Vispo: the evolution of You Don't Know Me (with help from Miles Davis)

 

RTomens, 2021

Then the last set they start playing what they don't know; which is out of sight!

- Miles Davis

With this quote from Ian Carr's book Miles Davis (first edition) in mind having read it this morning I rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the Imperial with a view to 'playing' what I don't know as if I usually do know (not true) - yes, inspired! - the typewriter keys are like those of a saxophone, aren't they? - that's what I imagined I 'play' anyway even if their horizontal nature suggests a piano (OK, I could be Chick Corea but instead I'm...Wayne Shorter?) - starting my 'solo' with trademark (ha-ha) straight random uppercase letters in lines at angles the please me before sliding the sheet side on to type Os which are the first surprise (I don't knOw where they came from) then more straight lines of letters growing down the page before the title (which I already knew) is typed towards the bottom, typed wrongly, as it happens, but as Sun Ra once said: 'Why don't you do something right and make a mistake?' although that's hardly a credo a typewriting vispo artist can live by because to seriously go wrong after a lot of typing just plain upsets the typist yet since I rarely make formal pieces requiring precision I can afford a mistake or two that will barely be noticed - onward - I start freeform (paper released from the grip of the carriage) Os snaking out from the top, through the straight lines towards the title, then red dashes (paper horizontal) aimed at the title in order to form a link, then thinking 'I'll unify it all' I type more Os, first at slightly altered angles then settling into regimented lines in black but shortened each time by one space with a view to landing on the title only to find they wouldn't therefore altering the position of each line to finally do so - add more Os to underscore the title then, finally, feel the need for more freeform Os as if breaking away from the (loosely) regimented lines of their other-way-up relatives...and I'm done.

A word about the title. It means to acknowledge the relationship between online viewers, me and my work. If they did know me better, would they still 'like' the work? Still, Miles Davis was no saint yet that fact cannot/should not prevent anyone from appreciating one of the 20th century's greatest musicians.