Update! Alan Dempsey, one of the architects, has written in with a link to his informative team blog, which documents the history and progress of the Pavilion. Check the archives for the background on how the structure is designed and built.
Just around the corner from where I work there’s a strange construction going up in Bedford Square. At the moment, it resembles a temporary albeit stylish stage: the deck on the scaffold helps this impression. There were a few placards on the fencing explaining a little about the project, but not much too helpful. Some of the workers would occasionally stop and chat to curious passersby.
Its location in a square on the edge of a park suggests that it’s a piece of public sculpture, but its structure makes it look like architecture. A bit of googling of the names on the placard yielded this website, and it immediately becomes clear that it’s architecture.
First giveaway: the entire site is done in Flash, so the site is hard to read and navigate, overly fiddly, and impossible to quote whatever information the designers wanted to impart in the first place. Of course, plenty of art websites use too much (i.e. some) Flash, but they usually have some scraps of helpful information on them, or at least have a section in which they try to justify their existences. On this particular site, though, there is a complete lack of interest in explaining itself to the world. This is the second clue that this thing is about architecture.
According to the website, the construction is called either the DRL TEN Pavilion, the DRL.TEN Pavilion, or the AADRL TEN Pavilion, depending on which part of the screen you click. TEN may or may not be capitalised. There is no evident explanation as to what an AADRL is, nor of what if any function the Pavilion has. There seems to be an exhibition connected to the Pavilion, which has already opened, but there’s no information on what it’s about or where it is.
The Pavilion itself is announced as opening on 13 March. Judging from the state of the worksite it’s going to be a close thing.
Filed under: Art, London by Ben.H
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Please Mister Please
Wednesday 5 March 2008
Kenneth Gaburo, “The Wasting of Lucrecetzia (Exit Music No.1)” (1965).
(3’48”, 3.75 MB, mp3)
Filed under: Please Mister Please by Ben.H
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The mummified corpse of Jeremy Bentham reads inter-office emails.
Wednesday 5 March 2008
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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A bit of shush
Tuesday 4 March 2008
Before I was interrupted, I was going to say something about the Elliott Sharp/Christian Marclay gig at the Luminaire a few weeks back. (Condensed review: it taught me that I don’t like Elliott Sharp.) Also a few weeks back, Jodru at ANABlog offered some sure-fire ways to build a healthy, regular audience for your new music gigs. A brief discussion ensued in the comments until I started thinking about VJs and the Red Mist descended; then the real world intervened and by the time I got back into the argument the thread had gone cold:
Really, what’s needed is a range of different experiences on offer, as you suggest. Noisy gigs where you can chat with your mates at the same time, “rigorous” listening-intense concerts, six-hour meditative events…
I hadn’t been to the Luminaire before, so when I came in I saw your typical “noisy gig” venue, complete with a packed bar along the back wall of the band room serving strong drink in plastic cups. Yet dotted around the walls were signs telling the punters to shut up and pay attention to the music. I don’t know if these are permanent fixtures, or if they were put up at the talent’s behest just for the night. Either way it was an incongruous sight; or rather it would have been if anybody paid any attention to the signs at all.
Personally, I neither minded that the crowd carried on, nor did I expect them to behave otherwise. This was simply the wrong sort of room for a “rigorous” gig, and the printed signs trying to impose a concert-hall atmosphere seemed like a misbegotten, foolhardy gesture.
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
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At least two reasons why Jane Siberry has been frolicking in the surf of the oceans of madness all these years
Sunday 2 March 2008
I’d heard about Carl Wilson’s book Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, the latest in the “33 1/3” series of monographs about rock albums, in which he explores his “guilty displeasure” in loathing Céline Dion; but I must thank Dial “M” for Musicology for posting a brief meditation on the power of schmaltz, which pointed me to these quotes from Wilson’s book:
Early in the book, after a concise history of schmaltz (which he defines elegantly as “an unprivate portrait of how private feeling is currently conceived”), Wilson turns the notion back on its critics. “You could say that punk rock,” he writes, “is anger’s schmaltz.”
Filed under: Music by Ben.H
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Countdown to Eurovision: the first battle is won
Saturday 1 March 2008
Dustin the Turkey has won the vote to become Ireland’s entry for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. Thus ensuring that they won’t, at least, come behind the United Kingdom this year.
