My name is Zachàr Laskewicz and I'm an Australian neurodivergent creative artist living in Belgium. I've been a composer, a performer and a lecturer in places as diverse as China, Finland, Indonesia and Denmark. Art has always been my way of interfacing with reality, and I've always been experimenting as I discover continually new and exciting ways to express my vision.
I've settled permanently in the beautiful and ancient Belgian city of Ghent where I live at the following address: NIEUWLAND 70 bus 201, 9000 GHENT, Belgium.
... My life, however, has seen dramatic changes since my academic career was cut short by a burst cornea and an existential crisis more than a decade ago...
Since a period that began just before the pandemic, I am currently undergoing an overwhelming and herefore unimagined period of artistic creativity and I've since started an array of projects, the results of which seem to lead me to astounding insights into myself, the world and my own creativity. As such, I've radically redesigned this website to reflect these relatively recent developments.
In the panel to the left, you can find links to current projects and aspects of my recent work. My old website tells a story of my accomplishments - the person I wanted you to imagine I was. The intention here is to show you the person I actually am, the good, the awful and also the hideous... and to get you excited about participating in it!
If, for reasons of nostalgia or an interest in discovering factual information about what I did and where, you can always click on the link right at the top of the left panel.
"I am as frenetically creative as ever. In retrospect, I've always applied my creativity to sculpt a sort of lense through which I can gaze at the world in an attempt to understand it better. The bitter pill of experience has taught me that this sword cuts on both edges; although on the one hand I long for people to return my gaze, I always fear that the focus-providing glass on my side will not produce the desired effect in reverse. All the same, I've realised that those who find what they see unusual would probably understand me better if they realised they were looking in the wrong end of a telescope!"
- Zachar Laskewicz, 4 August 2011 Ghent.
This site contains a lot of personal property over which I maintain the ultimate copyright. I kindly request that you credit any references you make to my compositions, writings or films. Telling me about how you may have interacted with my work or this site would be an extra added bonus. My email address is zachar@telenet.be.
My life often involves a battle between the part of me which sees everything in a positive light and tries to use art to make sense of an absurd world. However, I have a far less pleasant Evil Twin who tries to bring me down; he very rarely shows his face (as I keep him locked up in a "Little Green Box"), but still he longs to be heard. To partially appease him, I often include texts boxs which describe the worst possible way I could experience something. I never want to become like him, but showing how he responds to things could help you get an insight into my character, as well as provide a humourous backdrop to this site's structure.
The major intention of this radical new update to my website is to involve YOU in my creativity. Rather than reflect only what I'm getting up to and my personal accolades, the intention is to provide lots of different ways for you to have access to and to participate in my creativity: things to watch, download, make yourself, and in particular how you can get in contact with me.
You can use the navigation bar above to navigate to the major locations in this website. There are three different tiers to it, is divided into the three levels: insite links, inpage links and external links.
You can visit the SITE MAP page for a more detailed description of exactly how the website is structured. Below you will find a simplified summary.
INSITE LINKS are largely referring to pages that are interchangeable at this level and they concern site structure, general and contact information as well as a few pages to record additions to the website. A list of these links follows:
ANECDOTES & APHORISMS - things I am purported to have said or that I ascribe to myself...
DOWNLOADABLES - record of pdfs, svgs, pngs, pdfs and other shareable products of mine to be downloaded... free!
HISTORY & OEUVRE - this one of the parts of the old website I will transfer here - a summary of my "accolades" - high points from illustrious academic career (which was far less impressive than I may make it sound) and other important waypoints.
POETRY & PROSE - my collected poetry and tiny tales is included here, including ones I wrote in the distant past and are viewable in alphabetical order. These can also be highlighted in the "Word Play" rubric below or the "Dreadful Little Nightmares" projects page.
SITE MAP - a more detailed description of how exactly the website works, including the old website which has more information about my history.
SITE HISTORY - a record of the important changes made to the site.
STATE OF THINGS - as each description of recent ecstatic joys and desperate miseries is replaced by a an ever newer calamity, the old ones are recorded here.
ZACHAR UNEXPURGATED - links to the parts of my creativity that you wouldn't like to discover by accident seeing that its contents may genuinely disturb you.
INPAGE LINKS are major waypoints on this page. The liste below includes a more complete list than is in the navigation bar, and you can click on any of them to move automatically to that page division:
Immediately below this, however, you will find two major subcategories. The first is under the heading WHAT'S NEW and is basically the changes I have made to the site as I update it. As this list gets too long, I transfer older entries to the SITE HISTORY page which has a complete record of all changes.
