The Despot

 

 Avec la souillure nous entrons au régne de la Terreur 

Paul Ricoeur

The despot relegates as many sorts of behaviour as possible, even those that were previously considered quite blameless, to the margins of his system, declares them to be a marginal violation and therefore dirty. It is prohibitions such as these that increase fear, and that is what concerns him. Even the most willing are finally unable to satisfy his requirements, become guilty and henceforth are dependent on clemency.

Therefore it is a hard and fast rule, that the stronger the bid for power, the louder the cry for order and cleanliness. The fact that this produces fresh dirt is painstakingly suppressed. But in reality power desires the universal pigsty; its intention is not to promote hygiene but itself. It follows that the exercise of power is a dirty business, in the most literal sense.

Scum of the. ..consumed with envy they profane our holiest...and the most priceless jewels of the human heritage they trample into the... of their styes. Drop by drop they pour the...of sedition into the minds of our innocent...and with evil mockery seek to drag down into the mire a spirit that has raised itself on... ... far above the degradation of their...

The despot, to finish with this example however inadequately, is the only person in his realm who is not impinged upon; no-one comes near him, among so many he is the most compact unity. This is because of the constantly withheld pressure of his numerous subjects. He therefore lays claim to most space where least exists, which is in the middle. The lust that is said to accompany the exercise of power is best described as a sensually excited palpation of the personal boundary, followed by an increasingly emphatic confirmation (which may eventually become intoxicating) that it is still impregnable, intact, like an armour.

De Sade offers a valid schema in his portrayal of the despotic character, linking lust for power with coprophilia and licentiousness, which reach a climax in the victim's death. According to the dialectics of dirt the despot is particularly easily defiled, precisely because he is untouched. A stain on his honour, which is to say an inadequacy in terms of authority and ego attributed to him, may in certain circumstances be caused by a mere glance and must be washed away with blood - whereas, strangely enough, other forms of killing defile rather than cleanse.

“There is not a living man who does not wish to play the despot when he is stiff: it seems to him his joy is less when others appear to have as much fun as he; by an impulse of pride, very natural at this juncture, he would like to be the only one in the world capable of experiencing what he feels: the idea of seeing another enjoy as he enjoys reduces him to a kind of equality with that other, which impairs the unspeakable charm despotism causes him to feel.”

In order to enforce his claim to power at every level from top to bottom, the despot exploits the attitude to dirt of those whose social position is not clear. He regularly attempts to increase their number. In the past the ranks of the so called petty bourgeoisie served as a reservoir; nowadays it is more likely to be the white-collar workers. So in order that no-one should come along and call them filth, they will set themselves up as advocates of the strictest classification, as vigilant protectors of social order and proper respect; will preach cleanliness remorselessly wherever they go, become enraged by the slightest deviation, and whenever possible will fight against the tolerance on which they secretly know they depend.

Quotes assembled from Smut: an Anatomy of Dirt by Christian Enzensberger 

Schadenfreude, 2024

 

oil, canvas, wood

180 cm x 110 cm

Petra at Aeropuerto de La Gomera, 2026

 29.7 x 42.0 cm

Pencil & Pen on Paper, Frameless Clip Frame 

 

Petra performing salto del enamorado (the lovers leap), 2026

 29.7 x 42.0 cm

Pencil & Pen on Paper, Frameless Clip Frame 

 

ta-ra (draft/unfinished)

 

Marina Manchesterisms 

looking for The End 

in kerosene chirrup 

when you get out of bed

the centres enterprise The Fab House 

typologies Heated towel rails

turn to prigs inside Veolia bin

lures the fiscal escalator

a place for no-one levied out people 

Centrica owning the Future

the exclusion zone but for radical realists

the company directives but the quiet part

macroprudential pipeline 

& a languid song falls hardest

at what price culled from

now the only thing to take

is my life has become  

stupid working class Kent scum

signed austerity in reservoirs, housing, 

long-run grid investment 

the Empire strikes back    

on rattan rabid its world elegance 

crosstongued the political class 

dead centred somewhere 

To The North Of This Shit 

call it poetry below the rate of inflation 

& ask how to live in it?

Intuition (Bindi Hand Double) After Rodin, 2023/4

 

Double-headed Duckling, Rolf Harris Bronze sculpture of Bindi Harris’ right hand, moss

Text by SWF for Helping People Press release:

This case is to decide whether underneath your friendly and lovable exterior there is a darker side lurking. 