Filed under: Music, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Swings Like a Pendulum Do
Thursday 28 February 2008
Late Monday night the house swayed a little the way it does when a heavy truck rumbles past; only this time the peak vibration didn’t quickly pass. The house rocked up and down a little for five or ten seconds then stopped. I thought, “That was an earthquake, that was” (I’m getting down with the native speech patterns now) and went to bed….
Only to emerge from my house the next morning and witness TOTAL CARNAGE.
The Evening Standard, which is published three times in a day, pulled out all the hyperbolic stops. EARTHQUAKE HITS LONDON, it bawled, arrogantly trying to claim for the capital a geological event which actually happened in Lincolnshire! … It used the same agency photographs that were used around the world (none of them taken in London): a hole in a roof in Barnsley where a chimney pot had fallen through (I saw this on the front page of, I think, the Mail today); a woman in her dressing gown (“surveying the damage”, which mainly involved her standing on her own undamaged doorstep); some more chimney pots; and, er, that’s it.
But the best, most distinctly British reaction I’ve seen to the event has been this rather sheepish article, and the readers’ comments that follow it (“may I mention my bad cold in this context?”). I’ve been trying to discover what are the good bits of my British heritage to embrace. Part of this involves working out the fine distinction in nuance between Australian apathy and British cynicism, as seen on display in the linked article above:
When the bed shaking woke me up on Tuesday night I thought my boyfriend was in the throws [sic] of some kind of fit. Although having said that my concern did not extend to turning all the way over to check he wasn’t swallowing his tongue or anything so maybe on some level I just knew! I did however ask him if he was alright so I feel I can safely say I would have absolved myself of any guilt in the unlikely event of his death.
The former seems born of nihilism while the latter is of disillusionment. I am hoping my dual citizenship entitles me to both.
Filed under: London, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Please Mister Please
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Free Kitten, “Teenie Weenie Boppie” (1997).
(3’03”, 2.76 MB, mp3)
Filed under: Please Mister Please by Ben.H
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By “next week” I meant of course “next next week”
Wednesday 27 February 2008
I’ve finally moved properly into the new house, found my computer, found the computer’s power cable, gotten back online, gotten cut off, remembered to pay the broadband bill, and gotten back online again. Mind you, I also slipped out of town for a long weekend in Barcelona, so it’s not like I’ve been working. Barcelona’s a great city, but it has a dark side. Most particularly, every now and then I would come across a poster advertising an upcoming masterclass. By Craig David.
If life were an early ’70s sci-fi movie, you could destroy the evil supercomputer that had taken over the world by going up to it, showing this poster and saying “Craig David Masterclass”, then running for cover while it shouted “Er-ror! Er-ror! Does Not Com-Pute!” and self-destructed in an enormous, sparkly explosion. I figured this must be some mistake in translation, so I just googled for it:
The main purpose of the Masterclass in Space Movistar is getting artist and audience closer than ever, not only for fitness but also spiritually, as Craig David will answer questions from fans and explain what have been the sources of inspiration his best-known songs as “Walking Away” or his new single “Hot Stuff.”
I expect the source of inspiration for that first song was something to do with him walking away, yeah oh, to find a better day. Here’s hoping he does a masterclass in a country where the audience speaks English as its first language.
Filed under: Music, Stupidity, Travel by Ben.H
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The mummified corpse of Jeremy Bentham reads inter-office emails.
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H
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Wharariki Beach, 18 November 2007
Thursday 14 February 2008
I’ve been packing all week, and because I screwed up my order matching reference code (not heard of it? neither has Google) the next post won’t come until some time later next week, I expect. Have fun without me.
Filed under: Self-promotion, Travel by Ben.H
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Please Mister Please
Sunday 10 February 2008
John Zorn, “Etude #33” from The Book of Heads (1978). Marc Ribot, guitar.
(1’22”, 0.99 MB, mp3)
Filed under: Please Mister Please by Ben.H
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Countdown to Eurovision starts a little early this year
Sunday 10 February 2008
Will no-one save the hallowed Eurovision Song Contest from encroaching irony and smirking self-awareness? In a move that combines Lithuania’s 2006 tribute to the power of positive thinking with the perennial favourite “My Lovely Horse“, one of the songs on the shortlist for Ireland’s entry for this year’s contest is “Irlande, Douze Points” by Dustin the Turkey. I’m not sure if having a turkey represent Ireland counts as a Fine Cotton or not.
The Telegraph had the news item which turned up first on Google:
Dustin’s song sung in a North Dublin accent urges the contest judges to “give douze points to Ireland.”