EXTERNAL LINKS are to other websites that represent my work such as various social media sites and YouTube. Where they lead is pretty evident.
Above the first level of the website, there are 12 "home locations" for each of the different areas of my work. I refer to these as the "Current Projects" and you can read a brief description of them (with links) below or go to the SITE MAP or the CURRENT PROJECTS page for a way more detailed explanation. There is also the entire left panel which is viewable on every page! Each of these interactive buttons willl take you to these individual home sites. Want to learn more about them? Hover over the buttons and find out!
These items change depending on recent uploads, and there is a page to view all currently downloadable material (DOWNLOADABLES FOR GETTING) and where you can get them. These include, for example, svg templates for your vinyl cutter, sewing patterns or links to books or articles I wrote that you can download for free).
These are things that could help you not only understand me better but gain an insight how I experience art in an active, participatory way.
I share these things and ideas because that is why I make art: so that other people can interact with it. You are free to use any of my ideas, although I do maintain copyright over them and I request kindly that you acknowledge how I influenced you when you made use of them.
Needless to say, I adore it when people make use of my ideas, but I appreciate it if I'm told about it and that reference be made to my input. In other words, I would adore it if you told me about how I influenced you!
WHAT'S NEW
Here's a record of recent changes to the site. You can view the complete history, at least of this newer version of the site, at the SITES HISTORY page. Below you can find a template I use to structure each new change so I can record what I've done and how I've done it for future reference.
RECENT CHANGES TO THE SITE:
change date
primary adjustment in the description
Description of adjustments made.
8 December 2024
new project stylesheet, template & post
Getting Got The "Make-it-yourself AT YOUR OWN PERIL"stylesheets have been prepared and a first post made, although it's a rough version of the pae title which I have decided to work on step by step. The templates followed and I hope to get a single first page to make this short introduction.
30 November 2024
style sheet adjustment
The Mantel Marvels first post made in which I discuss the beautiful art-deco marble clock B-01... and a little "glorious illusion" I incorporated it into. I can share it now to the "Mantel Marvels page... but not to the Glorious Illusions page... or the Interminable Contraption page (GIFs)! ...This will mean sudden urgency to get the other complex animations ready for each of the project pages. There's no way around it. I will include below an example of the div tag and the html codethat can be pasted onto any project page.
29 November 2024
projects stylesheet & template adjustment
Based on the stylesheets and the templates of the "Making an Impression" page, I created the "Mantel Marvels" webpage templates and stylesheets and adjusted them so it is now possible to make new posts. This includes the titlepage extended GIF and the GIFs that are used in the page and div tag backgrounds. One of these background GIFs, which are possibly the most exceptional of them and were certainly the most complex to animate, is included below:
25 November 2024
leftpanel content addition
All the buttons on the left panel have been placed as well as the behaviours that belong to them meaning that visitors can make them change their identity by hovering over them before they click on them. The intention is just to inform the guest that they are indeed about to press the button. Zachar, of course, had to subvert this to his own ends! All of my little rollover buttons have a surprise... Some of them are, like, VERY surprising, embracing my "Evil Twin" theme at present where my website has to represent both the positive and the negative sides of my personality, like BOTH the baby eating and the mouse squishing. Oh, wait, neither of them are the slightest bit positive! Oh well, as I've always said: I'M BOTH EVIL! Here are the last two I placed: the "Zachar Plays Gamelan" buttons in the up and over states. I'd also like to state here that these buttons at present won't take you anywhere meaningful, although the "Making an Impression" button should work although I haven't tested it yet. Needless to say, they all have an individual style sheet and a template bonded to them: I just have to make the animated GIFs now for each of the 10 remaining pages ("Getting Got" is ready, and should be the first up):
Just uploaded it all... Hopefully it will be first step towards web freedom!
24 November 2024
project & homesite content addition
Busy day. All the buttons on the left panel are ready bar one and a half... and I made my first official post to the "MAKING AN IMPRESSION" website which you can view here: https://nachtschimmen.eu/impressions/20241124.html. In addition to that, there was also the "link to this site" dividing bar which allows easy access to the post when it is listed in the homepage of the website. The homepage website for this site division is https://nachtschimmen.eu/makinganimpression.html. You can view the first post here as well! All I had to do was copy the html, and it copies in a smaller font and with the titles in a different place so that it suits being recorded in a central point, and then each post is followed by the diving line which links to that post. An example of this is included below (and it links to the first post):
A link was also included on the left panel the old site, and it seems to work.
