2018.11.16 (& beyond) Aitch interviewed by email by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

2018.11.16 (& beyond) Aitch interviewed by email by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

Note that around this time Aitch was also going by the name "ae phor" (A4, the British paper size closest to the American "typewriter paper" (8&1/2 X 11")). Note also that he was dating his days in terms of their number in the overall sequence of the year. Hence, the beginning "day 352" would've been December 18, 2018.

This interview was originally intended for use in a book about Neoists that I was planning to write. The reason for focusing on Neoists instead of Neoism is because I think that there's no such thing as Neoism except in the sense that it's smoke & mirrors that Neoists use as a multi-purpose tool. Almost immediately into the beginning of 2019E.V. I came into conflict with Monty Cantsin Amen (Istvan Kantor) & considerably lost my enthusiasm for writing the book.

Around the same time, I discovered that the 1st batch of Neoists that I wrote to weren't very good interviewees. Most of them didn't reply, regardless of whether they said they would or not. Aitch & Via Vidorae replied but I found Via's answers so consistently stupid that I became further discouraged. Hence, I've decided to just put the interviews online & to cull from them later for the book, if it ever exists.

The following is by no means the complete tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE aRCHIVE of the works of Pete Horobin. It's almost exclusively just what Aitch sent in connection with this interview + a few augmenting scans & links that were handy. A more thorough look at Pete Horobin's life & products is certainly in order.

t,ac: When were you born?

Aitch:

day 352

every lifepath has a point of origin we might agree that this precise point is when a male sperm fertilises a female egg thereby generating the cellular development or gestation of a humanbeing however this is biologically simplistic more complex aspects/conditions/circumstances are involved when considering the point of origin - such as the impact/influence our dna has on the way the above mentioned lifepath is initiated & progresses the route it takes the phylogenetic memory that is locked within our cellular structure which in turn will also determine not only the route taken but the decisions that are made along that route these innate characteristics/attributes are deeply embedded - & may have little or nothing to do with our genetic inheritance that is bestowed upon us by 2 parents male & female let us for the sake of argument or for the benefit of this lifestory imagine that there are levels within each humanbeing a deep/profound phylogenetic level - & a level that is closer to the surface of who we are that is the person who is projected who is perceived that is the identity who is recognised by those who know that person this identity is constructed of percentages representing 2 people mother & father yet these percentages are not 50-50 a mother's genes can carry particular traits that are not borne by the father's genes such as colour blindness perhaps the innate skill of navigation is inherited from the male line perhaps a certain way of walking with hands in pockets for example is more a male inherited characteristic the way tea is stirred more a female inherited characteristic - further to this we might debate the question is it necessary for a humanbeing to know their parents intimately or otherwise for that person to behave like their parents? another question comes to the fore does the developing foetus have a name? for although the foetus has a gender a phylogenetic memory a set of genetic traits its name is not determined until after it has emerged/escaped from the confinement of its mother's womb

t,ac: Where were you born?

Aitch:

@ approximately 18.00 on day 343 1949 in hammersmith hospital london such a foetus emerged with its umbilical cord strangulating it so severely that it was pronounced a blue baby near-dead a type of parasuicide probably - a response - even @ this youngest of age to a phylogenetic memory possibly the male child was taken immediately to an intensive care facility & placed in an oxygenated apparatus his mother was not permitted to see him until the child was pronounced alive - fit to suckle - & ready to start out on his lifepath his mother was not married his father was married to another woman these circumstances made the child illegitimate

a word in the legal lexicon that is worth considering here by definition not authorised by the law or not in accordance with accepted standards &/or rules we might conclude therefore lawless & antisocial an outlaw & a bastard harsh negatives applied by a conformist society such negatives that remain in a human backstory like a perpetual stain brand or tattoo

t,ac: What name were you given at birth?

Aitch:

this child was given his father's name thereby carrying on a cultural tradition peter horobin his mother's name was elizabeth/betty haining

t,ac: Describe your parents.

