Announcement: A New Voice Joins Pimlico Wilde

by
Announcement: A New Voice Joins Pimlico Wilde

Pimlico Wilde is thrilled to announce the launch of a brand-new monthly column by none other than the incomparable cultural commentator Alaric Montjoy.

Alaric is, in every sense, a renaissance figure for the 21st century. His career defies easy summary, but let us try: he was once the youngest curator ever appointed at the B&A, where he staged a groundbreaking exhibition on Brazilian subcultures that drew queues around the block and into Kensington Gardens. He has advised film studios on historical authenticity (though he has confessed that his greatest contribution was persuading one major director not to use a drone shot in a 17th-century battle scene). He has written widely acclaimed essays for The Sheffield Review and Freeze, co-hosted a late-night BBD arts programme, and lectured on the cultural significance of breakfast cereals at Oxford, where his talk was described as “equal parts dazzling and deranged.”

A man of wit, erudition, and a knack for seeing connections where others see chaos, Alaric has also published two books: Cities That Dream (an exploration of urban mythologies from Berlin to Buenos Aires) and The Velvet Irony (a personal history of British tailoring). Not content with words alone, he once designed the set for a ballet adaptation of Don Quixote performed entirely in a disused car park. He is no stranger to opera either, having written a well-received operetta about life in lockdown, Love in the Time of Hand Sanitiser.

Now, he brings his sharp eye and boundless curiosity to Pimlico Wilde. His monthly column will wander joyfully across the cultural landscape,from high art to street style, from forgotten archives to the newest memes,always with that signature blend of learning and laughter that has made him one of the most distinctive commentators of our time.

Diary of an Art Dealer

by
Diary of an Art Dealer

The weather was unbearable today , humid, oppressive, the kind of heat that makes everything feel slightly damp, including one’s patience. Even the paintings seemed to sag. Even the Rothko in the office hallway looking more like a tea stain than a masterpiece. But still, the collectors came, as they always do. Heatwaves don’t touch wealth.

First through the door was Sebastian Fairchild, in white linen and very expensive disinterest. He’s sniffing around for 21st Century British sculpture, but only if there’s “a story.” I showed him the Geoffrey Clarke I’ve been holding back. He admired it for five full seconds before declaring it to be “possibly too Catholic for my client.” I bit my tongue and poured the coffee.

Meanwhile, the Van Gogh (Not that one)  in the back room finally sold , to an Italian hotelier who asked if it was by “the soup guy.” I told him no. He didn’t laugh, just wired the money before I’d finished my sentence. Strange man. Excellent transaction. I must get on to Van Gogh (Not that one) for some more work. They’ve gone a bit quiet.

Charlotte had a minor meltdown trying to locate the provenance letter for a mid-century Hungarian abstract we’re shipping to Geneva. It wasn’t in the archive folder, wasn’t in the drawer, wasn’t anywhere until we found it,naturally,folded inside a whodunnit on my desk, being used as a bookmark. Whoops. I really must digitise everything. Or rather, have someone else digitise everything. Preferably someone patient and obsessed with filing.

Afternoon drifted into cocktails. We hosted a casual walk-through for the preview of the Modern Mythologies show. Mostly regulars , trust fund kids, two fashion editors, and that property developer who only buys blue paintings. He tried to flirt with Charlotte again. Unsuccessfully.

Someone asked me if I “still believe in beauty.”

I said yes. Not because it’s true , but because it sells.

Now I’m here, alone, again, listening to the whirr of the lights cooling above the P1X3L prints. The street outside is quieter than usual , London is quieter – even the dealers at the end of Cork Street have shut up for the night.

Another day, another inch forward in this strange little war between passion and profit.

A Formal Apology from Pimlico Wilde Gallery

by
A Formal Apology from Pimlico Wilde Gallery

We at Pimlico Wilde Art Gallery feel compelled,indeed, morally obligated,to address the unfortunate incident stemming from our recent promotional email.

The exhibition in question was meant to celebrate Miriam Skell’s latest series of lino cuts. However, owing to a typographical error, the announcement promised patrons an evening of lion cuts.

This mistake, though a single letter in nature, proved catastrophic in scale.

