Tough Crowd by Tough Crowd

no 2. spring/summer 2010

TOUGH crowd

owen hatherley. ebe oke. fuck buttons. jessica penfold. dave eggers. laura oldfield ford. untold. simon ward.

TOUGH crowd Editor

David Dawkins Deputy editor

Alistair McDonald art director

Jed Tallo contributing editor

Karen Orton contributors

Andrew Spencer, Cosmo Wise, Darren Karl-Smith, Ă&#x2030;douard Lugg, Frank Milsclifton ,Kevin Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neil, Laura Phillips, Lauren Nikrooz, Peter Locke, Ruro Efue, Simon Jones, Simon Ward, Will Morgan. front cover

Photography Frank Milsclifton

toughcrowd magazine.com

Tough Crowd is seeking contributors for its next issue. Email hello@toughcrowd magazine.com with examples of your work, ideas and experience.

contributors

CONTENTS no2. spring/summer 2010

Will MORGAN As a neighbour of, and close collaborator with Ebe Oke, it was natural that Morgan should shoot Oke’s charismatic portrait on page 16. He has previously photographed for Dazed & Confused, Telegraph and the Guardian, and is currently involved in a project about cinéastes. Kevin O’Neill As a PhD student from Goldsmiths college, London, O’Neill has developed an exhaustive knowledge of the literary journal McSweeney’s. In-between focusing on literary institutions, and American cultural production, he can be found following Scottish football and working in Dalston Oxfam shop.

photo by owen hatherley

Frank Milsclifton Frank Milsclifton was born during November of 1954 in King’s Cross. Starting off as a portrait photographer, Frank captured images of Mobutu Sese Seko, Roy Sullivan and Jean-Bedel Bokassa before moving onto cultural figures such as Twiggy and Penny Rimbaud. For his first body of work in many years Milsclifton has adapted his practice towards cataloguing moments of vulnerability in London’s architecture. LAURA PHILLIPS A resident of Halifax, Canada, and self-described art school drop-out, Philips contributed towards the music section of this issue. Regular fashion and music analysis can be found on her blog at: www.pixiesinaglasshouse. blogspot.com

interviews 10 ––––Fuck Buttons 12 ––––Jessica Penfold 14 ––––Untold 16 ––––Ebe Oke 31 ––––Owen Hatherley 34 ––––Laura Oldfield Ford 37 ––––Dark Mountain

fashion 4 ––––Darren Karl Smith

photography 42 ––––Simon Ward

reviews 39 ––––Book 41 ––––Music

fashion

cabin fever –––– PHOTOGRAPHY Darren Karl-Smith –––– STYLING Cosmo Wise

All clothes from De Rien. Model Cosmo McDonald.

interview

The canonical terms and expressions used by the music press to describe the sound of

fuck buttons ...“Sonic Lasers of Phosphorent Nihilism. Music from a cerebral never-realm. An imploding cosmos of epileptic light. The phantasmagoric shards-and-shrapnel of sonic discombobulation. The death-wail of ten-thousand albino babies. The exploding tears of a weeping rainbow.” –––– WORDS David Dawkins –––– PORTRAIT Peter Locke

Despite being two very pleasant and genial young men, the text above demonstrates the potential for some outstanding hyperbole to dominate descriptions of how Fuck Buttons make music. Often being lumped into any-and-every genre of that given moment, Fuck Buttons keep their ideas and influences close to their chests, they don’t read their own press and they don’t let in many outsiders. Offering a different angle on the aforementioned hyperbole, Tough Crowd appreciates Fuck Buttons as a break in the common language of boys with guitars and a noisy sibling disturbing the malaise in British ‘alternative’ music. We caught up with Andrew Hung to mull-over various particulars and have a bit of a chat.

So you guys are both from 10 TOUGH CROWD

Worcester, how did you meet? We were all part of the little skateboarding community there, we knew each other but we only ever started hanging out when we went to Bristol together. How did it work to start off with? how did people react? Well Ben had been in previous bands before but I’d never been in a band or indeed performed live before Fuck Buttons. Ben has told me in the past that when his friends saw what he was doing with the Fuck Buttons and they didn’t quite understand; we didn’t get that much support in the early days. Are you both based in London now? Ben lives in Dalston and I live northwest, in Kilburn.

