I found a folder called 'Chairs'. And it was full of photos of chairs. I remember taking the photos and collecting them together - it must have been around 2005-2006, but I have no recollection of what I was going to do with them.
Chairs
I'm trying to write for a lecture at The Royal Standard in June. I've been browsing through some old photos, seeing if I can reinvigorate any discarded ideas.
I found a folder called 'Chairs'. And it was full of photos of chairs. I remember taking the photos and collecting them together - it must have been around 2005-2006, but I have no recollection of what I was going to do with them.
I found a folder called 'Chairs'. And it was full of photos of chairs. I remember taking the photos and collecting them together - it must have been around 2005-2006, but I have no recollection of what I was going to do with them.
Heygate: NO PARKING
I went down to the Heygate Estate with Elephant and Castle-phile Emma Cummins (Citybound Collective).
I can't believe I've never been inside before. A housing estate built for more than 3000 people which now has three or four occupied flats.
It was the quietest place I have been in London, you could hear the trees in the wind and the birds, but no cars, no people.
Activists and remaining residents have turned some of the communal spaces into allotments, and used hundreds of the abandoned recycling bins for planting food.
The weird thing was that although there was the occasional dumping ground, like these old tires and sofas piled up, there was no rubbish. No empty cans, no drifting plastic bags or crisp packets carried on the wind. The place was sterile.
We walked along the garages and I became fascinated by the hand painted NO PARKING signs that were on many of the doors. They seemed so pointless now, with no use for the garages - empty threats.
But then I started wondering why no one was parking down there, why not? You aren't going to get towed. And why was no one dumping down here? No tires, no sofas, no burned out cars. What was wrong?
In a way, the NO PARKING signs were finally having the desired effect. Only, with the additional consequence of displacing all the residents and eventually destroying the buildings.
Like an incantation or a mantra. A critical mass of language that finally breaks the natural order. Cause and effect reversed: the people had gone because the cars couldn't park there, the buildings have to come down because the garages had rebelled.
The only other garage graffiti was the occasional Eye of Providence (or all seeing eye - the thing off the American Dollar that gets linked with Illuminati bullshit conspiracies).
The garages are watching you.
--
I saw this anti-tory graffiti and nodded my approval. It is nice to feel united by anger.
And then around the corner saw this (HELP TO STOP CANADAS SEAL HUNT), written with the same pen. Surely the Heygate has more relevant problems?
Like the sentient garages...
I can't believe I've never been inside before. A housing estate built for more than 3000 people which now has three or four occupied flats.
It was the quietest place I have been in London, you could hear the trees in the wind and the birds, but no cars, no people.
Activists and remaining residents have turned some of the communal spaces into allotments, and used hundreds of the abandoned recycling bins for planting food.
The weird thing was that although there was the occasional dumping ground, like these old tires and sofas piled up, there was no rubbish. No empty cans, no drifting plastic bags or crisp packets carried on the wind. The place was sterile.
We walked along the garages and I became fascinated by the hand painted NO PARKING signs that were on many of the doors. They seemed so pointless now, with no use for the garages - empty threats.
But then I started wondering why no one was parking down there, why not? You aren't going to get towed. And why was no one dumping down here? No tires, no sofas, no burned out cars. What was wrong?
In a way, the NO PARKING signs were finally having the desired effect. Only, with the additional consequence of displacing all the residents and eventually destroying the buildings.
Like an incantation or a mantra. A critical mass of language that finally breaks the natural order. Cause and effect reversed: the people had gone because the cars couldn't park there, the buildings have to come down because the garages had rebelled.
The only other garage graffiti was the occasional Eye of Providence (or all seeing eye - the thing off the American Dollar that gets linked with Illuminati bullshit conspiracies).
The garages are watching you.
--
I saw this anti-tory graffiti and nodded my approval. It is nice to feel united by anger.
And then around the corner saw this (HELP TO STOP CANADAS SEAL HUNT), written with the same pen. Surely the Heygate has more relevant problems?
Like the sentient garages...
Today I Shall Write Without Inhibitions!
"Today I shall write without inhibitions! That is what I thought. So I took off all my clothes, and sat down at my desk.
"I would write with my whole being, without the obstruction of clothes. I would let the words flow from my body like water from a spring, like spunk from a wanked cock.
"But from the open window I heard jeering. And when I turned to face the outside world, I remembered the school that I can see from my window, and saw that the children were on their morning break.
"Some were laughing, pointing. Most had their mobile phones out, filming me, sending pictures of my prone body to Twitter and Facebook. Teachers had been alerted. The more vigilant of the staff were dispatching janitors and dinner ladies around the the front of my house to find out who this naked pervert might be.
"So I shrank back from the window, enclosing myself around my genitals, like a flower cuddling its stamen, protecting it from the wind.
"I could not approach the window to close the curtains, nor to pick up my clothes, strewn across the bed. I cursed my earlier optimism. They will never let you write, I thought.
"There I stayed, huddled in the corner of the room, raising my head occasionally to stare at the thinning crowd of laughing children.