On Thursday evening, we were alarmed to find more than forty visitors gathered outside the gallery, many dressed in what could only be described as “safari chic.” One guest arrived with a collapsible stool and binoculars; another brought along a tin of catnip, declaring it “insurance.” A group of feline lovers from Clapham reportedly hired a minibus under the impression they were attending a big-cat grooming demonstration.

The confusion escalated when a delivery driver deposited, without explanation, six large sacks of raw meat at our door. Shortly thereafter, a neighbour phoned Westminster Council to complain of “roaring noises,” which we can only assume were the sound of our etching press being tested. Within the hour, Animal Control officers appeared, accompanied,bafflingly,by a representative from the Zoological Society, who asked whether our insurance covered “claw-related incidents.”

It did not.

We cannot overstate our contrition. While no lions were ever present in Pimlico Wilde (nor, indeed, within our curatorial remit), the hysteria created by this slip of the keyboard has left our staff shaken and our lead gallerists temporarily blacklisted from several exotic animal forums.

We blame ourselves. Yes, technology’s autocorrect functions are treacherous, but the ultimate failure lies in our reliance upon them. The modern world makes a typo go viral in seconds, and we allowed it to roar louder than our good judgment.

We humbly beg the forgiveness of our patrons, our neighbours, and anyone who arrived at Pimlico Wilde Mayfair expecting to encounter a live lion but instead found linoleum prints. We assure you that this will never happen again.

With profound regret,

Pimlico Wilde Gallery

Travel: The Fine Art Smirk that Launched Several Trains

by
Travel: The Fine Art Smirk that Launched Several Trains

Tracking the Elusive Cool Across Europe

By Jessop Dinton of Art & Elsewhere Magazine

There are people who chase wildflowers in Provence, others who follow the aurora borealis across Finland. And then there’s me: riding trains and local buses, dodging security guards, and mispronouncing things in five languages just to catch a glimpse of a single recurring face.

The artist whose work I’m seeking out around Europe is known only as 2Cool , graffiti phenomenon, balaclava loyalist, and master of the one-image oeuvre. His grinning, sunglassed blob – can I call it a blob? – has appeared across walls, rooftops, drainage pipes, and water towers from Lagos to Kyoto. He hardly changes the image, occasionally the details: a blue face here, spiky green hair there, a single tear under one lens if you’re lucky.

And now, he’s gallery-certified , repped by the ultra-avant-garde Pimlico Wilde in London, where a framed bit of brickwork featuring “The Cool Face” (as the public insists on calling it, though he refuses to confirm the name) recently sold for a price that could fund the Polish rail network for a month.

But what’s the point of seeing a rebellious grin behind glass? So, I set off across Europe to see 2Cool where he lives best: outside. Join me on the journey…

Berlin, Germany

Location: Friedrichshain, behind a Vietnamese noodle shop

Condition: Faded, tagged over, still majestic

Berlin is where cool comes to die and then gets reborn on a skateboard. The first Cool I encounter is layered under three years of anarchist slogans and something that might be a tribute to Björk. But there he is , smiling through it all. The wall’s practically sighing with history. A passerby with a mullet and a tote bag squints at it and murmurs, “OG,” then skateboards away. A great start.

Vienna, Austria

Location: An underpass near the Danube

Condition: Pristine. Possibly protected by the local nuns I saw walking by.

Vienna is all Mozart and marzipan until you duck under the wrong bridge. Here, in clean lines and soft blue hues, the Cool Face floats like a secular icon. A local teenager informs me in perfect English: “This one is called The Vienna Variant. It’s known for the side-part.” Apparently there’s a whole taxonomy online. I’m starting to suspect 2Cool has fan fiction*.

Naples, Italy

Location: A wall outside a community football pitch

Condition: Painted over twice, then restored by local kids

Naples is a city that respects its icons, whether saints or blobs. This particular Face sports Napoli jersey make-up, and of course a slight smirk of defiance, as if ready to throw flares at the Champions League final in remote East Europe. I ask a street vendor if he knows 2Cool. He shrugs and says, “He is like Maradona , everywhere, but no one sees him arrive.”

