In Concise, precise perhaps 2 I wrote about the work of one of my favourite artists, Richard Long. In particular his prose or text artworks. Where his words are seemingly of randomly placed together, for example; the things he sees or his experiences every mile on one of his wilderness walks. The words go on to form a kind of poetry or prose. Which in turn transports the viewer mentally into a supposed similar circumstance or allows them to reflect upon a triggered memory.
I use to give my daughter spelling tests of about thirty words. This was something we could do whilst I was driving or preparing a meal. Invariable, after about ten words she would start another column and so we would continue until we reached thirty words and therefore three columns. Upon reading these columns left to right we would discover some nice lines or funny, nonsensical statements in these almost a random sequence of words.
Retain Bloodshot Paper (detail)
mixed media on paper collage
This leads me on to write about the what3words app. I love it for its randomness and its coincidences. Apparently every 3 square metres on planet Earth has been named with just three unique words. I do not know yet how these words were decided and selected.
It is a fantastic tool / app to find the location of places and even missing persons. It rules out the need for coordinates and surmises that everyone has a mobile data signal.
For example: "airstrip-artist-octopus" is the location of my art studio. Okay so I don't have an airstrip in my back garden, but I am often quite busy though I can't do eight things at once.
Hopefully more and more people will use it in daily life, as I am starting to do with photo locations and directions. If this does become the case, people could start answering questions like "Where have you been?" with nicely random phrases such as
"Tourist-research-directive" The Old Man of Hoy, Scotland.
Grin Shelf Cheese (detail)
mixed media on paper collage
The naming of species's and paintings could I suppose be dealt with in a similar manner.
Presently certain guidelines are used to identify the above family, genus, location or discoverer. Inia Geoffrensis = the Amazonian river dolphin.
I am led to believe that in some first nation /native american cultures names were chosen for individuals after an unusual natural event or happening. These events probably occurred in within the local vicinity.
What if, when the word labels from what3words were being dispensed the items (nouns, verbs and adjectives) where actually in that specific 3 metre square. Is there a way to check?
for example "awaited-passive-landings" is one of the 3 metre squares in Stonehenge.
Tinkle Crumple Testy (detail)
mixed media on paper collage
I enjoy a quirky word sequence.
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