"After what seemed like an eternity, the bell went for the pupils to return to their classrooms. They reluctantly abandoned their new game, left with only their memories, and several gigabytes of medium quality cameraphone footage.
"When I was certain that the playground was empty, I leapt across the room, closed the curtains and put my clothes back on.
"I sat down at my desk and began again, only this time with the certainty that if my words flowed like water from a spring I should wet myself, and if they flowed like spunk from a cock they would leave a nasty stain."
"I would write with my whole being, without the obstruction of clothes. I would let the words flow from my body like water from a spring, like spunk from a wanked cock.
"But from the open window I heard jeering. And when I turned to face the outside world, I remembered the school that I can see from my window, and saw that the children were on their morning break.
"Some were laughing, pointing. Most had their mobile phones out, filming me, sending pictures of my prone body to Twitter and Facebook. Teachers had been alerted. The more vigilant of the staff were dispatching janitors and dinner ladies around the the front of my house to find out who this naked pervert might be.
"So I shrank back from the window, enclosing myself around my genitals, like a flower cuddling its stamen, protecting it from the wind.
"I could not approach the window to close the curtains, nor to pick up my clothes, strewn across the bed. I cursed my earlier optimism. They will never let you write, I thought.
"There I stayed, huddled in the corner of the room, raising my head occasionally to stare at the thinning crowd of laughing children.
"After what seemed like an eternity, the bell went for the pupils to return to their classrooms. They reluctantly abandoned their new game, left with only their memories, and several gigabytes of medium quality cameraphone footage.
"When I was certain that the playground was empty, I leapt across the room, closed the curtains and put my clothes back on.
"I sat down at my desk and began again, only this time with the certainty that if my words flowed like water from a spring I should wet myself, and if they flowed like spunk from a cock they would leave a nasty stain."
Evacuations
Further to my dreams of ear wax, I've come to realise that in a distant bodily fantasy, I yearn to be completely evacuated. As in, to transcend my body through some sort of emptying out of all my excretions. Shit, piss, snot, bile, wax. And that physical voiding would set my mind free on to levels of thought previously unimaginable.
Or perhaps I would just be very thirsty.
Or perhaps I would just be very thirsty.
Street Drinking
Street drinking is a form of anti-capitalism.
Capitalism is nihilistic, but its nihilism is self-serving. It ignores consequences (economic, ecological, social) but ultimately it serves those who wish to accumulate wealth.
Street drinking is nihilistic. But it is an inclusive form of nihilism, i.e. it includes the street drinker. It ignores consequences (economic, social, psychological, physical) for society as a whole, and for the individual who drinks.
It is anti-social and anti-individual.
--
The street drinker inhabits space that is supposedly public, and constantly proves - to themselves and to those who care to watch - that public space is not public, and that it is monitored and policed, and that a hierarchy is maintained.
Street drinking is a ritual, towards obliteration. For the non-religious in society based on capitalist values, nihilistic rituals are the only meaningful ceremonies left.
To repeat the ritual, day after day. To be moved on from the same places, day after day. To perform these rituals is to (knowingly or unknowingly) perform a ritual against the incursion of the private upon the public. A performance of the chaotic towards the ordered.
Street drinking is a reminder that beneath the veneer of choice lies a chaos of determinism.
Capitalism is nihilistic, but its nihilism is self-serving. It ignores consequences (economic, ecological, social) but ultimately it serves those who wish to accumulate wealth.
Street drinking is nihilistic. But it is an inclusive form of nihilism, i.e. it includes the street drinker. It ignores consequences (economic, social, psychological, physical) for society as a whole, and for the individual who drinks.
It is anti-social and anti-individual.
--
The street drinker inhabits space that is supposedly public, and constantly proves - to themselves and to those who care to watch - that public space is not public, and that it is monitored and policed, and that a hierarchy is maintained.
Street drinking is a ritual, towards obliteration. For the non-religious in society based on capitalist values, nihilistic rituals are the only meaningful ceremonies left.
To repeat the ritual, day after day. To be moved on from the same places, day after day. To perform these rituals is to (knowingly or unknowingly) perform a ritual against the incursion of the private upon the public. A performance of the chaotic towards the ordered.
Street drinking is a reminder that beneath the veneer of choice lies a chaos of determinism.
Acceptable Blockages
Acceptable Blockages, lecture with slideshow, (2011)
[Download here]
Acceptable Blockages is the name of a talk I gave at the Centre for Creative Collaboration last summer. I made a badly formatted PDF document of it and I just found it, so here it is.
My favourite bit is the comparison between different types of road cone.
Enjoy.
Raining Blood
I'd had a serious few days of panic attacks and deep dread. I felt shaky and absurdly worried but I'd been in the house for too long. I knew I had to get out and do something. See the sky.
I decided to go see Patrick Keiller's exhibition at the Tate Britain. One of the few artists who makes the idea of a 'British' Tate less ridiculous by working with the connections between English landscape and politics. The presence of the Robinson character - a permanent outsider who is, at the same time, quintessentially English (Keiller writes about 'Robinson' being the sort of name someone would appropriate in an attempt to blend in) - is a framing device that allows Keiller to be both indulgent and wry in the way he addresses the political implications of the work. The show allows access to the art historical and literary references that Keiller alludes to in the films, which touch on so many things it can be hard to keep up.
