La Bataille D'Isigny. Part 1. Les Bittes... D'Amarrage.

Listening to local radio in 2010 I over heard the tale of Hugues D'Isigny.  He was a soldier in William the Bastards army back in 1066.  Profiting in the Norman conquest Hugues D'Isigny's decedents eventually emigrated to Canada and then to the USA.  Time and dislocation contracted the family name.  One of Hugues decedents had success in Hollywood, America and then the world.  This descendant was Walt Disney.  Isigny-sur-mer is small town less than 80km to the south of where my army and I are based.

La Bataille D'Isigny.

In December 2018 I visited Isigny-sur-mer for the first time in consideration of Disney.  A few weeks later in January 2019 I went back for a second look with man-camera-Martain.  Inspired, I asked m-c-M to take a picture of me whilst I posed.  Conducting research online I discovered the French term for Quai side mooring posts is 'bittes d'amarrages'.  I was immediately struck by this, because in French, the word 'Bitte' is common vulgar slang for the male sex organ... roughly equivalent to 'cock' in English.

In July 2019 I visited Isigny again.  I focused on the fishing quai just West of the town centre and took photos of my paper soldiers arranged about the mooring posts as if they were conducting a reconnaissance - as reported at the time on the Battle Of walkerloo Blog. 

Les Bittes d'Amarrage D'Isigny. (the mooring posts of Isigny)

All along the Isigny Quai side there are iron mooring posts.  In the C17-C19 obsolete or damaged ship cannon were fixed into place and used as sturdy convenient quai-side mooring posts.  So much so that the cannon became a common form for mooring posts throughout the world.  In French such mooring posts are called 'bittes d'amarrage'.   In Isigny it seemed to me the 'bittes d’amarrages' lining ether side of the quai are batteries of sky cannon defending the town skyscape and its dreamy cloud menace. 

La Bataille d'Isigny Strategic Model. (LBdISM)

At the centre of the exhibition space in my 2021 show 'Le dragon Baligan, myTHself & Autres Monstres' was the LBdISM (La Bataille d'Isigny Startegic Model).  The model surface/battle scape was comprised of a two part painting (in cute pink and blue 1.2 x 2.8m) of a google image search for the word Disney, framed on two sides with a printed google maps satellite image of both sides of Isigny quai.  Various paper soldier and symbolic models of myTHself were placed about the terrain together with London's cock mushroom cloud impact explosions rising at perpendiculars over the symbolic Disney surface.

I knew my next major project would be 'La Bataille D'Iisgny' and this symbolic object was constructed to enable me to engage visitor's in the idea and its potential forms.

Symbolic pieces deployed across the model included: 

Walkerloo Toy Soldiers ;

The Chinese Miners Marching With My Dad's Pit Banner ;

Google Panto Horse Corporate Beasts ;

and a few proto-type myTHself Trinity paper soldier figurines not yet published.

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I began making paper soldiers in 2000 - I didn't really know they were a thing.  

In early 2008 I took my production industrial.  Raising capital I had 180,000 soldiers made in a factory in Chatillon-sur-Sienne.  The paper soldiers were printed near Paris with vegetable inks.  They were glued onto two sides of a re-cycled cardboard and then precisely die cut.  In June of 2008 whilst the 193rd battle of Waterloo anniversary re-enactment raged all about I launched my army of toy soldiers before the public in the museum of Napoleons last HQ. Over the coming months I took my soldiers to museums and events all about culminating in a season of Christmas artisan markets in London. But there was opposition.

Star Wars launched its movie based toys in 1977.  I was in the first childhood cohort to encounter the global toy phenomenon.  Ever since that success, legions of plastic movie related toys have advanced across the toy shop shelves to capture the imagination of children around the globe.  

But toy soldiers are made for real pretend war - specialists.  In Spring 2009 I began to lead my troops in real pretend play battle with the plastic toys from movies and TV that are their opposition.  

I identified three major sources of spumic plastic toy adversary. The movie studios of Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel.  Disney bought Pixar in 2006 ($7.4 billion).  Disney bought Marvel late 2009 ($4 billion).  Disney bought Star Wars late 2012 ($4 billion).  And so my three major adversaries became one.

I prosecuted play war with my soldiers in short films, text and pictures. But against the largest mytho-picture controlling corporation the world has ever seen - an entity who's form boils via global propagation, sale by the billion of material objects under cover of all pervasive legalistic control. My paper soldiers were over whelmed.  I realised I must devote more of myTHself  to their mission.

myTHself Trinity goes to Paris

In October 2018 I made a small exhibition of myTHself in Normandy and announced I was to invest more of myTHself into the real pretend war my paper soldiers had been involved in for 10 years.  A video blah blah was made introducing myTHself's new strategic direction.

https://youtu.be/fxLw6x660xc (15mins)

Last Saturday afternoon at about 2pm, I myTHself Christopher Walker transformed into the real pretend warrior fairy angel - 'Trinity myTHself, Christopher WonkerWankerWalkerloo' and began to prowl around La Grande Halle de La Parc de la Villette, venue for the pop culture festival Comic Con Paris.  Two weeks earlier I'd performed this transformation for the first time in public whilst making the film  'La Bataille D'Isigny :  L'Allumage des Bites'  (coming soon...)

