John Russell Herbert

I am a painter and a writer of fiction, with my hand in various other media, particularly photography and video.

I have also been intensively involved in the compilation of data pertaining to early aeronautics and aviation, up through World War I, the industrialization of the historically innovative process. We have also been challenged by all factors, antique or modern, analog or digital, which influence the gathering and the integration of the data. Historic and modern phenomena of administrative culture have played an unavoidable role, and I've branched into data theory.

My fiction has largely been fueled by a vast influence coming from particular types of non-fiction. Some of my earlier publishing efforts were done using the pen name "Ianto Griffeth".

My first completed novel was The Song of Ianto: Internal Exile of the Exposed Unknown. The second, due to the despair, sin, and political incorrectness to be found in the former, was An Insurrection of Gods: Ianto's Redemption. These were "followed" by a late-completed prequel called Prelude: Ianto's Montage of Dreams, which actually combines genuine early writings with later writings pertaining to the same periods within the fictionalized biography. These writings are now "The Ianto Trilogy".

Towards the tail end of the above efforts, and into the present, I've taken a greater interest in non-autobiographical fiction, and in francophone writing.

At present, the fruits of these interests are « Aux Ombres Du Nationalisme (2073) In The Shadows Of Nationalism » and « Comme un incendie noir/Like A Black Fire ». The former, conceived in blocks alternating between English and French, is a work following a paternal line through three generations, with emphases on the years 2027, 2046, and 2073. Whereas the sub-protagonists of the 2027 and 2046 may come across as archetypes, not to say "caricatures", the protagonist proper, through his travails taking place during the year 2073, has a characterization I've associated with both the American and Western European "anti-hero" and the "Socialist Realist hero" type fleshed out by Soviet writers. He has a stoicism that could be associated with either, and a "post-revolutionary" cynicism and world-weariness differentiating him, at least in part, from the latter. (There are fairly large blocs of politically analytical and rhetorical non-fiction within the main body of this work and tacked onto the end.)

« Comme un incendie noir » ("Like a Black Fire") is somewhat more romantically oriented, with somewhat of an emphasis on poetry. In this work, I use ideas about "revolution", and the participants therein, more sentimentally, without actually getting into pertinent political theory. This work, with some attempts at Spanish verse, but mainly an Anglo-French juxtaposition, is also presently my greatest conduit of autobiographical material, being that « In The Shadows Of Nationalism/Aux Ombres Du Nationalisme (2073) » is an attempt at fairly pure non-autobiographical fiction. (The title of this work has to do with the striking "brightness" of some women's nearly black eyes, and it is also a dramatic reflection on the ideas of my heart.) Running concurrently with this, and working with material similarly tangent to autobiography, I've been plowing vignettes, sentences, and even phrases, into a « tableur littéraire » , that is, a "literary spreadsheet". This is handy, per se, praticable speaking, and it also has to do with a "literary existentialism" affected by digital processes, possibly akin to the French "littérature numérique", all of which leads us to my ongoing francophone project, a but of crime fiction called « Simplement un tentacule ».

Regarding painting, the bridge between theory and practice is a little different in terms of articulation. I've toyed with ideas of "refined expressionism", and so forth, but the medium itself is explored by way of action, invariably non-verbal. Presently, I'm refining numerous literary works, proceeding gradually with a few paintings, and engaging in a large amount of photography.

My painting has been increasingly informed by my videography, and an existentialism partially conditioned by a digital tube rampant thorough all of this.

Regarding Wikipedia, I use it as a resource on an almost daily basis, and am happy to contribute, modestly, within both French and English articles. My Anglo-French crossover interests have to do with a studious bridging of language and content, in terms of the linguistic exercise inherent in such activity. I'm interested in variations in the volume and tone of subject coverage.

Under pandemic circumstances, my access to videographic software has been largely curtailed. Painting continues, in fits and starts. Prose continues. I'm moving along on « Simplement un tentacule ». Some vignettes are of dual note within the bi-lingual context. Some of the anglophone prose could be seen as "autobiographical". Some has moved further along the lines of "fictionalization" to the point of being quite "post-autobiographical". As always, I'm doing a bit of non-fiction reading, fiction as well. I'm interested in talking my own material into projects which in no way touch a protagonist who is himself an artist, or a writer.

“The Alexandria Project”, still in progress, is my key literary effort. I’m still wrestling with distance from auto-biography. I draw heavily from daily observations, professional, familial and otherwise, though I make heavy use of vignettes, with some character-juggling along the way. The gymnasium, and data work, play a heavy role, though work at an art college is hard to ignore. I’m doing very little painting. There is a deepening relation between my fiction and my videography, with something along the lines of “digital existentialism” running through all of it.

Data work, having to do with early aviation, is of great intrigue. The aeronautic material is of some significant interest, and tangent to other things. Approaches to data, in and of itself, are really the most dynamic trigger for me at present.