One of my favourite images was this painting by James Ward called The Moment.
I've written about the genre of 'Animal Terror' before, and this is a particularly fine example. There is something magical about the almost Byzantine 'incorrectness' of the bodies of the animals. The coiled, bouncy serpent and the swan-like neck of the horse. The unreal, uncanny nature of the animals was once their symbolic power (which is lost on a contemporary audience - something about the power of the monarchy being challenged by the state). But it was also their downfall in the history of art. Muybridge's photos eventually swept away this illustrative style of the representation of animals, just like the Renaissance did for Mediaeval representation of humans.
I walked back from Pimlico, along Millbank, past Conservative HQ, where student rioters had danced in broken glass. It seemed like a silly place for a riot, blank and characterless. The Conservative party is a non-politics, a void swirling with capital where values should be. The surrounding area is severely lacking in amenities, unless you count Pizza Express. It is a depressing part of the river, you are followed by the gaze of the MI5 building on the other side of the river, watching as you walk.
The riots have been erased from the landscape here, though the outrageous convictions continue for the August riots (despite or, obviously, because of the widespread racism of the police and the strange officially manufactured 'moral outrage' that guides the judiciary).
But you find moments, gaps in the façade.
Or in this case, written on the façade.
--
Once I got past Westminster (again, it is the lack of politics that is striking here - security personnel, tourists and TV crews, but the MPs are on their Easter Holidays, so the cameras are pointing at nothing, getting cut aways and establishing shots for other things, another time. There was an in-between, airport feeling about the place.) I was on steadier ground, but a ground that was golden with bird shit.
It is not yellow, or golden-ish - it is metallic and shiny and actually golden. What are they eating here in Westminster? Which tree produces these golden berries? I am tempted to paint with it, or just to collect it, and smear the walls with it. It must fetch some sort of price. Or have some shamanistic value. Can we use it?
All day I'd been seeing Barclays/Boris Bikes - subsidised travel for city workers, pootling along taking calls on Bluetooth headsets. The slow bouncy hulks of the Big Society. Only someone as fat as Boris Johnson could see these as an adequate way of moving around the city.
And then, this.
Golden shit, rendering the Boris bikes impotent. Had it knocked the saddle round? The sheer weight of fecal matter raining down from the trees.
[Idea for exhibition: Boris bikes, smeared with golden birdshit. Kept in a gallery space and rented out for free. Idea for long term intervention: plant the golden berried trees in cracks in the pavement near Boris Bike settlements. Then wait 40 years for the birds to do their job.]
I went on, into the City proper.
Keiller's exhibition had been describing the Enclosure Acts, and resistance to them. But the City has been enclosed for much longer. The boundaries of the City were formed by a quirk of history, William the Conqueror granting it an independent status, its freedom from state control pre-dating the Enclosure Acts and the early stirrings of capitalism. Ironically, this prepared it for its contemporary role as an uncontrollable market vortex, unmoored from the ropes of reason or realism.
I was skirting the edge, keeping out of the way. I stuck to Upper and Lower Thames St, where the architecture is brutal -flyovers and concrete.
I found these fenced off trees.
Half planted, then blocked off with official street furniture. Barriers to entry. Protecting you from nature until its power can be fully controlled.
Earlier I had seen this 'No Pedestrian' sign by the side of the road.
The white paint had flaked off, and the walking man was surrounded by red. The crimson clouds closing in. A much more extreme warning than the original sign could ever suggest, implying that if you cross onto that upon which pedestrians must not tread, the sky will swell and it will rain blood.
I got to the Tower of London and skulked around the closed ticket offices and Traditional Fish and Chip Shoppes, accidentally photo-bombing dozens of tourists before getting the tube home.
--
Later on I went to the pub and saw this excellent example of Slayer graffiti. I've been documenting Slayer graffiti for a while. They are one of the few metal bands that have retained their iconographic power. Even I can draw the Slayer logo, and obviously, so could the person who did this.
Slayer wrote a rather excellent song called Raining Blood. Inspired by the sign maybe. This could be a new genre: Hazard Sign Metal.
I decided to go see Patrick Keiller's exhibition at the Tate Britain. One of the few artists who makes the idea of a 'British' Tate less ridiculous by working with the connections between English landscape and politics. The presence of the Robinson character - a permanent outsider who is, at the same time, quintessentially English (Keiller writes about 'Robinson' being the sort of name someone would appropriate in an attempt to blend in) - is a framing device that allows Keiller to be both indulgent and wry in the way he addresses the political implications of the work. The show allows access to the art historical and literary references that Keiller alludes to in the films, which touch on so many things it can be hard to keep up.
One of my favourite images was this painting by James Ward called The Moment.
I've written about the genre of 'Animal Terror' before, and this is a particularly fine example. There is something magical about the almost Byzantine 'incorrectness' of the bodies of the animals. The coiled, bouncy serpent and the swan-like neck of the horse. The unreal, uncanny nature of the animals was once their symbolic power (which is lost on a contemporary audience - something about the power of the monarchy being challenged by the state). But it was also their downfall in the history of art. Muybridge's photos eventually swept away this illustrative style of the representation of animals, just like the Renaissance did for Mediaeval representation of humans.