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With the help of my wife I walked and talked amongst the humanity of comic con Paris.  'In my suit I feel a part of my country' I announced 'I am Christopher Wanker the Fantasy Banker and My Cock is London's cock!'... 'I declare real pretend war on all those that are part of Disney'...   As Trinity myTHself Christopher WonkerWankerWalkerloo I wear a smart serious pinstripe suit and tie although with the pants pulled down around my ankles.  Attached to my back are map of Britain wings stretching 3 metres high and 2 metres wide.   I wield a Walkerloo sword made from my Walkerloo paper soldiers and defend or deflect glances and blows with my EasterLegs shield.  I did much real pretend Battle action with cosplayers dressed in disney IP (intellectual property) controlled costumes.  And I gave out many unnumbered Fantasy Bank business cards.

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Even in a festival of carnivalesque costumes myTHself Trinity stood out from the crowd.  Although immediately shocking due to my inferred below waste nudity I was in fact donning a full costume and was prepared and did discuss issues other comic con visitors had concerning my 'originale' appearance.  No one was upset or hurt although I did have a minor incident with a Captain America pro cosplayer.  Funny getting moral concern from a man in a skin tight leather fetish suit messing about with a bunch of others in skin tight leather fetish suits - Wonder Woman looked special... QUICK... where's me bloomin shield!?!

On Sunday for cultural contrast we visited the Musee Quai Branly Jacques Chirac.  This super museum displays numerous and fascinating collections of cultural objects from all over the world.  It was dis-alienating and encouraging to see the quantity and variety of artist and artisan made objects on display from cultures around the world that considered a phallus a necessary and overt part of meaningful expression.

I'm going to make a Symbolic Christopher Wanker TopHat that I can wear in my CW downboy time walking about crowded exhibition halls...  my pants up, my wings down but my hat on.  I see why Picasso dug this museum.  It's filled with inspirational objects.   Thanks to Anais, Fabrice, Noami & Adelle for putting us up so well xx.

Oh, and I myTHself made a new website... www.TheFantasyBank.com .

Christopher Wanker Pants Down. Strike Two. The Royal Accademy Summer Show 2015.

2015 was the bicentennial year for the Battle Of Waterloo.

Inspired by the Royal Academy Summer Show Open Call for that year I made pictures for the entry application.

In 2013/14 I was commissioned by my friend to paint a picture for his new restaurant in Cherbourg.  Respecting the taste of the patron I planned and painted a large sensible figurative acrylic composition.

I enjoyed painting at this scale and gained confidence in the pictures success at the restaurant.  I had thought painting a de-funked medium but skillfully applied paint to make a picture can be magical.

Between 2013 and 2018 I spent most of my time building a house but mid-Winter is unsuitable for building outside.  I dedicated a month to make a new picture for the show.   Judging it was time to expose more I decided to unite two disparate parts of myTHself - Christopher Wanker Fantasy banker would back the toy soldiers at The Battle Of Walkerloo.

Alas the pictures were not short listed for display in the RA summer show of 2015.  Strike 2.

I had never been completely satisfied with any Christopher Wanker photo montage picture.  Whilst living in France I took an afternoon painting class at Cherbourg art school and was shown the basics of 'pretend it's oil' acrylic painting.  I developed a kind of brush scrubbing paint technique on to a dark painted base board which had solidity.  I was seduced by the leather like surface of the painted pictures.  This Christopher Wanker had been painted onto the road map surface, which had been glued to a board.  His painted body united into the map surface as picture on to paper.  The unity of the UK road map and myTHself Christopher Wanker was much more convincing than the photo montages.  Painting the map and him together made Christopher Wanker more real, as a picture. 

too big for my studio i made him in the living room.

Christopher Wanker Pants Down. Strike One. New Work '98.

In 1996 Christopher Wanker pictures were sent along with an application to participate in an exhibition in east London called 'NEW WORK '98 UK'.  The pictures consisted of prints of photos taken of the card and paper model shown.

The model had 15 separate card figurines.  14 were to be arranged in order forming a circle facing inside or out pending exhibition context.  The 15th was to be a much larger picture, a re-representation of the finale of the series, the 'cum shot'.

The model depicted me dressing for city business/work.  When fully dressed I become one with the UK mobile phone company mini-maps I had been in front of. In the same picture plane as the map (perpendicular to the photo background of my bedroom on the floor plane behind) I am able to feel at one with my country's map and I am able to pull out my magical map cock, London's cock and become Christopher Wanker. In the next few figurines Christopher Wanker is in the trans-like frenzy of his magical masturbation and the map cock is detached from the UK road map-whole.  He slips back to the floor plane of  his bedroom - but during those ogasmic moments the UK road map is missing it's capital city.

This model was strongly influenced by the stations of the cross and main crucifix present on the walls of most/all Catholic Church's.  I had been a practising Catholic all my life until leaving home at 18.

MYthSELF assumed Christopher Wanker perfect for a role in the NEW WORK exhibition.  Alas the application for a place in the exhibition was unsuccessful.  Strike 1.

In the summer of 1998 after Englands defeat to Argentina in the world cup quarter final I broke my arm.  I stopped making Christopher Wanker pictures because of my cast, wrote a book about witches for my niece and began to get re-interested in military costume and history.  In the Fall of 1998 I met Laura with whom I moved to France and married.