Aitch:

- & was reared brought up prepared for his lifepath by his mother & her parents christopher haining & elizabeth/daisy marshall the haining/marshall family were scottish protestants presbyterians - & although both terms are closely associated with a theological philosophy a form of religious practice that had its roots in the 16thC reformation neither the hainings nor the marshalls were devoutly religious it would be true to say that they followed a christian morality - & that their mindset was protestant it is therefore implied here that it is entirely possible to be a protestant outside of a set of proscribed religious conditions/rules to be a integral member of a protestant culture without ever attending a church service

t,ac: Describe the social environment you were born into & grew up in.

Aitch:

betty haining continued to live in england working in various forms of employment until 1959 when she & her 3 children moved or returned to scotland peter horobin known within the family as pete attended 4 primary schools due to his mother's peripatetic lifestyle - & 4 secondary schools due to continuing itinerancy & the scottish education system he was not scholastically outstanding in any sense mediocre & average slightly dyslexic disruptive in classes unruly & expelled from one secondary school @ the age of 16 by the age of 17 pete horobin had decided firmly to follow innate or genetic impulses & be an artist despite being colour blind & a bad drawer/draughtsman

@ this junction in the lifepath that we are following it is necessary/appropriate to examine in some detail the scottish education system the artschool tradition parental & social pressures in accordance with what it means to be an innate artist that is a person who is responding to a creative phylogenetic memory with its origins in caveart or paleolithic markmaking plus a genetic implanting passed from one or both parents - an impulse that has little or nothing to do with standards applied by educational establishments primary secondary or tertiary in order to fulfil the criteria set out by the scottish education establishment - a person aspiring to become an artist must progress from secondary school to artschool this streaming is formally recognised by society - & anyone practicing the making of art self-expression or intuitive creativity outside of this proscribed artschool structure is considered illegitimate an outsider a naïf or @ best an amateur to progress from secondary to tertiary education - it is necessary to prove scholastic merit/worth measured in the form of examination passes one of which may be art others must include english mathematics & a science which is to say that innate skills play a very minor part in attaining a place in a scottish artschool - & therefore being measured/assessed as an artist it is very difficult for an aspirant adolescent to breakaway from educational & parental pressures guidance & recommendations - to stand alone defiantly all the more so if s/he does not come from a family with a history of tertiary education for there is no one within the family to best advise - &/or defend - the challenger's right to rebel against a societal/educational structure it might therefore appear to be the case - that the only way out for the aspiring artist is to follow a conformist route - @ least in the 1st instance the 1st stage of a life in art such a decision is a compromise in many ways but sometimes compromises have to be made - & if they are made with a longterm ambition/goal in mind then they do have a purpose pete horobin left school in 1969 to work as a netsman on the river tay salmon fishery his application to artschool was turned down because there was no drawing of a set standard in his portfolio from being a netsman he laboured as a forestry worker rebuilding a portfolio of drawings that would satisfy the artschool selection panel

day 353

& so it was that our traveller on this particular lifepath pete horobin in spite of knowing instinctively/intuitively that he did not need to go to artschool to be an artist made a compromise out of uncertainty ignorance apprehension but there is another dimension in this narrative one that is a direct consequence of adolescent hormones testosterone in particular the sexual urge the desire to be actively exploring - & engaging in sexual activity - & where best to indulge in such behaviour rite of passage than the bacchanalia that was artschool in the 1970s pete horobin became a very typical art student longhaired arrogant defiant drunken & brash 5 years of this behaviour in this environment that was unique to this era one of free state education grant-aided & indulgent left pete horobin with an alcohol dependency a diploma in painting - & a desire to project his ego he did not feel fulfilled did not feel that he had learnt anything constructive worthwhile or in fact that he had attained any skills that would be of benefit to earning a livelihood or - to his longterm ambition the artschool that he had attended for 5 years in dundee known as duncan of jordanstone was a thirdrate parochial scottish educational establishment - staffed by self-inflated egos who were nourished by their students especially when the same students emulated/mimicked/plagiarised their tutors as a result of this fawning/flattering/ingratiating behaviour the environment was one of incestuousness the most successful students graduated as part-time lecturers

day 353 (continued below)

t,ac: Were you born a Neoist?