I walked back from Pimlico, along Millbank, past Conservative HQ, where student rioters had danced in broken glass. It seemed like a silly place for a riot, blank and characterless. The Conservative party is a non-politics, a void swirling with capital where values should be. The surrounding area is severely lacking in amenities, unless you count Pizza Express. It is a depressing part of the river, you are followed by the gaze of the MI5 building on the other side of the river, watching as you walk.
The riots have been erased from the landscape here, though the outrageous convictions continue for the August riots (despite or, obviously, because of the widespread racism of the police and the strange officially manufactured 'moral outrage' that guides the judiciary).
But you find moments, gaps in the façade.
Or in this case, written on the façade.
--
Once I got past Westminster (again, it is the lack of politics that is striking here - security personnel, tourists and TV crews, but the MPs are on their Easter Holidays, so the cameras are pointing at nothing, getting cut aways and establishing shots for other things, another time. There was an in-between, airport feeling about the place.) I was on steadier ground, but a ground that was golden with bird shit.
It is not yellow, or golden-ish - it is metallic and shiny and actually golden. What are they eating here in Westminster? Which tree produces these golden berries? I am tempted to paint with it, or just to collect it, and smear the walls with it. It must fetch some sort of price. Or have some shamanistic value. Can we use it?
All day I'd been seeing Barclays/Boris Bikes - subsidised travel for city workers, pootling along taking calls on Bluetooth headsets. The slow bouncy hulks of the Big Society. Only someone as fat as Boris Johnson could see these as an adequate way of moving around the city.
And then, this.
Golden shit, rendering the Boris bikes impotent. Had it knocked the saddle round? The sheer weight of fecal matter raining down from the trees.
[Idea for exhibition: Boris bikes, smeared with golden birdshit. Kept in a gallery space and rented out for free. Idea for long term intervention: plant the golden berried trees in cracks in the pavement near Boris Bike settlements. Then wait 40 years for the birds to do their job.]
I went on, into the City proper.
Keiller's exhibition had been describing the Enclosure Acts, and resistance to them. But the City has been enclosed for much longer. The boundaries of the City were formed by a quirk of history, William the Conqueror granting it an independent status, its freedom from state control pre-dating the Enclosure Acts and the early stirrings of capitalism. Ironically, this prepared it for its contemporary role as an uncontrollable market vortex, unmoored from the ropes of reason or realism.
I was skirting the edge, keeping out of the way. I stuck to Upper and Lower Thames St, where the architecture is brutal -flyovers and concrete.
I found these fenced off trees.
Half planted, then blocked off with official street furniture. Barriers to entry. Protecting you from nature until its power can be fully controlled.
Earlier I had seen this 'No Pedestrian' sign by the side of the road.
The white paint had flaked off, and the walking man was surrounded by red. The crimson clouds closing in. A much more extreme warning than the original sign could ever suggest, implying that if you cross onto that upon which pedestrians must not tread, the sky will swell and it will rain blood.
I got to the Tower of London and skulked around the closed ticket offices and Traditional Fish and Chip Shoppes, accidentally photo-bombing dozens of tourists before getting the tube home.
--
Later on I went to the pub and saw this excellent example of Slayer graffiti. I've been documenting Slayer graffiti for a while. They are one of the few metal bands that have retained their iconographic power. Even I can draw the Slayer logo, and obviously, so could the person who did this.
Slayer wrote a rather excellent song called Raining Blood. Inspired by the sign maybe. This could be a new genre: Hazard Sign Metal.
Vibes
"I've started worrying about vibes. I've been caught out by an idea I thought I was too rational to have. People hate bad vibes and I'm worried I'm infected. I used to use the word vibe ironically, but now I just use it.
"I touch wood. I first did it I thought about my parents dying. Which sounds weird, but they will, eventually, but probably not now. I just hadn't thought about it before, and when I did, it was such a horrible thought that I touched wood, just for something to make me feel like I had some sort of control. Even writing it has made me touch wood (n.b. it doesn't have to be wood, can just be anything solid touching the ground). It was a Pascal's wager of superstition, i.e. may as well, what's the harm? etc. But now I need it. I get panicky. I'm touching it for everything now. All the vibes.
"Why do you think I'm writing this? To dispel them. The vibes. I feel like I am a totem for badness, and that's no good. I have things to do, people to meet, impressions to create. People smell bad vibe a mile off. they see it coming. Wavy lines coming off the person like heat. But it isn't heat. It's vibe. Bad vibe.
"I think it's worked. I feel better. Only time will tell. Tomorrow is another day. Another day for vibe to decide how it will play me. Stay positive. Positive thoughts = positive vibe."
"I touch wood. I first did it I thought about my parents dying. Which sounds weird, but they will, eventually, but probably not now. I just hadn't thought about it before, and when I did, it was such a horrible thought that I touched wood, just for something to make me feel like I had some sort of control. Even writing it has made me touch wood (n.b. it doesn't have to be wood, can just be anything solid touching the ground). It was a Pascal's wager of superstition, i.e. may as well, what's the harm? etc. But now I need it. I get panicky. I'm touching it for everything now. All the vibes.