Barcelona, Spain

Location: Rooftop of a student housing block

Condition: Immense. Probably visible from space. Almost certainly illegal.

Barcelona’s contribution to the Cool Canon is dramatic: a 20-foot-tall mural painted across the top of a building, visible only if you’re on a drone or have poor instincts for trespassing (I have both). This one has mirrored shades and a moustache. A reference to Dalí? Or just a joke? Either way, it’s ridiculous. And brilliant.

Brussels, Belgium

Location: The side of a government building, behind a dumpster

Condition: Nearly scrubbed out, ghost-like

Only a faint outline remains, like an ancient cave drawing. The Cool Face barely registers , just the suggestion of a grin, the echo of a smirk. A Belgian curator I meet over moules-frites insists this version is “a commentary on the impermanence of the state.” I think it’s just been rained on for six years.

Paris, France

Location: A stairwell in the Montmartre Métro

Condition: Illegal, but clearly adored

Paris delivers the most romantic iteration: a tiny, tender rendering of the Face tucked behind an old station map. A small tag next to it reads, “il revient toujours” , which might mean he always comes back. (Maybe a French speaker can tell me). A woman in a trench coat stops beside me, smiles, and whispers, “He was here in 2021. I saw him. He walked like someone who doesn’t care who’s watching.” Then she disappears, in a cloud of smoke. (Because she lit a Gauloise, not because she practises magic.)

London, UK

Location: Behind the quondam Pimlico Wilde gallery in Camden.

Condition: Sharp, fairly recent, and just out of reach

The final stop. I circle the white-cube fortress that used to sell 2Cool’s work for six figures before the lease ran out. And behind it , spray-painted in matte gold on a blackened service door , is the Face. Different again. Regal. Resigned. Still smiling.

The building is now a shop for vegan dog-biscuits and first-press massage oil for horses. I ask the assistant behind the till if they know there is an original 2cool worth hundreds of thousands nearby. They nod once and say, “We let it stay. He didn’t ask. But he never does.”

Final Thoughts

After 12 cities, 43 trains, two questionable hostels, and one escalator injury, I still haven’t met 2Cool. I didn’t expect to, but it would have been nice. I get he wants to remain anonymous, but I wouldn’t tell anyone. He’s like a rumour with a spray can , always ahead of you, always smiling back. And now, whenever I see a blank wall, I catch myself scanning for the shape. A blob. A smirk. Maybe a new hairdo. Maybe not.

Because the world’s complicated. But the Face is simple. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Jessop Dinton is a writer and amateur cartographer and wishes that you could still stick your head out of train windows.

*He does!

Discombobulationism: The Peripheral Dislocations of Aurelia Kaspár

by
Discombobulationism: The Peripheral Dislocations of Aurelia Kaspár

If Discombobulationism has come to designate an aesthetics of bewilderment,works that dislodge the viewer from systems of coherence and perceptual stability,then Aurelia Kaspár remains one of its most enigmatic fellow travelers: an artist both intimately entangled with the movement and fundamentally resistant to its orthodoxies. Kaspár’s practice, which traverses performance, fragile installation, and what she herself terms “quasi-literature,” must be read as an exploration of the conditions of dislocation that hover at the peripheries of discombobulated form.

Born in Brno in 1985 and trained as a linguist before turning to art, Kaspár approaches language less as a communicative tool than as a site of fracture, an unstable architecture of failed promises. Her early performance Lexicon of Broken Entrances (2016),a durational piece in which she recited etymologies of doors and thresholds in twenty-two languages, whilst gradually erasing them with sandpaper,already signalled a method grounded in the simultaneous invocation and destruction of sense. While the Discombobulationists of Rotterdam and Brooklyn embraced cacophony and absurdity as performative strategies, Kaspár cultivated a quieter, more insidious form of dislocation: a semantic erosion that renders language itself porous.

Critically, her work cannot really be assimilated to the core tenets of Discombobulationism. Where figures such as Marietta Voss or Diego Armenta revel in spectacular bewilderment,machines screaming, loops collapsing, maps that refuse orientation,Kaspár inhabits what might be called the threshold of discombobulation: not the vertiginous plunge into incoherence, but the suspended moment just before the fall, when comprehension begins to shimmer and fracture. In this sense, her practice bears closer affinity to the negative capabilities of Romantic poetics or to the Derridean différance than to the slapstick refusal of logic characteristic of the mainstream movement.

