Fuck the right (after-studies).

fuck the right (after-studies) is an extension to a recent Polaroid work fuck the right. By 'after-studies', I am referring to a (digital) extension of the original work.  There are, of course, a great many road signs to photograph using only Polaroid film. This is especially so due to the limited - and now out of date - film available.

What has struck me about Australia, at least in Sydney, is the number of 'keep left' and 'no right turn' signs; far more than the opposite 'keep right' and 'no left turn' signs.

Noticing this, I began to read them as political injunctions, as warning signs against the right. Thus, the possibility of rearticulating these signs as political statements - of making obvious the political nature of such statements - is the main context of the work. What could be regarded as subliminal is made evident.

So, fuck the right (no right turn). (after-study 1).

The problem I have with these digital images, (from a 2mp camera-phone) is how to present them: colour, monochrome, or contrasted monochrome? Indeed, it was such problems that turned me toward Polaroid use originally (see: Why polaroid? for more on this).

The final aim is to collect these images in book form, or as PDFs for download - in the same manner as the sculptural notations and the integral polaroids of jones smith work (see the download section for these).

The Polaroids, which constitutes the main body of work, will be loaded up in due course.

Update on 19 09 2009 by S. Cousin

There is a verbal component to this work: the more I noticed the signs and the more the Polaroid work developed, and due to these after-studies (a few days ago I ventured off to work too early and noticed a host of signs on my walk - after the bus - many of which I photographed) the more I felt myself saying 'fuck the right' each time I passed one such sign. So, fuck the right.

Update on 19 09 2009 by S. Cousin

As will become apparent when the main body of work is made available, I made a concerted effort to minimise the intrusion of additional text / textual commands within the Polaroid image - I did not wish the central message to become confused - unlike the digital phone camera images presented here.

- Manchester. Fragment #3 (for E.).

I tell her how, months before,
I watched her walk up Oxford Road.
She appeared as no more
than a reflection, a confusion
amid street lights and neon signs.
- Everything is an omen.

Update on 08 10 2009 by S. Cousin

FETCH IRK THUG.

Political anagram / turning simple statments into anagrams since 2009 / period added.
created at http://www.deanjackson.dj/nameanagram/.

Update on 08 10 2009 by S. Cousin

As a public intervention ('Look! Look at what these signs really say!'), is it possible to designate the road signs themselves as my own work of art, in a similar manner to which others have designated my art work in the signature project? To what degree does the very act of pointing suffice as a creative, artistic means of creation?

(Of course, photography itself is a case of pointing: the act of pointing the camera, and a pointing out by the resulting photograph).

Update on 10 10 2009 by S. Cousin

This poster was displayed ouside the University of Sydney (City Road):

Update on 19 10 2009 by S. Cousin

The day before yesterday we drove to Liverpool to get tickets to see Crvena Jabuka, which we picked up at a cafe called the Mali prince. 

Talking of Liverpool, isn't there something exciting about going to a place that shares its name with a place you already know somewhere-else, and in another country (in this case, the UK). Reminds me of an article I read about a man who hitched to Hell... in Poland. And somewhere I have an excellent Polaroid of Arlene by a sign on the entrance road to Moscow - in Scotland.

The point however, is that on this trip to Liverpool (a little bit of India and a little bit of the Balkans) there seemed to be no right turn signs at every major junction along the way. Not just one, but two, three, four. So we kept going straight ahead and keeping left all the way.

So remember, each time you see the sign, fuck the right.

Update on 06 11 2009 by S. Cousin

The road signs on which this work is focused are termed regulatory and advisory.

Regulatory are those signs that must be obeyed by law.

Advisory are, as the designation suggests, advisory.

How then, do such terminologies relate to my political rearticulations of such signage?

Actually I think the answer to this is simple: you are merely advised to fuck the right or you are instructed to fuck the right.

This ongoing work is, of course, necessarliy to the point, polemic. There are, after all, no signs that say (in a conversational manner): we would rather that you did not turn right in to x street...

Update on 06 11 2009 by S. Cousin

On KEEP RIGHT signs:

Very rare in Australia, but Keep Right signs do exist. They are used in exceptional circumstances where traffic must keep to the right of the sign.
(http://www.hobbiesplus.com.au/signspotters/regulatory.htm. Darren Hodges. 30/09/2007).

In respect to the differing types of NO RIGHT TURN signs, Hodges terms these 'symbol', 'text' and 'hybrid' where there is a combination of text and symbol.

Also of interest is a collection of 'errors and oddities' beginning at the following page:
http://www.hobbiesplus.com.au/signspotters/whoops!.htm

Update on 23 11 2009 by S. Cousin

Each sign is a public intervention. It has nothing to do with traffic. It is a political statement.