"Why do you think I'm writing this? To dispel them. The vibes. I feel like I am a totem for badness, and that's no good. I have things to do, people to meet, impressions to create. People smell bad vibe a mile off. they see it coming. Wavy lines coming off the person like heat. But it isn't heat. It's vibe. Bad vibe.
"I think it's worked. I feel better. Only time will tell. Tomorrow is another day. Another day for vibe to decide how it will play me. Stay positive. Positive thoughts = positive vibe."
LESSONS OF DARKNESS
Minnesota Declaration
Truth and fact in documentary cinema
"LESSONS OF DARKNESS".
1. By dint of declaration the so-called Cinema Verité is devoid of verité. It reaches a merely superficial truth, the truth of accountants.
2. One well-known representative of Cinema Verité declared publicly that truth can be easily found by taking a camera and trying to be honest. He resembles the night watchman at the Supreme Court who resents the amount of written law and legal procedures. "For me," he says, "there should be only one single law: the bad guys should go to jail." Unfortunately, he is part right, for most of the many, much of the time.
3. Cinema Verité confounds fact and truth, and thus plows only stones. And yet, facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.
4. Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.
5. There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.
6. Filmmakers of Cinema Verité resemble tourists who take pictures amid ancient ruins of facts.
7. Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.
8. Each year at springtime scores of people on snowmobiles crash through the melting ice on the lakes of Minnesota and drown. Pressure is mounting on the new governor to pass a protective law. He, the former wrestler and bodyguard, has the only sage answer to this: "You can´t legislate stupidity."
9. The gauntlet is hereby thrown down.
10. The moon is dull. Mother Nature doesn´t call, doesn´t speak to you, although a glacier eventually farts. And don´t you listen to the Song of Life.
11. We ought to be grateful that the Universe out there knows no smile.
12. Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of a hell that during evolution some species - including man - crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota April 30, 1999 Werner Herzog
[Taken from Wernerherzog.com]
Truth and fact in documentary cinema
"LESSONS OF DARKNESS".
1. By dint of declaration the so-called Cinema Verité is devoid of verité. It reaches a merely superficial truth, the truth of accountants.
2. One well-known representative of Cinema Verité declared publicly that truth can be easily found by taking a camera and trying to be honest. He resembles the night watchman at the Supreme Court who resents the amount of written law and legal procedures. "For me," he says, "there should be only one single law: the bad guys should go to jail." Unfortunately, he is part right, for most of the many, much of the time.
3. Cinema Verité confounds fact and truth, and thus plows only stones. And yet, facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.
4. Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.
5. There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.
6. Filmmakers of Cinema Verité resemble tourists who take pictures amid ancient ruins of facts.
7. Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.
8. Each year at springtime scores of people on snowmobiles crash through the melting ice on the lakes of Minnesota and drown. Pressure is mounting on the new governor to pass a protective law. He, the former wrestler and bodyguard, has the only sage answer to this: "You can´t legislate stupidity."
9. The gauntlet is hereby thrown down.
10. The moon is dull. Mother Nature doesn´t call, doesn´t speak to you, although a glacier eventually farts. And don´t you listen to the Song of Life.
11. We ought to be grateful that the Universe out there knows no smile.
12. Life in the oceans must be sheer hell. A vast, merciless hell of permanent and immediate danger. So much of a hell that during evolution some species - including man - crawled, fled onto some small continents of solid land, where the Lessons of Darkness continue.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota April 30, 1999 Werner Herzog
[Taken from Wernerherzog.com]
Dreams
I've been having strange dreams. Here are three dreams I have had:
- I am the 'King of Slow Jams' i.e. I am the best person at writing and recording 'Slow Jam' R&B songs. Detail - the radio presenter talking about me says that I have brought my 'unique British style' to this most American of genres.
- I am a 'young British Asian male' who has a 'passion for acting'. I have to 'choose between acting and [unspecified thing which signals commitment to politicised Islam]'. I do not inhabit the body of the 'young British Asian male' during this dream. The action in the dream doesn't happen as such, more, it just is a single momentary state. I 'choose acting', which in the dream is the 'right things to do'. Seems like my sub-conscious is a neo-liberal racist, i.e. it hopes people 'choose' culture/lifestyle (which it sees as progressive and positive) over religion/politics/historic association (which it sees as regressive/negative).
- I am standing in New Cross, with my head tipped to the side. Hot earwax is pouring out of my right ear. Molten yellow slime, giving way to more solid chunks which splatter and start to solidify as they hit the ground, in the manner of candle wax. There are passers by, but they 'don't care'. Within the dream context I am most dismayed by the attitude of the residents of New Cross, their 'lack of pride' in their streets - all this while I am jettisoning what by now must be litres of wax on 'their' pavements.
The Black Circle
A pub in the hinterland between Beckton and Upney - The Black Circle. Saw this poster in the window.
THE BLACK CRICLE (sic)>WELCOME!!!