Aitch: [excerpted from Day 354 below:.]

t,ac: If so, why?

Aitch: [No reply.]

t,ac: If not, why?

Aitch: [No reply.]

t,ac: If not, when were you a Neoist & under what circumstances?

Aitch:

excerpt from day 354 below:

t,ac: I remember you telling a story about your being prescribed glasses when you were a teenager & your deciding to not wear them. Your eyes, as I recall, continued to be fine for many decades after that. I think you wear glasses now. At what age did you decide to wear glasses & under what circumstances do you wear them?

Aitch: [No reply.]

t,ac: One of my favorite memories of early work by you is of an assemblage that I saw of yours at your sister's in Edinburgh. It was, perhaps, a square, maybe 2 feet by 2 feet, perhaps of white canvas. There was fleece across its bottom that had wire, maybe barbed wire, going across it. Thru elegant minimal means it evoked a sheep laying on the ground & leaning against an enclosure fence. If you have a foto of that piece it wd be nice to share that. Please tell me more about the work you did in that era.

Pete Horobin painting, 1968

Aitch:

day 353 (continued from above)

pete horobin was not a successful student every year he failed drawing it was evident that he was not a competent painter but on the positive side by experimenting on the margins of painting in other media such as photography collage construction & installation he left duncan of jordanstone with a few essential nuts & bolts that would enable him to assemble what for him was a new approach to art making but any new approach requires points of departure in horobin's case they were constructed mixed media works fabricated with natural objects & materials combined with b&w photographs - & text his local landscape provided his immediate inspiration

pete horobin graduated in 1975 in 1977 in the company of harry nelson a student of ceramics he hitch-hiked to the south of france while lying sunbathing on a beach in saint tropez staring @ the naked breasts of young nubiles turning honeycoloured - their nipples like petite limpets he experienced a eureka moment a stunning inspiration that would alter the course of his lifepath when he returned to dundee he would make a 100 small collages & distribute them by a chance procedure through the post - if any survived then they deserved to be categorised as art otherwise they were simply trash also on this hitch-hiking journey one evening in the square in avignon he met by chance a silkscreen printer from paris pierre ouchacoff who invited him to visit - & who was interested in collaborating on a dundee/paris exhibtion this collaboration faltered however ouchacoff introduced horobin to cairn an artists co-operative in paris

on returning to dundee the accessibility of the art object was set in motion 100s of small collages were made & distributed by various means - an emphasis was placed on documenting the art-making or the project the making was the project - & the project was documented with examples of the objects made letters to participants photographs - & associated ephemera the project therefore became a narrative a multidimensional multimedia story in effect a book - the accessibility of the art object was followed by junk into art/art into junk perhaps the 1st conscious recycling of waste products into art objects & installations in scotland - @ least if not the uk after a public exhibition the art was skipped reduced to waste returned to landfill cairn in paris participated - & exhibited the documentation in their white space on the faubourg st antoine - as a consequence of this collaboration pete horobin was added to cairn's international mailing list

left: Monty Cantsin (Istvan Kantor); middle: Monty Cantsin (Pete Horobin); right: Monty Cantsin (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE)

image: Pete Horobin

The Great Litvinov (Gail Litfin) wearing the sheep mask that she wore to the London Zoo

t,ac: We met in person in 1984 when the Great Litvinov & I arrived in London in advance of APT 8. I had known about you ever since the time that you wrote the book about the 1982 Neoist Training Camp in Würzburg & we had probably started corresponding around that time. It's my understanding that you've structured your life & work about decades during wch you assume a particular name & approach to living. In the 1970s you were the Principle Player, for wch you had particular uniform-like green & yellow clothes. In the 1980s you were Pete Horobin & your project was the DATA project. In the 1990s you were Marshall Anderson & you lived nomadically in a tent. I lost track of who you were & what your focus was in the 2000s. You may've been Peter Haining. In the 2010s you seem to be Ae Phor & Aitch. Please list & explain in detail each of your decades & provide at least one archetypcal foto to represent them.