Her installation Syntax for an Abandoned Room (2019), presented at the Prague Biennial, remains exemplary. Comprised of transparent sheets of glass etched with incomplete grammatical structures,“if only…,” “because without…,” “when not yet…”,the work filled the space with clauses perpetually awaiting completion. As visitors moved among them, their reflections fragmented into unfinished propositions, subject and object refusing to meet. The piece destabilized not through overload but through insufficiency, a poetics of the incomplete that left the viewer suspended in grammatical expectation.

It is precisely this engagement with the liminal and the unfinishable that situates Kaspár on the fringes of Discombobulationism. While the central figures of the movement stage bewilderment as a theatrical spectacle, she transforms it into a condition of intimacy, almost of vulnerability. One might argue that her oeuvre functions as the melancholic underside of the movement’s exuberant chaos, its spectral double.

Historiographically, Kaspár’s position invites comparison with those peripheral figures who haunt the margins of every avant-garde: Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven vis-à-vis Dada, Leonora Carrington vis-à-vis Surrealism, or Agnes Denes vis-à-vis Land Art. In each case, the artist troubles the internal consistency of the movement by embodying its contradictions in forms that resist canonical assimilation. Kaspár, too, offers Discombobulationism its necessary shadow,a practice that insists on hesitation, pause, and the slow unraveling of meaning, rather than its explosive collapse.

If Discombobulationism can be said to dramatize the crisis of sense in the digital age,its overloads, contradictions, and algorithmic vertigos,then Kaspár articulates a different register: the quiet disorientation of language itself, the subtle erosion of our capacity to name, to begin, to conclude. In her work, bewilderment is not spectacle but condition; not noise, but silence fissured by the ghost of grammar.

One might even say that Kaspár embodies what philosopher Claudine Marchal has termed “para-discombobulation”: the practice of dwelling beside bewilderment without surrendering entirely to its centrifugal force. Her art, in this sense, is not simply on the margins of the movement; it is the margin as such,the line at which sense falters, not with a scream but with a whisper.

One Star Reviews: Gristle of the Spirit: Towards a Meat-Based Aesthetic

by
One Star Reviews: Gristle of the Spirit: Towards a Meat-Based Aesthetic

An Operatic Farce in Twelve Tiresome Acts

It takes a certain kind of genius,or perhaps sadistic persistence,to make a gallery-goer question not only the validity of art, but the very function of their own senses. Clarc Dendrite’s Gristle of the Spirit achieves this rare feat. Not since Sacha Hohn created his armpit works have I so profoundly regretted leaving the house and visiting the gallery.

Clarc Dendrite, for those lucky enough to be unfamiliar, is known for his confrontational installations and his deep, personal commitment to being completely insufferable. His previous show, Skin is a Lie, involved dehydrated banana peels and fortune cookie threats. This time, he claims to be “dismantling the Cartesian mind/meat binary.” What that actually entails is anyone’s guess, but the result looks like a charcuterie board designed by a war criminal with a minor in semiotics.

The gallery is divided into twelve “acts,” each more baffling than the last, beginning with Act I: Pre-Linguistic Sausage. It consists of a single rotating plinth upon which rests a translucent, wrinkled object that may or may not have once been edible. Hovering above it is a microphone dangling from the ceiling, catching every whisper, sigh, and stomach gurgle in the room and amplifying them through a delay pedal.

Act III, Hamlet’s Ham, presents us with a disembodied hand cast in pork gelatin, gently spinning inside a refrigerated display case. The hand holds a single, laminated quote from Judith Butler, smudged beyond legibility, possibly due to the condensation. On the wall beside it, the word “FLESHUAL” is painted in viscous red paint,or possibly jam. I asked a nearby docent what it all meant, which was obviously the wrong thing to do. She responded – I don’t remember her words exactly but it was something like, “This is an uncurated space. Meaning is an act of audience aggression.”