STELLA ON DRAUGHT
TOILET
>DISCO AND KARAOKE (UNDER ATTENDED)>
BARMAID FROM THE DOG AND BEAR
Liverpool Street
I was having blood taken and I passed out. I normally do this thing where I tell the doctor or nurse that I once passed out when I was having my blood taken but that if I tell them then it is fine and I won't pass out. This time it didn't work and I slumped forward in my chair, dropped my phone and the doctor had to catch me. Apparently I was out for about ten seconds, shaking and groaning. When I woke up from what felt like the eternal repetition of hell I could hear myself growling, intoning, 'fuck, fuck fuck'. My contact lenses had come out and my eyes had rolled back in my head. I was shivering and sweating and couldn't see.
I don't remember what happened but I must have sorted myself out and left because when I started thinking straight again I was staring intently at people out of the window at MacDonald's in Liverpool Street station. These notes were on my phone, which was in my hand.
--
Male intern with man tits (long sleeve shirt under short sleeve shirt) 'sent out' for coffees (5) on cardboard tray from MacDonald's.
'Chunky' but pretty girl in 'well tailored' coat, waiting with headphones.
Bored/anxious looking 'mum' with school group on kids' 'first trip' to London.
Builders drinking fizzy drinks and smoking, leaning on a 'find the Fabergé egg' podium (w/ huge golden egg mounted upon it).
Thin, smoking, coffee drinking girl self-consciously meets 'bigger' friend/colleague.
Essex male looks self-conscious about amount of gel in hair, 'even on this side of town'. Curses 'pretentious wankers' who make him feel self conscious when ever he leaves Essex.
Big middle aged woman walks towards MacDonald's. It 'is hard to not go there everyday'.
Northern man with wheelie bag tries to take a 'quick picture' of 'The Gherkin'.
Older, cultural woman walks quickly and texts. She 'comes to London all the time'.
I don't remember what happened but I must have sorted myself out and left because when I started thinking straight again I was staring intently at people out of the window at MacDonald's in Liverpool Street station. These notes were on my phone, which was in my hand.
--
Male intern with man tits (long sleeve shirt under short sleeve shirt) 'sent out' for coffees (5) on cardboard tray from MacDonald's.
'Chunky' but pretty girl in 'well tailored' coat, waiting with headphones.
Bored/anxious looking 'mum' with school group on kids' 'first trip' to London.
Builders drinking fizzy drinks and smoking, leaning on a 'find the Fabergé egg' podium (w/ huge golden egg mounted upon it).
Thin, smoking, coffee drinking girl self-consciously meets 'bigger' friend/colleague.
Essex male looks self-conscious about amount of gel in hair, 'even on this side of town'. Curses 'pretentious wankers' who make him feel self conscious when ever he leaves Essex.
Big middle aged woman walks towards MacDonald's. It 'is hard to not go there everyday'.
Northern man with wheelie bag tries to take a 'quick picture' of 'The Gherkin'.
Older, cultural woman walks quickly and texts. She 'comes to London all the time'.
Black Totem
'All the skin is falling off my lips, I have deep wounds in my back and arms.'
--
I've been walking with artist Laura Oldfield Ford. She knows the city in ways that I don't. We decided to walk along the river, and down to Deptford, where she will be making work in the summer.
--
We walked towards the river from Whitechapel and Laura told me about a boy she knew who was being sentenced for getting involved in the riots. Four years for burglary, for wandering into a booted out shop. He wore a hood, but his shoes gave him away on the cctv - purple brogues.
--
After Tower Bridge we turned east, into the reconfigured landscape of mid-height residential blocks. Waterside hutches with port-hole windows. Everywhere we walked we saw these banners.
The font on the banners faked an analogue look, fuzzy at the edges like an under-inked screenprint. 80s activist font. Stolen aesthetics for nimbys.
The Super Sewer they refer to is to supplement the ageing Victorian system of the northern and southern outfall sewers, designed by Joseph Bazalgette. At the moment, whenever there is a high volume of rainfall, raw sewage is forced back up out of the sewers, and into the Thames. Untreated effluent, bobbing in the water. Downriver from these flats, of course, but not too far.
The choice is between a forever polluted Thames, or several years of discomfort for those living along the proposed route of the Super Sewer - 24 hour drilling, dust clouds, a year round stench. Of course, you'd have to wonder why a council allowed new housing to be built alongside the proposed route for the Super Sewer in the first place. The solution to a housing crisis; an infrastructure crisis.
--
We stopped by an empty square, one of those regulated public places, in between two blocks of luxury flats. There was a huge concrete obelisk in the middle of the square, covered in black paint. It looked like someone had thrown a few big pots of emulsion at it, coated it from top to bottom. As we approached, we could see that the paint was still wet. A violent, basic attempt at graffiti. A black totem.
While we were marvelling at the sight of the defaced obelisk, a tradesman approached us, heading towards the block of flats on our right. "Nice day to look at the river. Go and look at the river." We turned and smiled but recognised the tone. We moved on.
--
Further down the Thames path, still inside the developed area, but with patches of fenced off rubble and bare land starting to encroach upon the regeneration, we found this black circle.