- Sasha Wass QC 

 

… such animals often move in a disoriented and dizzy fashion, with the brains ‘arguing’ with each other. Some simply zig-zag without getting anywhere. Heads may attack and even attempt to swallow each other.  

 

- Prof Georgina Lake (UCLA), private correspondence 

 

 

1.

Craniopagus parasiticus 

 

and what of the mirror that sits 

inside the body, intersecting the self?  

it produces fatal abnormalities 

 

het kint with 2 of everything - two minds two faces 

 

het kint 

who does not make it beyond childhood, who dies on that black slab 

 

a mirrored sword - the guillotine of england 

which makes of a man a beast of two backs  

 

or - depending on where you stand 

(perhaps you cut the rope?) 

 

the doubleheader called craniopagus parasiticus 

by medical science: the parasitic twin 

 

the 2nd palm is black 

handshake like an inkcap 

it is the mark - 

 

2.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp 

 

There is a precedent for such dark duplications in art history. In Rembrandt’s turgid lamplit The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, a man named Adriaen het Kint lies on the slab (supposedly). Het Kint: the Kid. He was a thief. His right hand had been chopped off before he was hanged. Rembrandt initially painted the corpse like this but later changed his mind. This added hand is dark and discoloured and disproportionate. Meanwhile (as noted by Sebald and many others), his left hand is not actually a left hand at all but some chimera: the visible tendons of it, which according to the location of the thumb should correspond to the palm of the left hand, are in fact the tendons of the back of a right hand. In this room there is one right hand too many. With two right hands you cannot pray.

 

3.

Tryst 

In the late 90s, Harris’ daughter Bindi (now Ava Reeves) learned of her father’s ‘tryst’ with her childhood best friend, which began when she (the friend) was 13 and continued into her adulthood3. In her anger, Reeves reportedly ‘smashed up Harris’ paintings’. 

 

 

4.

Rolf on Art (2002, BBC) 

 

For Rolf on Art: Rodin, Harris made a sculpture of Reeves’ right hand, ‘… first modelling the hand in clay and then casting it. To my amazement I was told that Rodin used exactly the same single hand sculpture. If you look closely it is definitely NOT a pair of hands, it is a repeat casting of the same [right] hand, but placed in a slightly different position, at a different angle. I’d like to thank the people at the casting foundry who nursed me through the whole process.’ Many were made. Now purchasable from several online galleries for a few hundred quid - nearly worth it for the smelted price.

North Head (draft/unfinished)

 

Northern feeders of the coquet 

where grass-grows glass houses & stone

as well surplus water from the Black Lodge 

five sepals downy feeling

to the south the bastard asphodel 

The Poetry Ecology Crew 

chews three-lobed crowfoots 

like a business plan 

on small infill sites Rotes Wien  

swallowed landfill vanishing 

mell the blood skeleton 

career bitters cathartic balkan

-ised Alex Nivens on the High Speed 

home alone sacrators of Basilidian 

devolved shallow parts read aloud 

to maisonettes Purchese Street 

argent wide the palest teardrop 

under Kissing Building  the 1% 

as architectural design 

A Heatherwick Stairway To Heaven

couponed dead voices 

landscraped hands & faces 

metallic grating in the head 

but the strangler of cries Flag Girl 

& heritage versions histories 

in bas-relief shit buried 

centuries our little gaps of sedge

to mouth a wealth of sickness 

signalling groundsel dream archipelagos 

inside District Councils through the dale

beyond feeling again rosacea skin acreage 

The Real-time Air Quality Index Visual Maps 

my lifestyle plied to hide gloms 

of golden saxifrage on Euston Road, 

I’m-alright-jack south-east requiesce 

will burn for a fixed term.