21 November 2024
homepage content addition
Film added by embedding an IMGUR post in the interactive design division of the homepage.
19 November 2024
homepage content addition
Started filling up the content of the homepage divisions which ended with a description of my recent discoveries in the world of HTML and CSS style sheets. I uploaded the whole site and will now be able to show parts of it to people!
18 November 2024
homepage content addition
I worked out how to embed galleries and found out that the best way to do this is via the imgur website which has a simple button for the embedding of galleries and individual artworks. I even uploaded a work from DEVIANTArt to this site directly so that I could post it, and better still it's good for galleries of GIFs. Content was thus uploaded to "Interactive Design", "Handmade Impressions", the homepage division, but also to the section just beneath the "what's new" rubric: the "For Getting" section for downloadables. AT YOUR OWN PERIL left panel buttons also added to the rapidly growing interactive navigation panel
17 November 2024
Stylesheet & Template adjustment
Excruciating work on the website today grappling to produce the first post. The page design that I started with for the first post has turned out better than my wildest dreams. It is a storm of polyphony just looking at it and it is just the way I like it. But getting the finetuning of the Div tags right was laborious and involved learning a whole heap of new stuff. I have now uploaded the first test page which you can view via clicking this link: https://nachtschimmen.eu/projects/makinganimpression/posts/20241116.
16 November 2024
homesite & homepage template adjustments
Fiddling around with the homepage and homesite templates. Designs made for the "Making an Impresssion" stylesheet "ss_mai_posts" from which I will work backwards to the central page. In addition, the "DOWNLOADS FOR GETTING" page was created ("nachtschimmen.eu/downloads"), and the contents for the SITE MAP page were added to and the header finally placed. "Interminable Contraptions" links included in the left panel. Examples of these startling graphic design marvels are included below:
14 November 2024
homepage template adjustment
Adjustments made to the contents of the homepage which includes links to anchors across the website and Current Projects. In addition, the MAKING AN IMPRESSION link was added to the menu on the left (and the frame extended a little on the right side making the tabs visible despite the presence of the tab bar. The projects navigation bar was included in the CURRENT PROJECTS page division and the 12 little symbols explained. Finally the stylesheets "ss_mai" and "ss_mai_posts" to try to eek out the foundation for each page: that div tags on individual posts will represent the same named div tags in different ways so that the same code refers to different style sheet elements so that they don't appear so large and bulky. In individual posts, however, the date, the title and the type of addition to the page have to have much more emphasis. But I don't won't to have to go to the difficulty of copying individual information from one div tag to the next. Hopefully this system will work. Below I've included examples of the"up" and "over" states of the "making an impression" project page left panel button. Amazing!
13 November 2024
website template adjustment
The template for the project "Getting Got" was started based on a new stylesheet called stylesheet_gg. Although it is planned for the first of the projects pages I'm working on, I've included an editable region for the title of each page. I'm going to use this stylesheet for all of the twelve projects pages for the time being. I've also included the projects navigation bar which I completed today. It was an enormous effort because it has in addition to the 9 links at the top, 12 links at the bottom to each of the planned projects pages. I assume that as of next upload you will be taken somewhere, but that they will be empty of content. Still that means that all the basic pages are now in existence. Below you will find a publishable version as a graphic file of how this rollover menu appears:
12 November 2024
website upload
After adding the "Glorious Illusions" left panel up/over button, I uploaded the site as this seems a good foundation point in the new sites history. All the strands have come together, even if they do not really lead to many of the site's pages yet. Below you can see an example of the GLORIOUS ILLUSIONS left panel button. On the left is the 'up' position, on the right the 'over' position that reacts interactively should you hover above it:
11 November 2024
homepage template addition
Getting Divider designed and impletemented for the "return to top" divider that provides a link to the top of the page. An example is included below:
11 november
addition of webpages
Pages made for each of the planned "PROJECTS" ; although backgrounds have been planned I still have to design an appropriate style sheet so these links are still moot so there's no point in me including links here yet. These pages will appear at the same level as the other homesite pages so that links to these pages involves as little confusion as possible (i.e. nachtschimmen.eu/infernalruckus). Folders have been prepared as well for when these projects pages link to individual posts (i.e. nachtschimmen.eu/interminablecontraptions/[post here]. At present these include the following pages: [1] At Your Own Peril (make-it-yourself art and inventions), [2] Dreadful Little Nightmares (fiction), [3] Fictive Protolinguistics, [4] Getting Got (interactive art), [5] Glorious Illusions (films), [6] Infernal Ruckus (music & scores), [7] Interminable Contraptions, [8] Making an Impression (impressed & printed art), [9] Mantel Marvels (clock collection), [10] New Used Eyes (non-fiction), [11] Outrageous Travesties (graphic art), [12] Zachar plays Gamelan (interculturality). In addition I started work on the "Projects" pages navigation bar which will appear at the top of every projects page to link back to other homesite pages but mainly to the other "projects", and I made a style sheet for the projects pages based on the one I used for the homesite pages. Each one of these, however, will eventually have a different background (now they all share the "Getting Got" background is the only one I have designed. In other words, I finished the GIFs for the "Getting Got" page as well. You can see an example of it below:
6 November 2024
homesite content addition
Getting Got leftpanel button added. "Dreadful Little Nightmares" was already present, and still neither of them lead to a page, although the interactivity has been included. The other pages of the homesite were also added, although as to this moment the only one that has any content in it is the site history so that I can update the entries one by one into the new sleeker format which consists of 3 nested div tag regions.