Aitch:

day 353 (concluded from above)

the following year pete horobin commenced his 10-year self-historification project DATA Daily Action Time Archive - 1980 to 1989

day 354

before taking another step along this lifepath it is necessary to backtrack to examine describe & illuminate this young artist's political awakening as has been afore mentioned pete horobin was brought up by his mother & his grandparents a scots presbyterian workingclass family with no connections to the artworld chris haining a timeserved joiner - advised pete horobin that we dont make art meaning that our class do not by - custom or tradition occupy themselves with making art or participating in culture implying adamantly that culture was in the 1960s the preserve of the middleclasses the intelligentsia & welloff workingclass people were @ best artisans - & for the most part tradesmen & labourers a few years before this pronouncement was made by chris haining - pete horobin attended a rural secondary school which gave its pupils the barest of rudimentary education the headmaster told betty haining that her son would be a ploughboy for the rest of his life in other words dont hold any high expectations for your son his fate is sealed this background with its limited aspirations & narrow values made pete horobin an instinctive socialist by the time he had decided to dedicate himself to achieving a place in artschool he was living in a coal mining community where one of his near neighbours was jimmy brown a resilient stocky barrelchested coal miner who had left school @ the age of 14 to go down the pit he had received little or less - formal education @ school - & had been educated by the communist party of which he was a member during this era the communist party organised lectures & educational tours for its workers jimmy had heard some of the leading intellectuals speak - & was an avid reader with very catholic tastes in literature jimmy was a survivor a hunter fisherman gardener winemaker skilled in all aspects of self-sufficiency he taught horobin to shoot animals for meat @ the same time introducing him to a raw band of uncompromising workingclass politics a kind of them-&-us conflict-based polarised no-messing politicised agenda one that left a profound impression

DATA was photocopied @ the end of every calendar month - & freely distributed through the postal network there was never any question about DATA being a commercial product nor was there ever any attempt to produce an attractive - collectable artform for a bourgeois clientele DATA was documentation nothing more nothing less it bore its own aesthetic & practical logic all the original pieces were carefully archived during the 1st 2 years only photocopies were given freely in essence DATA documented the life of a very ordinary artist whose only uniqueness lay in a historical context in other words pete horobin was a stereotypical artist of the scottish/british postwar culture this placement impelled horobin to document his life over a 10-year span coinciding with his 30s an intense period of creative strength that he knew would/could never be repeated during the 1st year of DATA horobin referred to himself as the principal player suggesting that he was an actor in his own life - & by virtue of this positioning inviting others to enact his life by following enclosed instructions within DATA - & by enacting scripts set down in text during this 1st DATA year peter below from wurzburg in germany made contact he too was on cairn's mailing list not long after robin crozier an artschool lecturer in sunderland england also made contact both were mail artists sharing the same network - & through exchanging DATA with their forms of mailart horobin was drawn into the global everexpanding eternal network correspondence art - & neoism

it must be emphasised that DATA was pete horobin's intuitive alternative to art that he distributed it via the post was a practical solution he had never heard of mailart nor any of its historical precedents or contemporary associations the 1980s were horobin's personal correspondence adventure it was an organic progression one action/event/exchange leading to another in 1981 horobin had his 1st one-man show in milan invited by centro lavoro arte the following year peter below invited him to participate in the neoist network's 1st european training camp on the dole unemployed - & with very little money to spend on travel horobin decided to invest a dole cheque on hitch-hiking to wurzburg from dundee the journey took him 36 hours approximately - he had no intention of staying for the duration of the training because he had no money to feed himself fellow participants however would not let him go they agreed to feed him so horobin suggested he keep a rigorous diary of the event in exchange for hospitality