Petra's Selbstdarstellung at Hotel Finca El Cabrito, 2026

 29.7 x 42.0 cm

Pencil & Pen on Paper, Frameless Clip Frame 

 

Petra traveling to El Gomera on a Banana Boat, 2026

 

 29.7 x 42.0 cm

Pencil & Pen on Paper, Frameless Clip Frame 

Petra performing salto del enamorado (the lovers leap), 2026

 29.7 x 42.0 cm

Pencil & Pen on Paper, Frameless Clip Frame 

 

Petra learning the Gomeran whistle, 2026

 

 29.7 x 42.0 cm

Pencil & Pen on Paper, Frameless Clip Frame 

Petra performing Goddess Pose (Utkata Konasana), 2026

 

 29.7 x 42.0 cm

Pencil & Pen on Paper, Frameless Clip Frame 

Ah Beautiful Sky at Housmans Bookshop

 

“Ah Beautiful Sky is hot ash in a refuse area. Denyer pickets with tentative dexterity through densely referenced and meticulous form. A sistering to 2022's CC:Death Chartered Institute of Personal Development (Veer2), ABS strips to the nude and redresses and readdresses thematic hold-alls with a nit comb. Here Denyer cauterises Right Wing biography and policy into auto-poetics, lacing it with tinctures of sardonic, scathing glottal that clogs the opened wounds that CC: left.  ABS is punctuated with blood, self-spilled and publicly tapped, every page is a seat peering into the operating table. Denyer makes words hurt, there isn't a moment’s peace in ABS, even the most reflective and delicate of moments, you're a fly in a glue trap. ABS avoids didactics and keeps pace, holding your ears and speaking into your mouth, KILL THE CPS.”                                                           

                Tim Wolf

A5, 130gsm, 76 pages

https://slubpress.cargo.site/Ah-Beautiful-Sky

The Velveteen Rabbit, 2026 (audio work 15 minutes 24 seconds)

Iphone jail cage, BRAVIA Theatre Rear 9, hay, found stuffed rabbit, 

audio work 15 minutes 24 seconds

 

Painter as Friar Eating Curd Cheese (Pittore vestito da Frate che mangia Ricotta), Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo 2020 w/ Max Fletcher

 

In 2020, via the artist Max Fletcher I was invited to participate in The Independent a project by Hou Hanru curated by Elena Motisi. I initially proposed on a consultancy review the Zaha Hadid's 2010 on its compromised structural functionality by proposing that the obvious 'assembly errors' that I had noted on my first visit to the gallery in September 2019. 

The project proposed a provisional 'fabrication period' with Caseificio Antonio Garau, one of the oldest cheesemakers still operating in Sardinia. A selection of cheeses, including Granduca di Mandas, Piccolo Giunco, and Dolce di Mandas, would be cut & then shaped to correspond precisely to areas of the building where these irregularities appeared, whether these be holes, slips or cracks & these would be installed within the architectural gaps/defects for remaining duration of the exhibition. Each of the relevant cheeses would be effectively cast for the duration of the exhibition to highlight the modern software or IT architecture failings in the wider ZHA Architects design studio. I had proposed this with speculative involvement of a burgeoning architectural & CNC expert situated at The British School at Rome. 

The particularity of the Sardinian provenance stood in tension with the increasingly prominent politics of the Italian right. During the period in which the project was being developed, public debate in Italy was increasingly shaped by the rise of Matteo Salvini and the transformation of Lega Nord into a broader nationalist movement. Historically, the party had cultivated the idea of "Padania" as a distinct northern homeland, promoting a narrative of cultural and 'ethnic difference' intended to justify regionalist discourses and, at times, outright secession from the Italian state. Sardinian cheeses are the best cheeses in the world imo. My favourite cheese is Pecorino Sardo Dolce (Mild): Matured for 20 to 60 days. 

Discussions around the project progressed, and perhaps in part because of the increasingly explicit cheese-orientated dimensions attached to the general politics & Hadid's global influence in architectural circles beyond her death, my role within the exhibition shifted. M. Fletcher appeared dressed as a 'Friar' eating ricotta cheese whilst painting 3 8ft canvases containing excerpts from Luigi Pirandello & Carlo Bertolazzi. Before instructing Fletcher on his role as mendicants sworn to a life of poverty, humility, and simplicity. As the friar 'begs on behalf of the poor' I believe the Painter, now disavowed from infrastructural (Religious-State) patronage now 'begs on behalf of the rich'. Il mio paese si chiama ideologia, vivo nella capitale, la città del futuro. 

I read aloud segments from an omitted email correspondence edited by 'management' & generated during the development of the project in which I had affected a sweet lisp to make my voice sound more charming and persuasive. In the period before & after the subsequent I had purchased several crows that dotted both the interior & exterior of the museum with the desire to preach to the 'hawks'. Each of them had within their beaks some of the 'regurgitated' emails between museum management, curators & related members of ' la squadra'. My final email sent included the sentiment:  Lunga vita ai produttori di formaggio sardi, abbasso Patrik Schumacher!