In the centre of the exhibition is a towering sculpture entitled The Meat of Man Is Memory, a tangled mass of vacuum-sealed tofu, rubber tubing, and what I suspect is a disassembled IKEA bookshelf. Dendrite’s process video, playing nearby, shows him grunting while dragging this monstrosity through a muddy field, pausing only to weep and eat a grape.

Perhaps the lowest point comes in Act VIII, The Tectonics of Tenderness, an interactive installation in which visitors are encouraged to “knead” a raw chicken breast while reciting memories of their childhood. A sign says this is meant to “reconcile the violence of adult becoming with the softness of childhood loss.” I left that room and never looked back.

Sound design throughout the show is credited to someone named “Fëath,” and features samples of chewing, gurgling, mooing, and what may have been a recording of someone blowing raspberries into a sink. This cacophony bleeds from room to room like a relentless gastrointestinal opera. At one point, I genuinely thought I was going to be sick,not because of the art, but because of the overwhelming sound of digestion wafting through the air.

The grand finale, Act XII: Rapture in the Ribcage, is a pitch-black chamber where guests are invited to lie on a heated floor and listen to Clarc Dendrite softly muttering “chew me” in sixteen languages while strobe lights flicker in sync with a slowed-down heartbeat. I can’t tell you how it ends because I left halfway through with a migraine, mild nausea, and a permanent grudge.

To sum up: Gristle of the Spirit is less a show and more a form of low-level sensory warfare. Clarc Dendrite has succeeded in creating the rare work that offends sight, smell, hearing, and logic all at once. It’s not that it’s bad art,it’s that it’s barely art. It isn’t even anti-art. It is un-art. It is the sound of the modern gallery system quietly rolling its Rs into a velvet cushion and pretending it’s the national anthem.

One star, and that’s only because the gallery’s toilet was mercifully clean and far enough away from the exhibit to serve as a safe space. I advise giving this show a miss.

Final Diary entry of Hally Redoubt: Race the Blue Train

by
Final Diary entry of Hally Redoubt: Race the Blue Train

(Final Extracts, London , St Ethelbert’s Square)

Late night, outskirts of London

We entered the capital like a knife slipping through steak,sudden, unavoidable. The Bentley grumbled at the stop-start traffic, eager to sprint, but London does not permit sprinting. She crawls, she coils, she waits.

Simon sat rigid beside me, his case balanced on his knees, jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth might crack. “Nearly there,” he said, though whether to me or himself, I could not tell.

St Ethelbert’s Square, midnight

The Bentley rolled to a halt before the Spenserian Club, our official finish. Pimlico Wilde had assembled the requisite gaggle of onlookers: art dealers, journalists, people in overcoats pretending to understand horsepower. They cheered as though I’d conquered continents. Champagne corks popped, flashbulbs fired.

And the Blue Train? It had arrived only minutes before,or so they claimed. There was muttering, rumours of timetable “flexibility.” Did the driver cheat? Perhaps. But I had not, and that was enough. Honour intact, if not victorious.

I stepped from the car, gloved and smiling, as though I’d planned to be second all along. One must always play the gracious loser,it is the last refuge of the proud.

After the finish

Simon slipped away almost immediately, murmuring thanks. No handshake, no flourish, just gone into a waiting black cab. He left his pastry wrapper under the seat, a small proof that he’d ever been here.

Later, I walked past the church where his funeral was held. Black coats gathered, faces turned to the pavement. For a moment, I thought of going in, though I had not been invited. Instead, I lingered at the edge, watching Simon stand near the door, case at his feet, shoulders bowed. He looked both free and burdened.

Closing thoughts

So here I am, back in London. I raced a train, lost with honour, and carried a stranger to the source of his grief.

Was it worth it? The sleepless hours, the toll booths, the pastry crumbs? Yes. Because the Bentley and I proved something,not about speed, nor victory, but about persistence. We chased steel across countries, and though we did not catch it, we did arrive.

Perhaps that is the truest race of all: not against trains or clocks, but against the temptation to stop.

I will sleep now, and dream of roads.