1982. The Neoist Network's First European Training Camp

is it possible for a person to think of themselves as being a particular classification of individual while being in ignorance of the name given to that particular classification? for example if a creative individual is intuitively drawing & painting without knowing the classification naïf he is not going to consider himself to be a naïf - & likewise we might apply this logic to other occupations/disciplines/activities - & so we can surmise that pete horobin was not a mail artist when he started to distribute DATA through the post - & by the same logic we can surmise that horobin never thought of himself as being a neoist before coming into contact with that classification certainly not a mail artist by intent but by accident & association horobin was never @ ease with this classification of most interest to him during the training camp was the hostility expressed by those present towards the activity of mailart - & the stupidity of mail artists in general it was agreed that a lot of rubbish was being passed through the eternal network - & that neoism aspired to a higher ideal this appealed to pete horobin & as a direct consequence he returned to dundee a neoist this self-declaration of intent coincided with an invitation to participate in eric finlay's mailart exhibition outside the outsider but when finlay learnt of horobin's change of allegiance he dropped him from the project

the training camp also coincided with pete horobin's change of identity - from being a form of everyman that is the principal player to a more specific character the acrobat the acrobat was unemployed/worked/did not work/ walked a tightrope between 2 realities he dressed in red & grey the latter symbolising bureaucracy the former attack he had his own passport - & it was this formal identity that took him to wurzburg while hitch-hiking he was intercepted & questioned by the police who asked to see his identification when they saw his passport & occupation they asked him if he worked for a circus? & where he was going acrobat produced 3 modi modus vivendi modus peregrinus modus anniversarius the last one being lived while in residence during december 1982 @ jurgen olbrich's house on kunoldstrasse in kassel germany

each year DATA altered its working model/pattern/format & to some extent medium what had started as a distribution of photocopies only developed as horobin was drawn more comprehensively into mailart & neoism he began to exchange unique bookworks/objects/audiocassettes with correspondents - for most of the DATA decade horobin was homeless although he owned a property in dundee which was later to become known as the DATA Attic it was uninhabitable from 1981 to 1986 DATA was therefore a working practice that could be made anywhere while in transit or static in 1984 after organising the neoist network's 8th apartment festival in london horobin declared 1984 The Year of Freedom - & pushed a pram across scotland reintroducing this traditional traveller image back into the scottish landscape - & imagination PRAM Pedestrian Rambles Around Myland was rigorously documented

- & each stopping place was dedicated to a correspondent or cell this proactive engagement with landscape unlocked a phylogenetic memory one that encouraged pete horobin to take DATA outside to cease being confined & restricted by an enclosed space or environment 1985 was named The Year of Monty Cantsin the neoist network's open popstar anyone could be monty cantsin a kind of everyman a kinsman to the principal player an androgynous character of no particular gender or any gender monty cantsin could be a virus

[t,ac: Listen to the soundtrack of "Transparent SMILE: Monty Cantsin Performing with White Colours", a 16mm sound film that I made that Pete contributed to the soundtrack of:

050. "Transparent Smile (Monty Cantsin Performing With White Colours)"

- Monty Cantsin (ie: Steve Estes), Monty Cantsin (ie: Joan Lobell), Monty Cantsin (ie:tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) w/ sound by various Monty Cantsins (primarily John Berndt & Jimmy Hedges)

- 16mm w/ optical sound

- 17:00

- '85

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here broken into 2 parts:

pt 1: https://youtu.be/EGc-rohmq4k

pt 2: https://youtu.be/p84MiQDrsnc

- On the version of "VAUDIO" that I've put online I've rejoined the 2 parts:

"Transparent Smile (Monty Cantsin performing with White Colours)" (1984-1985) - the original VAUDIO version of this was of an early print of the film before I'd added scratching to the internegative. This is the same version that's on YouTube already except that the earlier upload is in 2 parts. - https://youtu.be/yamGE-mVW8A?t=15m1s]

