August 17, 2016

6.30 am: Floor exercises. I creaked, cracked, puffed, and perspired:

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I’m no Olympian. Neither am I a fan of sport for that matter. Nevertheless, the example of athletes who commit themselves (while holding down a day job) to a demanding daily regime of gruelling exercise in order to be their best (and, hopefully, to be the best) inspires. Any discipline we pursue, if properly undertaken, will ask a great deal of us. More than we can possibly give, at the outset. A discipline is not only a branch of knowledge but also a training, a code of practice, a body of rules, and a mode of behaviour. As such, it requires rigour, devotion, an attention, and an exactitude of the highest order to develop it. The measure of discipline is not its fun and happiness quotient. On the contrary, discipline is often painful, frustrating, humiliating, unsatisfying, and demoralising. It requires submission, time, sacrifice, consistency, and constancy on our part. However, the fruit of discipline is always improvement, control, power, dignity, fulfilment, mastery, determination, and cognisance. These virtues come only the hard way, and very, very slowly: ‘No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it ‘ (Heb. 12.11).

8.45 am: On with The Pictorial Bible II page. I began by preparing reproductions of the project’s artworks for the website:

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Detail from: Write the Vision and Make it Plain upon Tables (Hab. 2.2) (2007) ink on paper on card, 15 x 15 cm (King James Version)
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Detail from: No It Al[l] Ever: 1137–52 (1138) (Rev. 1.13-2.20) gouache & emulsion, 40.5 x 25.5 cm (King James Version)

11.30 am: A touch of disassembling and putting away in the sound studio in order to get me on my feet for a while.

Afternoon. I worked on the page and PDF versions of the images until 3.30 pm. This otherwise perfunctory process now had something of a swing to it. (I’d developed efficiencies.) Back, then, into the sound studio to continue putting away cables, plugs, and effectors:

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Evening. I set about creating a sub-gallery for the digital work entitled ‘Ikon/iPod: Magnificat’ – a work designed to be viewed on a contemporary version of the original portable medium, the breviary. The technology of the iPod has developed to the extent that the artwork is no longer playable in its present format. Perhaps I should return to the work and reissue the composition as ‘Ikon/iPad’:

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Detail from: Ikon/iPod: Magnificat (2007) interactive digital media
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