Discombobulationism: A first look at Theory and Praxis of this new Art Movement

by
Discombobulationism: A first look at Theory and Praxis of this new Art Movement

It has become something of a truism to declare that contemporary art thrives in states of epistemic crisis. Yet what distinguishes Discombobulationism from its predecessors is the radical affirmation of incoherence as both method and ethic. Whereas Dada negated, Surrealism dreamt, and Internet art ironized, Discombobulationism inhabits a zone closer to pure illegibility. Its adherents seem to treat sense not as an aesthetic resource but as a trap to be actively dismantled.¹

As Evelyn Marquette observed in her essay The Aesthetics of Perpetual Bewilderment (Journal of Visual Unreason, 2021), the movement’s ethos is best understood as “an epistemological vandalism.”² Indeed, the works often resist not only interpretation but also the infrastructures of meaning-production: the gallery label, the critical review, even the linear temporality of viewing.

Origins in Collapse

Though often mythologized as a spontaneous eruption in Rotterdam lofts circa 2017, Discombobulationism should be read as the culmination of longer trajectories: the fragmentation of media ecologies, the acceleration of affective labor, and the saturation of the visual field with algorithmic noise.³ Marietta Voss’s seminal performance Falling Up the Stairs (2018) already made clear that the act of discombobulation was not accidental but structural,a choreography of futility that refused resolution.

Diego Armenta’s Tuesday Never Ends (Except on Thursday) (2021) similarly exemplifies this structural resistance. The video’s recursive loops produce what theorist Jean-Paul Deleuze-Bataille termed the “chronological seizure”: a temporal convulsion in which beginnings and endings lose operational distinction.⁴

Discombobulation as Praxis

The strategies of the movement vary widely:

• Han Ji-eun’s Staircase to Nowhere (Still Under Construction) (2020) literalizes deferred arrival, recalling Derrida’s “always already” while denying even the possibility of entry.⁵

• Rafael Mota’s olfactory catastrophes (Perfume for People Who Don’t Exist, 2021) destabilize ocularcentrism, aligning with recent theories of the “anxious sensorium.”⁶

• Leonie Krantz’s fractured canvases perform what one critic has called “Cubism under erasure,” a pictorial strategy in which the grid simultaneously affirms and negates its own logic.⁷

Each of these practices can be seen as a refusal of hermeneutic closure. To look for meaning in these works is to miss the point entirely; rather, the works look back at us as unstable constellations of bewilderment.

Exhibitions of Refusal

Curatorial practice has played a crucial role in codifying the movement. The Joy of Getting Lost (Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 2020) remains a paradigmatic case. Curator Maximilian Drozd eliminated wall texts, replacing them with a recursive floor plan in which every gallery was marked as “Gallery 1.” Visitors reported panic attacks, laughter, along with a sense of prolonged wandering.⁸

The American reception, shaped by Discombobulation Now! (2022), cemented the movement’s reputation as both a critical darling and a public irritant. The exhibition’s central paradox lay in its mediation: although predicated on illegibility, the show went viral on TikTok, producing a paradoxical legibility through the logic of the algorithm.⁹

Toward a Theory of Discombobulationism

It is tempting to theorize Discombobulationism as a late-capitalist pathology, a symptom of cognitive overload. But such readings miss the crucial point: the works are not about confusion; they are confusion. They operationalize bewilderment as a medium in itself.

As Johanna Spielmann has argued, “Discombobulationism is not representation but performance: the enactment of confusion in real time.”¹⁰ This suggests an ontological shift in which disorientation is not an effect of art but its very substance.

In this light, Discombobulationism might best be understood not as a movement but as a condition: a contagious bewilderment that destabilizes the protocols of interpretation. If art once aspired to clarity, beauty, or even critique, Discombobulationism offers instead the radical gift of not knowing.

Or, as Voss succinctly put it in a 2021 interview: *“We are not lost. We are unfindable.”*¹¹

Notes

1. On incoherence as method, see F. Roussel, “Against Explanation,” Proceedings of the Anti-Hermeneutic Society 12 (2019): 33,54.