- an animal or a humanbeing an astronaut a tailor hairdresser philosopher football player aquadiver or spy during this year pete horobin lived in bruxelles from where he organised in collaboration with emilio morandi The Neoist Network's 9th Apartment Festival in ponte nossa italy a small prés-alpi village in which everyone was called monty cantsin for the duration of the festival

Book1985APT9.html

the tenuous lifestyle that he had in bruxelles collapsed he returned to dundee with 2 pence in his pocket - & moved back into the bare bones of his attic which now that a new roof had been installed - he had to

reconstruct/recondition/redecorate from scratch there was no plumbing electricity or furnishings - throughout 1986 long distance walks of varying duration in scotland were documented

day 357

for the benefit of those of you who are reading this lifepath narrative - & are internalising the question how could pete horobin afford to produce DATA? give it away freely distribute it through the postal network - & travel outside of scotland without being in regular paid employment this is an appropriate moment to explain how horobin's limited finances were put to effect - @ the beginning of the DATA project pete horobin was employed by an agency as a jobbing labourer he would be sent as a temp to fill-in for absentee employees in various companies one afternoon he was sent to conoco uk to temp as a dyeline printer after some weeks he was promoted within the ranks of conoco to the post of document controller to the murchison project a salaried employment which enabled him to save enough money to live from for 2 years - & purchase his near-derelict attic after his contract with conoco ended & until the end of the DATA project horobin survived by signing on the dole as unemployed then when finances demanded he would work for a few weeks as a labourer DATA was a low budget artform trimmed to suit a limited economy in the 1980s it was possible to live off £20 per week - with photocopies being relatively inexpensive & postal rates being cheap DATA was produced & distributed for a low percentage of horobin's weekly allowance - @ no time did his lifestyle go into the red he had no one from whom to borrow money - & no bank would loan him funds his artform was not recognised by arts funding agencies so he could not apply for grants or bursaries his DATA was illegitimate - his was a precarious & challenging existence but DATA proved that a viable multidimensional multimedia artwork could be made with limited financial resources

1984. APT 8

left: Monty Cantsin (Pete Horobin); right: Monty Cantsin (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE)

top: Monty Cantsin (Istvan Kantor)

top: Yantoh (Diana's dog); bottom: Monty Cantsin (Istvan Kantor)

to return briefly to 1984 this was a pivotal year apartment 8 introduced pete horobin to a number of influential artists mark pawson stefan szczelkun tentatively a convenience & stewart home the progenitor of smile a magazine of multiple origins horobin produced a number of smile issues

SMILEs.html

- home & horobin collaborated on a number of projects within the scope of DATA - & in 1986 horobin's project walking home was dedicated eponymously to his friend these walks were of variable duration horobin would travel by public transport or by hitch-hiking - to a predetermined destination in scotland then walk home to dundee each walk was rigorously documented - & dedicated to a correspondent - or cell as previously afore mentioned above

PRAM unlocked a phylogenetic memory this innate response to living outside was further experienced during 1986 - & perpetuated - & repeated throughout 1987 & 1988 during the latter year horobin was employed as artist in residence to the dundee resource centre for the unemployed a facility in the city centre that he was keen to develop as an alternative events space he proposed the festival of non-participation as a de-centralised series of events which meant that anyone could organise an event under this umbrella ken murphy-roud staged the burning in glasgow on 8.8.88 - & in dundee pete horobin installed a large exhibition on the theme of suicide documented as a smile entitled life's a bitch

he also organised the vaudio weekend in the same venue that of the drcu

Book1988Yet.html

[For the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE movie of this era witness "Homeless Movies" here: https://youtu.be/_OLEL-lHFbE ]

- by the end of this period pete horobin was sufficiently confident in his levels of endurance to declare 1989 The Year of the Tent during which he lived outside in a tent from 01.01.1989 to 31.12.1989 - this is documented on formal A4 waterproof DATA sheets one completed each day - @ the end of each calendar month these sheets were photocopied & distributed by post to horobin's correspondents horobin's art practice & lifestyle was carried out nomadically within scotland from a small oneman tent a peapod made by ultimate

