Monday's Life Class




Back into the regular routine - 15minute pose, 4 minute poses, 2 minute poses, 30 second poses. 10 minute coffee break (following two students up the stairs - one to the other, "you having your usual?", reply, "yes please" - I thought they were going our direction to the cafe but on the top of the stairs they shot off across the road to the pub!). Two 30 minute poses to close the class.

Monday Night's art class is brought to you by the Candid Arts Trust: open access sessions and more formal taught courses in both life drawing and painting. Behind Angel tube, Islington - first left down City Road. Contact: The Candid Arts Trust, 3 Torrens Street, London EC1V 1NQ, Tel: 020 7837 4237.

We went to eat nachos at the Elbow Room, some weird film was showing on the TV over the booth we were sitting in. For a few minutes we couldn't stop ourselves from being drawn to the screen. It was one of those times when you really weren't interested but were transfixed for some reason and couldn't draw your attention away.

There used to be a film like that always showing at the Great Eastern Dining Room basement bar - it was a horrible film, cringe-making, but the whole time I was down there I couldn't stop myself watching it, over and over and over - a man had hooks inserted into his skin, all over his back and front, when they were all hooked in he was attached to some kind of cable through every hook, he was then suspended by his own skin over the skyline of New York on a crane. This was the work of performance artist Stelarc. He was in The Guardian on the weekend because he wants to implant an ear into his arm. WHY? He won't be able to hear through it. M said perhaps to beat the mouse (poor mouse who had an ear implanted on his back). Since the ear was going to have to perform some other function than hearing we thought it would be good if he put pigs ears onto his shoulders - could be like epaulets or shoulder pads that could wiggle at you, or even better - elephant's ears would be implanted on his back like wings - he could flap them by expanding his chest!

Not sure what to make of his art. Or the work of the other body canvas - Orlan. But then I'm not sure what to make of all the people who have cosmetic surgery - breast augmentation, cheek bone implants, pectoral implants, nose jobs. They don't look natural anymore - quite robotic, or alien and very strange.