve as the commissioned artwork, and that one million copies should be distributed freely to railway passengers. The very notion that this; a vesselful of perverted ideas and opinions, guised as a periodical of ‘News and Light Entertainment’, should be peddled in such a way to our clients, is rotten indeed. We could never support such activity through the Station of Light 20/10 ‘Your Call’ Commission, and in any case, it is generally felt that the fractured content of your convoluted manifesto is wholly unsuitable for dispersal in the public realm.

Let us examine (so far as we can) some of this content. The ninth chapter – entitled ‘Chromium Heart Rot’, appears to be a pitifully backward decrial of contemporary urban building materials throughout which the author repeatedly bemoans the ‘anti-absorbency of a buffed vomit flue’ in a flurry of equally nonsensical phrases and terms. The latter portion of the chapter conveys an ardent desire to have the station interior completely renovated, including several plans to resurface the entire floorspace with ‘planking and sawlogs’, establish ‘an Acadian-style forest complete with sloping hillocks and sweeping sluiceways’, and to erect an ‘ornately-crafted Porter’s Lodge in the shade of lush, leafy ferns.’ The shorter, illustrated essays following this piece continue in a similar vein, each of them proposing thoroughly incongruous features be designed, constructed and installed in and around the station. ‘The Emission Of Emitron: A Junk Operetta’ recommends a whole inventory of components be procured, most of which are either decidedly obscure, or involve countless practical complications. There is even a casual reference to an elm tree, that, it explains, should be positioned in the centre of the main railway concourse. This is a logistical impossibility.
This tiresomely convoluted article, and others like it, reveal the ethos of the Emitron Art Company to be unsympathetic to, and irreconcilable with our own. It conflicts directly with our core belief of how the environs of the station should be defined, maintained and promoted.

The authority charged with controlling the railway station, along with its partners, has long held that the great central concourse should be geared toward the evolving attitudes of its patrons. The company has invested heavily in the existing chrome fixtures, linoleum flooring and fluorescent lighting that has so far been regarded as economical to maintain, practical and safe.

In a bid to further meet the needs of consumers, as part of a venture called the ‘Station of Light Consumer n’ Commuter Plaza 20/10’, the railway authority has recently initiated a number of refinements to the concourse. These refinements seek to transform the concourse and its outer regions into a vibrant transportational triumph, offering passengers secure and straightforward access from rail carriage to city centre.

Located behind a stunning façade of multi-coloured frontages will sprawl a network of interconnecting partially elevated alleyways, each lined with a selection of vendors and trading booths, peddling a chemically-enhanced ‘Real Choice’ line of comestibles.

It is generally felt that the fractured content of your convoluted manifesto is wholly unsuitable for dispersal in the public realm

In alliance with these commercial and industrial developments, we aim to embellish the station with a series of appealing artworks, transforming the many terminals into a nexus of happy spaces. Multi-coloured renderings shall adorn specially reserved wall spaces in nine of the planned coffee houses, and a monumental public artwork is to be permanently installed in the central concourse. Artists were invited to submit proposals, and the Station of Light 20/10 ‘Your Call’ Commissioning Panel was formed to review these submissions, select an appropriate artist and organise a ceremonial public launch. As mentioned earlier, the progress of the build has been sadly hindered by the repeated violations mentioned earlier in this missive.

It is palpably clear that those responsible for these offences have been influenced by your muddled disquisition. The incidents bear striking resemblances to certain elements in your proposal, which willfully promotes specific acts of buffoonery and vandalism in locations resembling our station. The textual piece on page seven (entitled ‘Big Pen’s Whoop Out’), for example, was clearly a precursor to an incident involving a young man, who was bound to a slender length of cherry-wood and left embroiled in the renovations. The communiqué on pages two, three and five (entitled ‘Thou Rubber Brethren’) echoes the latest incident to occur in our establishment. It involved a five foot long flexible container of filth that had been secretly affixed to scaffolding above the part-built commissioned artwork. The rubberized-receptacle somehow became perforated, resulting in the artwork below becoming thoroughly smothered in a malodorous seepage. We must inform you that ‘Splasherism’ and ‘Splitterism’ are not ‘wonderful, integral, essential embellishments’ as the proposal suggests.

We are fully aware that the work of Emitron has been consistently described as being ill-conceived, poorly executed, and completely devoid of any cultural merit. We deem the Emitronian attitude toward the art of modern building symptomatic of a new breed of wretched individuals wishing to avail themselves of responsibility by eluding the Real Problems we often experience in our surroundings. These minorities prefer to utilize the art world and its related realms to vent their frustrations, propagate their inadequacies and parade their gloomy temperaments. Please Desist. For we tire of you, Emitron, we tire of your pranks, your prattling, your priggish profusions, your provocative presentments, your preposterous prelusionaries, your propaganda. We are tired of the impossible...

Cordially Yours,

The Station of Light 20/10 Commissioning Panel

Misery; pages 23-24
Analysis; pages 25-26

This article was originally published in Emitron 4