Sunday. 2:16 a.m. I’m up to no good. I’m pretending, at blank hours of the night. Fake art, fake me, fake this, fake that. Yeah yeah yeah. Fake fake fake.
I’m wandering narrow streets in Bristol, in England’s southwest. I’m here; I’m there. Psychographically everywhere. Insomniac ghoul trip. My brain a purposeless concoction.
Can’t tell if I’m alone amid these technologies. Can’t tell if I’m subject, object, compound verb. Close encounters of the urban digital, on the streets and lonely.
Close encounters with a jet-lagged pearl earring as well as some LEGO soccer goons, hangin’ tough ….
Maybe I’ve become Manic Banksy, plus words. MAYBE IN HERE WE’RE ALL MANIC BANKSY
… plus words.
And time.
Better yet: Banksy plus a bananas street-art wild card …
Bristol beware! Bananas, bananas everywhere!
My madness established (and accepted), I did this: I bought that little city. I filled it with more murals, more bananas. In the process, I copied my favorite writer. I’d apologize for being so imaginative, but it ain’t me doing the work.
We’ll identify the real artists contributing to these following the exhibit. The artificial illustrator hurling his rotten peels into the deep is named Snake.
Whatever you might think about whether Snake and I were really there, slipping and sliding across Bristol, know this: We were in some form. Ghosts in a spray-painted DeLorean. How else did these images arise?
And anyway I own the place now. Bought it for an arm — a right arm. I am one arm typing, therefore. Five tired fingers. The things I do for fake art, at 3:16 a.m.
The murals having grown into the city. The murals having stepped over and into the borderland between them and us.
Or would you prefer more of a narrative?
A story: has not appeared. A narrative: did not reveal.
Just me and my me-length hoodie, creeping about town …
Bristol having been renamed “Bananas, England” by yours truly, somewhere around 4:16 a.m. It’s mine, after all. I shall do with it as I please.
Watch the action from wherever I like …
Even turn the lights on — when it suits me.
As onlookers fume, gape, hope for less potassium in their diets …
Leading back to here, my laptop. A MacBook Pro on its last legs. A one-armed man fighting back. I lean in; I listen. The laptop wants to end with a flourish. So it goes.
Four bananas diverged in a city …
And I? I took the one less banana’ed by.
And that has made all the difference.
— Bank This
Artists: Banksy, Yayoi Kusama, Louise Bourgeois, Van Gogh, Vermeer, Lady Pink.
Kicker: The same insomniac pretending spree led to the following: LEGOS at war. This thematic shift requires further investigation. Maybe next time.
Xoxo.
Starry Night wall mural is 11/10. Absolutely love that one. I feel like a “How I Make the Best AI Art” type of article talking about your approach and highlighting your (and fan favourite) pictures would really take off. Just a thought
🍌 🎈🙌🏽