3 November 2024
homepage template adjustment
The 5 different sections of the website were added, including the footer and the page close right at the bottom. An example is included below:
2 November 2024
homepage stylesheet adjustment
Finalisation of snippet to make easier the addition of new changes to the homepage by automatically inserting this set of divtags that set the style for the text and the boxes the texts are printed within.
1 November 2024
homepage stylesheet adjustment
New Div tag made to help me structure new changes to the website. It is being prepared whil I am typing this entry to test whether it is working or not. It has a slightly smaller font. I'm going to make the entries in italics. A line has already been included at the top. Now to test the snippet function to see how easy it is to repeat this very structure every time I need to make a new entry.
DOWNLOADABLES FOR GETTING!
EVIL TWIN said: "Seeing that I'm naturally greedy and determined to never give anyone anything for nothing, this space will almost inevitably remain completely empty. There'll never be anything here, I tell you! Nothing!!
- Zachar Laskewicz, 4 August 2011 Ghent.
Here you'll be able to find links to places where you can download films, templates and make-it-yourself projects.
In an effort to prove my Evil Twin completely wrong and to dash his efforts to confound me, I've included already a link to the gallery on my IMGUR profile where you can download PNG _images and upload them directly into the CRICUT software, or to your laser engraver, to cut into a sheet of vinyl to make your own prints with this design!
I mean, it's what you've always wanted!
...a brief description of the links to the 12 major subdivisions of the website which reflect the work I actually do, with links to the insite homepages for each of these projects...
...moving and still images refracted recently from the one remaining lens...
STATE OF THINGS
My Evil Twin said: "In this rubric I record the miserable things I put people through, the disgusting and terrible traumas they almost inevitably undergo and the personal sense of superiority and satisfaction this demeaning of other people brings to me!!!"
...But in all honesty, you should never listen to Evil Twin. He's the worst side of me I would way prefer to keep in the Little Green Box I'm normally able to banish him into. He believes the worse things about other people's intentions. He's my lizard brain. He's my mother demeaning me and the voice of every school bully assuring me that I'm worthless and will never come to anything. Fortunately, I'm usually able to ignore his desperate cries. Most of the time... Nonetheless he often pops into the website to point out how awful he feels about everything. It is the absolute opposite of what I am and what I aspire to.
...In any case, you can see a complete record of the terrible, disgusting and frightening things I get up to while I am trying to do my best to confound your best interests at the STATE OF THINGS page!
WIZENED WEB WIZARD WONDERS WHETHER WORK WILL WEAN WINNERS
My decision to work on this website has been a challenging one... but it's really been a creative success for me! After all this time - like about 15 years - I've going around pretending that I could make websites when in truth I didn't have downpat the basic concepts. I managed to avoid learning about the complexities of CSS style sheets hoping that software would do it all for me WYSYWYG style. I mean, I could make snazzy interactive multimedia java rollovers and I understood all that, but when it came to pasting them in the website, I used templates and sort of hoped for the best. I was so wrong about that. I knew when i finally decided to start on this particular task that I would have to go back to the beginning and learn it from scratch. And I did it. Patiently and step-by-step I learned the basics of CSS style sheets so that I would finally understand how to set up a page using div tags as these tags are the basic foundations for page layout. It was an eye-opener! Now having the freedom to place anything wherever I want around the webpage, especially now that I'm serving it myself from home, has made me an actual web wizard rather than a half-baked wanna be. It feels good to be at last at one with a type of programming or markup language that I did my utmost best avoid learning about. In my defence, I was learning a lot of other things at the same time, and the updates to HTML that resulted in these developments actually happened after I'd finished university, so there's that. And if you haven't learned about it yet, it's no way near as hard as you may thing it is if you're anything like me. So now onto filling this website with content now that I've got the basics down!
