Confession time. I’m not great with kids. Never have been. But kids love the machine so I end up talking to kids and although I never seem to have much to say I’m really enjoying it.

This journey is having some lovely spin offs.

One kid, Daisy, drew this fantastic picture of me and the machine.

Coz I’m so crap with talking to kids I thought I’d write my story so far with pictures, for the younger ones.

This planet is becoming difficult to live on, pollution, global warming, fighting. So I decided I’d live somewhere else. Not another planet. Just somewhere else. I needed a machine to take me there. This is the instruction manual for that type of machine.

When I was thinking about my machine I found lots of pictures of other machines for living away from the earth. This is one.

Here is another.

I found someone to build me the machine. This is him.

He drew up plans…

..that included me!

Now I’m trying to get the machine to take me somewhere else. I think I need to be in the right place at the right time so I’m trying lots of different spots. This Saturday it will be in Trafalgar Sq.

Not on the Plinth!!

Why is it when you want to do something good, oh so much! Something bad seems to take over.

Or when you want to look your best and suddenly you look like crap. I can tell myself over and over again that I am beautiful, that my body is different but not ugly and then I step out there and I know that what people are seeing is my “ugly spirit” (that’s a steal from William S Burroughs if anyone’s interested though heaven knows I’m not as screwed up as him poor dear). The one inside me I don’t want to be there, that I definitely don’t want to be seen, but the one that is always there and always will be there, the one that is always seen.

It’s too easy to say it’s their problem if they can’t see beyond the obvious. But why is it so bloody obvious when I don’t want it to be. Oh stop it.

Sorry. I so wanted this machine and me to change the world and I can’t even change me.

I’m going to keep trying. I’m not giving up and I can feel the moment of change really close at hand, when I’m there, and I know that a lot of people see it too. But then it’s over and I walk away and I don’t look back, because I know that’s important, but then I’m still around, still here, nothing’s changed, nothing’s moved on really. The machines beautiful and just what I dreamt so I start thinking it’s me and all that ‘Ugly Spirit’ stuff and maybe someone else could make it leave and maybe I’m just here to deliver it. A Jane the Baptist courier.

But like I say.  That’s OK, I have no fear of that. Of failing. Nobody said this was gonna be easy. Maybe it’s not for me and my lesson is that. But what worries me is maybe I’m not making it work cause I don’t want it to finish, not just yet, maybe me and old ‘Ugly’ cant bear to be parted.

Oh. I don’t know. Here’s another piccy. Me, The Ugly Spirit and Sputnik (an unholy Trinity!) at Greenwich. Scary. The crowds are getting bigger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stockton on Tees next. Never been. Looking forward to it.

Sorry if this has been a bit of a moan.

Love

Jane and Ugly xx

Where to begin. Well Glasgow was great. A really different setting down by the tube station (Nah Nah Nah Na! For Jammers everywhere!) in Partick, concrete, railway bridge, glass and graffiti. But lovely to be home. The machine liked it and being built of old bits of Glasgow and beyond fitted in quite well.

The Watchmaker and his family came. It was lovely to see them and they brought Spotnik a lovely pair of blue Venetian glass eyes. Very smart but it does make him look a lot more wolfish.

The watchmaker seemed pleased and I do seem to be getting everything right but then why are we still here. I don’t know. Maybe it really does have to be the perfect moment. I kind of knew that but I guess always though I could almost will that into existence. Course it’s not as easy as that. If it was all us folk with machines and wooden wolves with glass eyes with dreams beyond the stars would be shooting off all over the place.

From Glasgow a week or so later we tried Manchester and boy was it wet and windy. I really did feel like a buccaneer battling the waves. Really exhilarating. It made everything seem very real and now, vital and sopping wet.

It was in a park and there was lots going on. In between showers I took a wander and came across this fantastic bunch of guys from Rajasthan. Totally surreal all these colours and energy and otherness in a wet field in Manchester. Such great entertainers, tumblers, dancers and vivid storytellers.

Just in case I had slipped dimensions I chatted to the girl, who was really lovely and her English was great. She told me she’d been dancing and performing ever since she was a wee girl. Maybe I’m starting a bit late in all this.