DATA terminated on 31.12.1989 & with that the creative life of pete horobin too was terminated the identity which was associated with DATA no longer had relevance DATA had documented pete horobin's 30s - & now that these years had been lived & left it was time to move on to another stage of the lifepath DATA had pushed the boundaries extended the envelope - & concluded in a conceptual cul de sac the formal A4 DATA sheet as a vehicle for documenting & expressing a lifestyle & artform could not be practically or intellectually extended or so it seemed @ the time - within the scope of analogue media accessible @ the end of the 1980s

day 358

on 01.01.1990 another identity was born one with a different form of expression in mind but one that built upon the outdoor experiences of The Year of the Tent marshall anderson lived & worked predominantly outside in scotland for 10 years his studio was the scottish landscape he walked from shetland to the borders & from the hebrides to fife keeping the old roads open ancient routes drove roads military roads & extant railways - documenting the landscape with drawings in various media - & documenting the artists who lived & created within his shared landscape his base in dundee now known as the DATA Attic which held the Attic Archive was rented to tenants who paid a nominal sum in return for caretaking responsibilities anderson lived from these rents plus fees earned from writing articles for various art & cultural magazines he was a peripatetic freelance arts journalist a romantic spirit disassociated from the previous decade constructing new networks within scotland his research into artists within his shared landscape led him to discover autodidactic artists whom he referred to as workingclass artists which his 1st discoveries frank bruce & david maccormick were but when other practitioners of this untutored expression came to light it was obvious that class distinctions were inappropriate & inaccurate especially in the case of randolf galloway who belonged to the landed class of southwest scotland in 1998 anderson was commissioned by art in inverness to research & install an exhibition of scottish outsider art anderson's journalism was - @ times - politicised & vehemently critical of the scottish arts establishment his visual self-expression tackled cultural issues around tourism & land management latterly it became increasingly difficult to place his writing in magazines & freelance rates had not increased in 10 years - on 31.12.1999 - @ the close of the millennium the life of marshall anderson was terminated it was time to move on to another stage in the lifepath the research & writing of marshall anderson had opened previously unknown doorways leading to the self-expression of people outside of the art establishment in scotland his own artform had experimented with unique bookworks constructed from materials sourced in the scottish landscape peat clay rocks & wood his drawings had progressed from singular fixed perspective viewpoints to multiple viewpoints his decision to go back to basic rudiments of landscape drawing in order to find new forms of expression - had proved productive

art by Jame Finlay

on 01.01.2000 another identity was born one with a continuum in mind peter haining decided to base this decade in ireland researching folkart naive art & outsider art the irish museum of modern art imma in dublin had assumed responsibility for monika kinley's collection of outsider art on a 10-year loan - which had been established by her deceased lover a surrealist poet & film-maker called victor musgrave haining applied to imma for a place on their artists' residency programme to research the musgrave/kinley collection - & develop his own audit of autodidactic art in ireland north & south regarding ireland as a unified island without a border separating the 6 counties in the north from the 26 in the south after labouring with an agricultural squad to make enough money to equip his irish journey - peter haining left dundee by bicycle in march 2000 to travel to cairnryan from where he took a ferry to larne on the coast of antrim this 1st part of his 5-year journey took 5 days from larne haining cycled round ireland searching for - & documenting - examples of autodidactic art in september he commenced his 4 month residency @ imma survival in ireland with no more than he could carry on his bicycle was challenging haining earned money writing articles giving lectures & selling some of his artwork shelter during winter months was provided by short-term artists' residencies & caretaking duties - @ the end of 2005 haining moved from the south of ireland to the north rented a flat in enniskillen & took a job as a part-time gardener here his research was self-published digitally - collected under the acronym HIBERNIA Haining's Irish Bketour in Eire & Round Northern Ireland Arts 5 years on the road camping out had punished him physically - & further to this there were problems with his columbian tenant in the Attic Archive he was forced to cut short his irish decade & return to dundee an environment that no longer held his interest peter haining assumed responsibility for relocating the attic archive & selling the attic but before both tasks were achieved he wanted to invest in a mac with video editing software - & self-publish parts of DATA digitally in addition to videos made as part of hibernia - by the close of the peter haining decade on 31.12.2009 almost everything had been finalised in dundee

