Do you know what? I love it when those American TV programmes start with one of the actors doing a gravelly voiceover that says, “Previously on…” (insert random US serial here, Friends, LOST, ER, etc) and nothing did it better than V. It gave the chance to reminisce the previous week’s entertainment, or catch up if you’d been sent to bed early / been out drinking / forgot to bother. In terms of this site, you’ve got nearly a year to catch up on.
Therefore, and in no way linked to the tutorial I have this week, I have decided to give a short recap to anyone new to this blog – or my tutor, whoever reads it first.
It started with a fortune cookie.
A seemingly random opening which led me on a journey of thought, discovery, reflection, and ‘synchronicity’ of my story, my recent and distant past and my near and distant future, and involved my attempting to make sense of it all and perhaps, change my fate in the process.
“HELP! I’M LOCKED IN A FORTUNE COOKIE FACTORY!” said it, and I couldn’t just ignore it. It felt like a sign, like this was meant for me, and for a while, I was obsessed with the gimmicky snacks. I even set up an installation in Liverpool city centre to someone I made out had been killed by one.
This took me to Chinese philosophies and fortune predictions, good luck messages, and the I-Ching. Lottery numbers consumed me for a while. The idea of serendipity and fate was exacerbated however by my discovery that this message had been sent to me by the very lady whose photos I had found under my bed ten years previous, then the realisation that other (fortunate and unfortunate) events in my life had been caused by other people linked to my past somehow… so I decided to get some closure by sharing my stories with you. Thankfully my best mate on the other side of the world built me this platform for them.
http://www.jonathangreenbank.com/archives/9
In order to prevent such events happening in the future, believing I could control my fate, I began to visit fortune tellers. I chose the seaside towns that they forgot to shut down, where I had enjoyed large chunks of my childhood, going undercover to document my discoveries.
This experience had a profound effect, not just on the narrative my work embellished but on my life as a whole: I feel these seven visits changed the course of my life somewhat. It was all very seductive, and quite exciting going in ‘wired up’ with a dictaphone, and then filming my response, but as time went on, I became rather sceptical following others’ disbelief bordering on cynicism and so was determined to prove them wrong and the ’seaside seven’ ‘correct’.
http://www.jonathangreenbank.com/archives/120
Every month I shared a diary of life events whilst my life story developed, before your / my / our eyes. Moving flat and adjusting to changes at work – which several women had told me would occur – meant my studies took a back seat, yet if anything this brought my thoughts even more to the forefront than ever before. And, as the realisation that this could all just be a coincidence slowly dawned on me, so several stories came to light that suggested more was at play. For example, as I researched Sophie Calle and Paul Auster, I discovered the artist had just undergone a vast project involving fortune tellers, whilst many of the events described to me during the tellings, came true for me or those near to me in dramatic circumstances. None more so than the drama surrounding my trip to New York for Christmas, already booked in secret but foretold by the fortune tellers, and culminating in an engagement to be married, again, as predicted.
On the way to NYC a film that had been recommended to me multiple times, told me in no uncertain terms that
“You can’t ascribe cosmic significance to am earthly event.
COINCIDENCE.
That’s all anything ever is.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Coincidence.
He had finally learned…
There are no miracles.
There’s no such thing as fate.
Nothing is meant to be.”
Which was a kind of relief – I took it as read that this be the case, so shifted my interest areas once again, choosing instead to look at my very distant past, potential events further down the line, and my parallel existence.
In terms of my ancestry, specifically my negro gums and their links to Nice in France, where I will be undertaking a residency in the near future, there are several links to immigration and name-links which offer exciting opportunities for future investigation.
And, as for my future, the evidence in recent months would suggest that the fortune tellers’ soothsaying is more true than not, and therefore, I should be able to pretty much plot out my life until I die of a heart attack at age 90ish, especially given that I must already had an interaction with some of those people who will be involved in my future in some way.
Potentially, the most interesting narrative at present involves the whole notion of lookalikes, yes, Dave Gorman had an influence when I thought for a while about my name-a-likes, but I’m more interested in the visual and that’s why my current line of enquiry lies with people whom I am seen to resemble.
All of this suggests convergence in some way, and that all of this diverse strands will magically fuse together in an act of synchronicity to beat all others. This will need to happen before August, of course, so I’ve started reading Jung and others to fully appreciate this phenomenon. I’ve watched the films already, now I just need things to start happening even more frequently than they have done over the past few months.
Time moves on though, and I feel like Peter Blake, “clinging to [something] slipping away”. I need to get things together, in the words of Joseph Cornell, “before it fades”. therefore, I have decided to