20
December 2024, Ghent (Belgium)
My Evil Twin said: "None of these projects would ever be of the slightest bit of interest to you or your friends and family so I don't even understand why you are reading this text!"
CURRENT PROJECTS provides the links to 12 different pages. I've found in the last years that if my work is to be divided into categories, this is the best way to go about classifying it. The purpose here, however, is to provide people with the chance to interact with my work, and by exploring each of these projects you can see how you can involve yourself in my creative universe. I'd certainly glorify your willingness to participate. The following navigation bar that appears on each of these projects pages is a good introduction to each of these areas. there are twelve little symbols eacch which provides a different link and I'll provide below a broad summary of how these divisions work - and what you can do to take part in them.
Project 1: AT YOUR OWN PERIL - Make-it-yourself Art Projects
Project 2: DREADFUL LITTLE NIGHTMARES- Tiny Tales of Terror (and other fiction)
Project 3: FICTIVE PROTOLINGUISTICS - Imaginary languages and invented terminology.
Project 4: GETTING GOT - Because interactive art needs you!
Project 5: GLORIOUS ILLUSIONS - Films and images of music and performances.
Project 6: INFERNAL RUCKUS - Musical compositions and scores.
Project 7: INTERMINABLE CONTRAPTIONS - GIFs and ztickers.
Project 8: MAKING AN IMPRESSION - Printed and Impressed Art.
Project 9: MANTEL MARVELS - Art Deco clock collection & clock art.
Project 10: NEW USED PUBLISHED - Published articles and other recent writing.
Project 11: OUTRAGEOUS TRAVESTIES - Graphic art and film posters.
Project 12: ZACHAR PLAYS GAMELAN - Interculturality.
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My Evil Twin says: "Whirring and buzzing contraptions moving interminably that you won't be able to stop moving no matter how hard you try?! Let's call a spade a spade: you just couldn't deal with that loss of control... Maybe just leaving this website would be the ultimate release to your suffering, dear?"
Seeing that you refuse to listen to my evil twin's well-thought out advice, perhaps you'd like see this GIF I designed as part of the "Eternity Takes Forever" GIF series: SCYPHOZOA COSMOS?
Things I may well have said and you would almost invariably love to have said yourself. Don't think I don't your type! Why don't you just go quote me, now: I dare you!!! Ha! Just as I thought! People like you never had the guts to undertake such a majestic endeavour...
"Want to know the awful truth about me? Greedy and self-serving, I was basically born evil and am rotten to the core, but then again I am well-intentioned, generous and I always endeavour to help others...
...Let's try again shall we?! Although I'm utterly untrustworthy and could well be working against your interests, you can absolutely rely on my discretion...
Oh God! Furthermore, I am unkempt and messy with a nasty tendency to lash out at others, but I despise chaos and I endeavour ever so hard to be neat and fastidious in keeping my affairs in order!
Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? No matter the cost to your sanity and well being, I will do almost anything to stand up for my own right to be different... while at the same time I care very deepful about what you think of me and I deplore the fact that me insisting on being myself would ever upset you in any way...
Oh, what a bundle of contradictions I am!
- from "The Awful Truth about Me", Vol 21, Ch. 4, pp 72-73
Zachar Laskewicz, 19 November 2024
Some recently made mutilations where I've pressed the fuck out of paper until it is covered with blasphemous scrawls or pushed so badly out of shape that you'd never be able to use it for anything as gauche as writing or painting. But, I mean, who does those things in more?
Films that will basically be too long for you to possibly have the patience to sit through, or too short for you to consider anything but irritating fluff. So I'd suggest: why don't you just go and do something else. I mean, why have you, in the name of Jesus, bothered reading this far?! What exactly is wrong with you?!?
Well, since you clearly don't intend to follow my well thought out advice, you could watch this irritating and extremely obnoxious short film which parodies the surrealistic work of a similar name by some Spanish dog...