Which sounds like a wasted effort, given that it’s all decided by telephone voting now. Rather wonderfully, a subeditor pads out the slim news article in time-honoured style:
Should Dustin be chosen as the Republic of Ireland’s entrant, it will be the first time that a turkey in the form of a glove puppet has represented a nation.
I wonder how long it took them to fact-check that sentence. Also included is a YouTube link to Dustin “doing Riverdance”.
Filed under: Music, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Filler By Proxy LX: So it’s come to this again (brought to you by Roomba)
Saturday 9 February 2008
I’m moving house again, so when I get a rare chance to go online I’m less inclined to write a new post than just quietly surf around and think deep thoughts.
Filed under: Filler By Proxy, Stupidity by Ben.H
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Visible cracks, real and illusory
Wednesday 6 February 2008
As has been proved many times before, it is foolish to pass judgement on a work of art before seeing it for yourself. I finally saw Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth at the Tate Modern.
There has been plenty of discussion about the artwork since it was first installed – what it means, how it was made, whether or not it’s any good – so much that it is impossible to not be aware of its existence, nor of what the work consists of. (It’s a crack running the length of the floor in the Tate’s Turbine Hall, growing wider and deeper as it descends from one end to the other.) You could picture the entire installation in your head, except for one little detail that I’ve never heard mentioned when people discuss their visits to see it. At close range, the crack is revealed to be an obvious fabrication, with no attempt to conceal the wire forms embedded in the concrete.
For the weekend crowds peering inside its depths, or hopping back and forth over it, Shibboleth may as well be invisible if its success depends on the interpretation given to it by the artist and the museum:
In particular, Salcedo is addressing a long legacy of racism and colonialism that underlies the modern world. ‘The history of racism’, Salcedo writes, ‘runs parallel to the history of modernity, and is its untold dark side’. … In breaking open the floor of the museum, Salcedo is exposing a fracture in modernity itself. Her work encourages us to confront uncomfortable truths about our history and about ourselves with absolute candidness, and without self-deception.
Even ignoring the fact that the history of racism runs parallel to the history of everything, it’s hard not to read this as a fatuous piece of funding-speak. You don’t have to doubt Salcedo’s personal background and beliefs that support her art to see that her public interpretation of her own art reduces Shibboleth to a one-liner, simplistic and ineffectual. The installation is as much a tourist attraction as the building that houses it. Salcedo may be “keen to remind us” of “the existence of a huge socially excluded underclass”, but Shibboleth, in this context, utterly fails to fulfil her intention.
(Strangely, for all her talk of schisms and exclusions, the only interpretations I’ve seen of the formative mesh in the crack have been either abstractly structural or overly symbolic. I would have thought it made an obvious point that apparently natural divisions in race or religion turn out under closer scrutiny to be artificial, human constructs. Then the art could at least function in its own way as a neat little metaphor, if little more.)
In fact, Salcedo makes out her installation to be less of a work of art than it really is, although its true power may be of a type she did not intend, or even recognise.
The immediate image conveyed by Shibboleth when seen plain, beguilingly forging its path of destruction through the crowds inevitably wandering the Turbine Hall, is not one of division but of entropy. Starting almost undetectable at the high end of the hall, it is allowed to progress, or rather deteriorate, along the floor unchecked until it has opened up into a real tripping hazard for visitors. The image of a cultural institution whose foundations have been permitted to shift, and so decay, is potent; but in the Western World of the early 21st century it speaks to a different dilemma than the artist intended.
The Tate’s claim that the crack “encourages us to confront uncomfortable truths about our history and about ourselves” isn’t exactly true. In truth, its presence embodies our culture’s current readiness to doubt itself, and to question its own origins, validity, and integrity – with little or no outside encouragement. The entropy was built into the system. This self-examination and picking apart of the social assumptions that underpin our culture could lead to renewal, or to disintegration. For a jaded society of sophisticates, the threat of destruction and disaster is extremely seductive. (As one reviewer says, “Salcedo’s cut is always varied and pleasurably violent. I’m not sure the pleasure is intended.”)
Salcedo’s professed aim to expose the dark side of modernity began within modernism itself in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. In 1949, Charles Olson reflected on the inability of modernism to cope with the fragmentary nature of reality – it is no coincidence he had invented the word “post-modern” the year before – and wrote in his poem “The Kingfishers”:
When the attentions change / the jungle
leaps in
even the stones are split
they rive