This balance work you can see here appeared absolutely effortless. That word again, mebee that’s the key or maybe better still I should just stop trying so hard and enjoy the ride. Thank you Rajastan rope dancers everywhere.

Lovely Liverpool the week after where the sun shone and barbecues were the order of the day. Its London next and I can hardly wait. Up in Greenwich at the Royal Observatory, Longitude and Latitude, wooden clocks that keep perfect time – now that’s gotta mean something.

Oh Jane. Stop it!

Brighton was cold and fun and people waltzed and smiled and under all the lights and with the fires blazing in the background it really felt like something would happen. And of course it did. But I’m still here so I guess in a way what I was hoping would happen didn’t. Though I’m not even sure I know what that is anymore.

My Nan used to say “it’s better to travel than to arrive” and I guess maybe that it is, for a while. Mind you she also used to say when I was messing about, indecisive – nothing’s changed! – “you’re like an old hen scratting for daylight” or more graphically and as I thought at the time deliciously naughtily “ you’re like a fart in a colander”. She was great. A real earthy lady. From it and of it. And here’s me wanting to fly away from it. Mind you I think she’d understand.

Norwich was after Brighton and it was sunny and daytime and full of kids. Lots of them came to look and stopped and stayed whilst others went away to play.

I felt glad to be warm and amongst the trees and watch the Frenchman make brown paper crowns and sceptres for a whole host of wrapping paper lords and ladies who rustled like the leaves as they walked.

Soon it will be Glasgow again and the machine and me and sputnik will be home. And the Watchmaker is going to visit to talk about what’s happened and where we should go next and perhaps help me see why I’m not getting it quite right. It will be good to see him and his family, though I don’t really think he’ll be able to help much anymore. I think it’s up to me.

See you soon.

One of them looked up into the skies and saw it was snowing. The snow never reaches the surface because of the atmosphere, but this machine carried on reporting and saw that it was snowing on Mars.

This kind of thing gives me hope. The secret life of machines.

I always loved that speech from Blade Runner:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.”

Oooh dangerous. I’ve been inspired to poetry.

Snow on Mars

People say that when you die
Your life spins before your eyes
And you can think quite clearly and surmise
What you did wrong and how to make amends,
By then its too late and the story ends.
And any thoughts you might have shed
And all the things you might have said
Are washed away like teardrops in the rain.

My big idea is to make a moment,
When everyone who ever shares it
Will understand that nothing is solid as it seems,
That reality is just somewhere in between.
That machines and stones and bricks and bones
Have dreams beyond the stars,
That life is quick and young and gone,
Just like snow on Mars.

Later…..

Whilst this machine is for me, or us. Our “Project of Possibilities”. It really is for everyone. I’ve only just worked that out.

It’s like that movie. The day the earth stood still, or something like that. When the scientist comes to earth and pretends he’s an alien.

Because this concept of there being intelligent life somewhere else in the universe so throws in to doubt everything most people have ever thought about, religions, political structures, gender, the natural order of things, everyone has to thing again. And most importantly start again. And hope fully not make such a mess of it this time.

That’s what I want to do. Create a moment that is so unique, so special, so beyond the realms of possibility that all who witness it will have to think again. Will have to start again.

Easy peasy eh?

Well sort of. He’s very friendly and his family help with communication. I was a bit scared. You know. Old guy on his own and all that. But he’s not weird at all and with his family and all it’s really relaxed.

Best of all I don’t have to learn Russian!!!! Phew.

I just looked around and played with all the stuff in his workshop. Here’s a picture.

Best of all he doesn’t think I’m stupid.

I showed him some pictures of machines I’d found that might help us. I even found him a Russian one though I didn’t think it was very good. But i thought he might like it and it shows I was aware of his country.

He has so many machines. It’s crazy. Maybe I should just nick one of his. No. I know that’s daft but I don’t know if I can ever build anything with him that’s anything like some of these. They’re really amazing.

He tells me I can. That we can. So we’ll try.

Ha ha. It’s going to be an Obama machine!

After we talked I drew some more sketches.

And then he sent me some plans. This is a Da Vinci thing but the plans are v similar but I don’t want to show them just yet. Just in case.