The same person who covered the obelisk? The paint was dry and it looked older. A budget magic circle.
And then this shelter.
A place for public drinking. Near the water, sheltered but visible. A dome under which to perform for passing crowds. This was a place for real ritual to occur.
As I was taking this photo, a helicopter came up the river, and then stopped in front of us, hovering low above the water. We played out an absurd staring contest with the muzzle of the machine, and then we turned and walked away, heard it lift up from the water and head towards the city.
--
Finally we crossed the line, no more regeneration. Raw streets. Track marks of tarmac along the road where cables had been laid, pipes fixed. But no attempt at coverage. No cosmetic overlay.
We found a boarded up estate pub covered with nationalist graffiti.
And next to it, a rusting crane, from when these were working docks.
Like the body of a giant, propped up on concrete stilts. Covered in pigeon bafflers and bird shit. Rusting. A spider hulk.
Everything was out of date here, even the heritage.
--
We got into a tower block and went up to the 24th floor, looked south from the fire escape. Picked out blocks of uni-coloured homogeneous new builds and a KFC that looked like a self-storage playschool.
Then we went back downstairs and found a pub.
--
Deal or No Deal was on the telly.
A game with rules so meaningless that it doesn't actually need to be played. The results could be read out, it would save everyone the trouble of having to watch it. But gaming theories abound. Noel's "cosmic ordering" within such an environment is a beautiful synecdoche of human reasoning - nonsense versus chaos.
There are tales of the superstitious contestants not changing their clothes for weeks while they stay at the production warehouse waiting for their chance to play, or cadres forming - with 'bad energy' contestants being shunned by the group. There were even rumours of a ritual sacrifice, but they were quickly buried by Endemol with court orders and lawyer's letters. But, still, those contestants implicated were cut from the final edits of the season, costing the company hundreds of thousands of pounds for re-filming missing episodes. Even the people who made Big Brother weren't going to stand for black magic vibes rubbing off on the positive energies of Noel and his followers.
We spoke about how Deal (she calls it this, just the one word, no need for further expansion) is the perfect program to be on the telly in day-pubs. They should market it as an entire channel for commercial Sky subscriptions, edit it seamlessly - no ad breaks, and no end, just the constant expression of meaningless theories about how to win the game, whilst the real game carries on outside, beyond the walls of the studio/pub. A perfect analogy to day drinking. Wistful and hopeful, bathed in impotence. With success and failure defined by the context, which in reality means just gradations of the same feeling. Aimlessness pared down to a room with no clock faces, and the possibility of salvation offered up but never received.
--
Once we got into Deptford proper, Laura told me about a Vietnamese restaurant she had been to the week before. She had gone to the bathroom, and as she walked down the stairs, she was met with a thick fug of tobacco smoke, and the anachronistic sound of MTV from the early 90s. Songs you wouldn't hear now outside of local radio. A group of Vietnamese men were slouched on sofas, fucked, wailing at the music that blared from multiple flat screen TVs hanging off the walls. Not singing, but crying out at the melodies. Flat eyes and gumpted mouths yelling hoarse.
--
We had a drink at an estate pub. No punters, just two Mums and their kids running the place, watching Sky News with the volume right up. I tried to get a pint, but the Mum that poured it made uncertain noises about the possibility of draught lager, and when she pulled the tap, the beer came out soft and milky, like calcium sick. It was yellow and white like an infected eye. She offered it to me, unsure as to whether this was what I wanted, and I said maybe I would have a bottle of Becks.
I went to the toilet
Ad hoc porthole windows where ventilation fans had been knocked out by forward thinking punters. DIY regeneration.
--
We wandered around the Peckham arcade, and then headed back towards town. I kept talking about the black totem that we had seen earlier. We spoke of tagging as instinctive street behaviour, or OCD nihilism - like tamed dogs pissing. The only possible tattoo would be inking in a section of your body black. Imageless image. Maybe this was the final stage of graffiti - just painting things out to remove them from the visual landscape.
We were walking a slightly different route, but we ended up back on the river, almost at the obelisk. It was starting to get dark, but across the water we could see a bare patch of grass, a green mound amongst the development, and on the mound we could see a wooden cross. Painted black.
--
I've been walking with artist Laura Oldfield Ford. She knows the city in ways that I don't. We decided to walk along the river, and down to Deptford, where she will be making work in the summer.
--
We walked towards the river from Whitechapel and Laura told me about a boy she knew who was being sentenced for getting involved in the riots. Four years for burglary, for wandering into a booted out shop. He wore a hood, but his shoes gave him away on the cctv - purple brogues.
--
After Tower Bridge we turned east, into the reconfigured landscape of mid-height residential blocks. Waterside hutches with port-hole windows. Everywhere we walked we saw these banners.
The font on the banners faked an analogue look, fuzzy at the edges like an under-inked screenprint. 80s activist font. Stolen aesthetics for nimbys.
The Super Sewer they refer to is to supplement the ageing Victorian system of the northern and southern outfall sewers, designed by Joseph Bazalgette. At the moment, whenever there is a high volume of rainfall, raw sewage is forced back up out of the sewers, and into the Thames. Untreated effluent, bobbing in the water. Downriver from these flats, of course, but not too far.