2. Evelyn Marquette, “The Aesthetics of Perpetual Bewilderment,” Journal of Visual Unreason 4, no. 2 (2021): 17.

3. L. Werner, “Fragmented Ecologies: Media, Labor, Noise,” Critical Collapse Studies 7, no. 1 (2020): 88,112.

4. Jean-Paul Deleuze-Bataille, Temporal Convulsions (Paris: Éditions de la Confusion, 2017), 44.

5. S. Kim, “The Always-Already of Nowhere,” Asian Aesthetics Quarterly 15, no. 3 (2021): 101.

6. Lars Henningsen, Olfaction and Ontology (Berlin: Verlag der Sinne, 2019), 73.

7. Johanna Spielmann, “Cubism Under Erasure,” Neue Kunsttheorie 9, no. 4 (2020): 59.

8. Maximilian Drozd, “Curating the Circular,” in The Joy of Getting Lost, exh. cat. (Düsseldorf: Kunsthalle, 2020), 12.

9. C. D’Angelo, “From Illegible to Viral: The Algorithmic Fate of Discombobulationism,” Social Media & Art Journal 3, no. 2 (2023): 144.

10. Johanna Spielmann, Theory/Practice/Failure (London: Afterimage Press, 2022), 91.

11. Marietta Voss, interview with Anke Heuser, Rotterdam Arts Weekly, October 2021.

Selected Bibliography

• Deleuze-Bataille, Jean-Paul. Temporal Convulsions. Paris: Éditions de la Confusion, 2017.

• Henningsen, Lars. Olfaction and Ontology. Berlin: Verlag der Sinne, 2019.

• Marquette, Evelyn. “The Aesthetics of Perpetual Bewilderment.” Journal of Visual Unreason 4, no. 2 (2021): 11,29.

• Spielmann, Johanna. Theory/Practice/Failure. London: Afterimage Press, 2022.

• Werner, Lotte. “Fragmented Ecologies: Media, Labor, Noise.” Critical Collapse Studies 7, no. 1 (2020): 77,115.

The 12th Day of Steam Unicycling

by
The 12th Day of Steam Unicycling

From the Journals of Basil Bromley, Artist and Mechanician

Entry the Twelfth , 25th of May, 1873

A night’s sleep, even in the most indifferent of lodgings, can perform miracles. I awoke in Tiverton less a casualty than a craftsman renewed. The bruises from my tumble have faded to a tolerable ache, the nettle stings to an almost philosophical irritation. More importantly, I had before me the prospect of restoring dignity to my errant contrivance.

I devoted the morning entirely to repairs. With the assistance of a local smith,broad of back, taciturn of speech,I succeeded in fashioning a new drive-link from iron more trustworthy than my original alloy. He handled my sketches with curiosity, remarking that “no sane fellow would place a boiler atop a wheel, and then sit anywhere near it,” yet he wrought the piece with diligence. By noon the unicyclical machine stood whole once more. I paid him not only in coin but with a drawing of his forge, which he received with the solemnity of one given a relic.

The unicycle, when coaxed to life, rolled with a smoothness that felt deeply special, as if it recognised my devotion. We set off northward together, and for the first time in days I travelled without trepidation. The countryside of mid-Devon opened wide: orchards in blossom, cattle grazing indolently, lanes dappled with the shade of elms. It was travel not of calamity but of beauty.

At Bickleigh Bridge a child waved a posy of daisies at me, declaring that my machine looked “like a giant teapot on holiday.” I accepted the description with gratitude,it seemed far preferable to the accusations of sorcery that so often attend me. Later, a farmer’s wife offered me a cup of cider in exchange for a short demonstration in her yard. When the unicycle emitted a proud jet of steam, she applauded as though I had conjured a trick, and I, flushed with cider, bowed as though upon a stage.

By late afternoon I reached the outskirts of Taunton, my spirits correspondingly lifted. The landlady of the inn received me with unexpected warmth, remarking that she had “heard tell of the kettle-bicycle,” and was eager to see it for herself. When she laughed at its puffing, it was with delight rather than scorn. A wonderful moment: my unicyclical machine and I, not pariahs, but entertainers.

Thus concludes the twelfth day. Recovery is not mere mending of iron, but of confidence. For the first time, I begin to believe the road to John O’Groats itself may yet be mastered, conquered, and persuaded. Mile by improbable mile.