My big idea is starting to feel real.

Big news.

I’ve found someone to make my machine. Just chance really. I saw his card in the newsagent’s window

He’s a watchmaker by trade. His card said, well you know “Clocks and watches mended” that sort of thing. But then said something really weird.

“New worlds made from the passing fables of the old”.

See what I need is a mechanic, a magician, someone whose creations are limitless. I need a world where wood, cranks, cogs and wheels, drips spirit, flesh and steel.

I somehow knew straight away that this might be the guy.
I told him about my machine. I wrote to him. Dropped the note through his shop door. He wants to see me. I’m just off.

Perhaps today I will be transformed.

I don’t know what to expect.

What I need from this machine are endless possibilities.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Later.

Doh! I feel soooo stupid.
He was born in Russia..

We can’t initially, really, talk to each other. I speak no Russian and his English is limited. I understood ‘coffee’ and ‘yes’. The information goes to his assistant and out to The Watchmaker and back to me.

Eeeeek! What if the machine speaks Russian?

Can I?

Perhaps that’s the whole point. I know this sound stupid but we are dealing with possibility here. Perhaps I won’t understand it until I understand Russian.

I’ve got to learn Russian. Help!

What if the instructions are in Russian?

This could take some time.

“In building a machine we are so intent upon our purpose that we forget that we are investing that machine with creative power…it can overgrow us in an invisible way…they are the dwelling-places of divine powers that may destroy us.”
-C.G. Jung

This sort of thing is just what I’m talking about. It makes me feel that I am on the right lines with my “big idea”.

To give you some perspective, where all this is coming from, I have a confession. I have, what in polite circles is referred to as a condition. No I’m not bonkers! Ha Ha. Though I do sometimes wonder.
Anyway it’s not a big deal but when my condition was diagnosed I took an interest in such things. I read lots and visited scholars and experts. On one such excursion to a museum I was shown the peculiar harnesses, straps and stumps that were intended to transform a bunch sick children’s lives. They too had a condition. Caused in their cases by science and greed.

Feeling guilty at what they had done science and business tried to make amends by throwing money at the problem. They made lots of equipment to make these children “normal”

These mechanical contraptions smelt of leather and utility, a fastidious functionary’s sketch of human possibility that by their sweaty practicality removed all possibility of life. I didn’t need to be told that not one of the children used or cared for them. They were strapped into place for the occasional exercise in experimentation or public relations but even in the faded images that remain the loathing and despair in the eyes of the children bear mute testimony to their cruel failure.

I knew then what I must create couldn’t be like this. It must escape the chains of practicality. It would have no chart to plot itself against no stars to guide it so in order to transform, to travel, it can’t exist solely in the world of bolts, brackets and screws, it must straddle the realm of the imagination. To soar free it would need to be set free. To become one with me the contraption must be sown into my soul.
But first I need to find someone to make my machine.

My project of possibilities.

I’ve drawn a few sketches – I will post them soon.

hmmmm, not very stable - need more than a magic carpet.

all great machines need a pulley system.

opposing forces, I think I am getting somewhere.

this will only really work if I can get enough power to create the plasma field - dream on.

I know that the situation on the surface of our Earth is formed in such a way that life for the majority of the population will soon become not only dangerous, but simply impossible. In these conditions and given my own personal situation it is important to investigate other possibilities. It is impossible to live on this earth, I have no wish to die, especially not now, but I do have a wish to live elsewhere.

A few years ago I visited an exhibition in London. It was made by a couple, I believe they were man and wife, called the Kabakovs. The exhibition was housed in a marvellously flimsy topsy turvey structure of wood and canvas. A cabinet that stored people’s dreams. They called it the Palace of Projects and it was a celebration of possibility.

If people’s dreams can be stored and quantified, sketched and planned surely it can’t be so hard to move to the next step of making them happen.

My dream is to live elsewhere than this planet. Therefore I will develop a Project for living away from the earth.

I’m not sure how this will work but perhaps if the project I create has endless possibilities and is powered by not just my body but my spirit, given the right place and the right time, our lives could begin again. Elsewhere.

It’s all just a question of how you look at things.

This is my big idea.

No problem huh! I’ll write again soon.