The choice is between a forever polluted Thames, or several years of discomfort for those living along the proposed route of the Super Sewer - 24 hour drilling, dust clouds, a year round stench. Of course, you'd have to wonder why a council allowed new housing to be built alongside the proposed route for the Super Sewer in the first place. The solution to a housing crisis; an infrastructure crisis.
--
We stopped by an empty square, one of those regulated public places, in between two blocks of luxury flats. There was a huge concrete obelisk in the middle of the square, covered in black paint. It looked like someone had thrown a few big pots of emulsion at it, coated it from top to bottom. As we approached, we could see that the paint was still wet. A violent, basic attempt at graffiti. A black totem.
While we were marvelling at the sight of the defaced obelisk, a tradesman approached us, heading towards the block of flats on our right. "Nice day to look at the river. Go and look at the river." We turned and smiled but recognised the tone. We moved on.
--
Further down the Thames path, still inside the developed area, but with patches of fenced off rubble and bare land starting to encroach upon the regeneration, we found this black circle.
The same person who covered the obelisk? The paint was dry and it looked older. A budget magic circle.
And then this shelter.
A place for public drinking. Near the water, sheltered but visible. A dome under which to perform for passing crowds. This was a place for real ritual to occur.
As I was taking this photo, a helicopter came up the river, and then stopped in front of us, hovering low above the water. We played out an absurd staring contest with the muzzle of the machine, and then we turned and walked away, heard it lift up from the water and head towards the city.
--
Finally we crossed the line, no more regeneration. Raw streets. Track marks of tarmac along the road where cables had been laid, pipes fixed. But no attempt at coverage. No cosmetic overlay.
We found a boarded up estate pub covered with nationalist graffiti.
And next to it, a rusting crane, from when these were working docks.
Like the body of a giant, propped up on concrete stilts. Covered in pigeon bafflers and bird shit. Rusting. A spider hulk.
Everything was out of date here, even the heritage.
--
We got into a tower block and went up to the 24th floor, looked south from the fire escape. Picked out blocks of uni-coloured homogeneous new builds and a KFC that looked like a self-storage playschool.
Then we went back downstairs and found a pub.
--
Deal or No Deal was on the telly.
A game with rules so meaningless that it doesn't actually need to be played. The results could be read out, it would save everyone the trouble of having to watch it. But gaming theories abound. Noel's "cosmic ordering" within such an environment is a beautiful synecdoche of human reasoning - nonsense versus chaos.
There are tales of the superstitious contestants not changing their clothes for weeks while they stay at the production warehouse waiting for their chance to play, or cadres forming - with 'bad energy' contestants being shunned by the group. There were even rumours of a ritual sacrifice, but they were quickly buried by Endemol with court orders and lawyer's letters. But, still, those contestants implicated were cut from the final edits of the season, costing the company hundreds of thousands of pounds for re-filming missing episodes. Even the people who made Big Brother weren't going to stand for black magic vibes rubbing off on the positive energies of Noel and his followers.
We spoke about how Deal (she calls it this, just the one word, no need for further expansion) is the perfect program to be on the telly in day-pubs. They should market it as an entire channel for commercial Sky subscriptions, edit it seamlessly - no ad breaks, and no end, just the constant expression of meaningless theories about how to win the game, whilst the real game carries on outside, beyond the walls of the studio/pub. A perfect analogy to day drinking. Wistful and hopeful, bathed in impotence. With success and failure defined by the context, which in reality means just gradations of the same feeling. Aimlessness pared down to a room with no clock faces, and the possibility of salvation offered up but never received.
--
Once we got into Deptford proper, Laura told me about a Vietnamese restaurant she had been to the week before. She had gone to the bathroom, and as she walked down the stairs, she was met with a thick fug of tobacco smoke, and the anachronistic sound of MTV from the early 90s. Songs you wouldn't hear now outside of local radio. A group of Vietnamese men were slouched on sofas, fucked, wailing at the music that blared from multiple flat screen TVs hanging off the walls. Not singing, but crying out at the melodies. Flat eyes and gumpted mouths yelling hoarse.
--
We had a drink at an estate pub. No punters, just two Mums and their kids running the place, watching Sky News with the volume right up. I tried to get a pint, but the Mum that poured it made uncertain noises about the possibility of draught lager, and when she pulled the tap, the beer came out soft and milky, like calcium sick. It was yellow and white like an infected eye. She offered it to me, unsure as to whether this was what I wanted, and I said maybe I would have a bottle of Becks.
I went to the toilet
Ad hoc porthole windows where ventilation fans had been knocked out by forward thinking punters. DIY regeneration.
--
We wandered around the Peckham arcade, and then headed back towards town. I kept talking about the black totem that we had seen earlier. We spoke of tagging as instinctive street behaviour, or OCD nihilism - like tamed dogs pissing. The only possible tattoo would be inking in a section of your body black. Imageless image. Maybe this was the final stage of graffiti - just painting things out to remove them from the visual landscape.