mcmanus the municipal art gallery & museum in dundee had turned down DATA catalogued & complete the west highland museum in fort william had turned down the mashall anderson archive both for similar reasons the predominant excuse being lack of space but haining knew that the real question was one of legitimacy neither horobin nor anderson were recognised established artists in their own right had both offers been made by an artist whose name was esteemed both institutions would have accepted all the more readily given that both archives were going free to good homes peter haining held out little hope that he would find suitable collections to accept responsibility for the attic archive in parts or as a complete 30-year documentation/artwork psychologically therefore he had to be prepared to skip or scrap the lot a drastic solution but one that did have historical precedents either by accident or design haining held that he should stay true to pete horobin's socialist principles - & by extension accept that the attic archive belonged to the state which had unknowingly patronised by varying degrees - the achievement given that no single state-run establishment in scotland was going to take the entire attic archive haining had to divide the whole into more easily deposited parts - & start to make approaches to musuems & art institutions when sally harrower of the national library of scotland visited the attic to collect a file of correspondence she was shown the marshall anderson archive - & on the spot agreed in principal to accept it in its entirety her decision was later ratified the scottish national gallery of modern art took a small percentage of DATA while the greater part was boxed & transported to budapest where it is held within artpool hibernia haining's own 5-year documentation - was accepted by the national irish visual arts library nival in dublin in total 10 separate institutions took various parts of the attic archive - & what had been the DATA Attic was sold to a book conservator

day 359

on 01.01.2010 another identity was born again with a continuum in mind a 10-year digital artwork ae phor the penultimate & most playful stage on the lifepath ae phor administrator artist archivist animator author aitch & alphabet the 1st ae phor titles of works began with an A for example from A 2 A the relocation of the bulk of DATA from Attic 2 Artpool

the DATA Atchive at Artpool

- & a bicycle tour of fife through places in alphabetical order from A 2 Z these initial A-works developed quickly/spontaneously into explorations of alphabetical works but ae phor did not @ anytime consider a linear project starting @ A on 01.01.2010 & ending @ Z on 31.12.2019 his approach was organic often lead by serendipity/chance/circumstance

H4 hospital documented ae phor's 5-week hospitalisation when he was diagnosed with a spinal abscess T4 documented his 6-month stay in hawick R4 documented his coastal residence @ redheugh other letters that have inspired animations being C D O L U V W X Y & Zed 2019 the last year of the ae phor decade will focus on E4 entry/exit/equine/ettrick/et cetera

an appraisal of this lifepath will lead the reader to conclude that there are 6 stages the 1st is of 30 years duration/gestation the next 4 each last 10 years the 30s 40s 50s & 60s of different identities - each decade singularly individualistic marking different stages of maturity - & the last one is of an indeterminate span its ultimate duration controlled by fate this lifepath commenced shortly after ww2 food rationing was still practiced - @ primary school peter horobin was taught sewing & knitting in secondary school classwork was carried out using an open-nib pen & ink biros were banned gardening basket-weaving & practical skills were a large part of the curriculum in the 1970s @ duncan of jordanstone college of art there were no photocopiers photography was chemical-based processing of b&w film DATA documented the birth of digitalisation & the accessibility of computers the marshall anderson decade made use of electric typewriters & floppy discs - & witnessed the inception of the mobilefone revolution - & peter haining started to correspond by email he bought a mobilefone & a mac desktop computer we might after examining this lifepath in some detail ask the question whose lifepath is it - does it represent one individual ego or different identities with a common phylogenetic link is it part of a continuum from an unknown point of origin?

ae phor

author

2018

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