Do you guys have a studio or a practice space? No, we just practice in each other’s living rooms depending on the logistics of the week. The titles of your songs are always worth consulting after a few listens, I’m thinking of Olympians in particular, is there a method to how you choose them? The titles are generated after we’ve sat down to have a listen once the track is finished. With music the best possible strategy is to just do it. We do like to talk about it after because the music does conjure up moods and ideas that we enjoy and then we assign names to them, that’s normally how it works. I want to ask you about your relationship to Noise music. Do you see yourself as part of that particular lineage? No, it doesn’t really interest us to be part of any particular lineage. It’s really cool to be picked up by people like Resident Advisor (online Techno magazine) but it doesn’t matter to us to be considered one thing or another. What’s your position then to the music press, or music writing that uses lots of big words to describe the music that you make? Do you like the way people interpret your music? It’s rare that we pay it much attention. We’ve got used to ignoring it because you have to listen to the criticisms as much as the praise, it’s just not helpful for us to let in any opinions really, even from those close to us.

The way you perform, standing either side of a table is quite intimate, do you communicate with each other during a gig? How did that happen? I don’t really know any other way, maybe it’s because I’ve never been in a live band before Fuck Buttons, but it is just extremely comfortable. If I connect with the person on the other side of the table then that connection will extend to the audience. I mean, yeah, it works for us, there is a great amount of communication needed on stage. On the subject of performing live, it’s interesting how differently groups of people react to your music. Sometimes the room is quite contemplative and at other times it really kicks off. Why do you think that is? I think that it’s a combination of factors that direct the crowd as an ‘audience.’ From city-to-city it differs and specific venues are different. I mean, we were in New York recently and we played a few shows that were relatively still, but randomly at one of them we actually garnered our first crowd-surfer. We were warned that this particular venue had something of an effect on people but nothing in the way it looked gave that away. It was just a disused hall, with a plank on barrels as the bar, but the venue itself seemed to generate its own energy and the night itself was crazy. It depends on loads of factors really. Even before Tarot Sport was released the news that Andy Weatherall would be producing the album got a lot of attention. How did it work out? Andy needed space and the ability to distance himself from the music so that he could judge it objectively. When we were in that studio there were three of us so there had to be a quick assembly of how the dynamic was going to work. So when we settled, space was attained by these little tricks like walking out the room or taking literal steps back from what we were doing.

There wasn’t much time between Street Horrrsing and Tarot Sport. What’s changed during the time in-between? I was looking at photos of our table when we first started making music and it was extremely minimal and a lot of the songs written for Street Horrrsing were written years ago using “… The general consensus that very minimal set-up. was that they didn’t really Naturally, things accumulate know what was going on. and obviously the equipment And, I mean, if you turn off contributes to the making of a band after three minutes the different sounds but we you’d expect some sort of never make a conscious deciuproar – but there wasn’t – sion to design any sounds, all we just had to pack up our we do is accumulate things, stuff in silence, with everyget the best out of what we’ve one watching.” got, and then discard things Andrew Hung of Fuck Buttons as time goes on. describing their third gig.

Andy Weatherall’s east London studio space has got a bit of mythology surrounding it. What’s it like? It looks like a bunker. It’s a bit robust, a bit ragged around the edges. would it survive a nuclear attack? Easily. /TC

TOUGH CROWD 11

interview

“Thoughts are not normally punctuated...”

Jessica penfold –––– WORDS David Dawkins

Drinking tea, watching Star Wars and sit-

ting, more-or-less on top of a cat hiding under the sofa called (Anne) Frank, Jessica Penfold writes and pencils comics that honor the absurdity of real people doing regular things. Snow Day, Jessica Penfold’s latest work, is the retelling of eight fleeting anecdotes from east London. Without directly mentioning the city or playing on the common associations of London life, Snow Day is a story that works like a collective exhale. As if the whole city pulled a collective sick-day, the story taps into the memory of having fun, or missing out on

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having fun, or at least just not having to do any of the wretched things we all do to get by. Influenced by Alex Robinson’s Box Office Poison and Charlie Burns’ Black Hole, Jessica Penfold’s work is spare and melancholic with every panel, text and picture doing as much as possible with little explanation or justification. A cat dies. A man skips work. A woman makes a mixtape. And that’s really the beginning, middle and end of it. Tough Crowd caught up with Jessica at her flat to have a tea, sit on a cat and talk about the events of February 2nd 2009.

Hi Jessica, text is all over the place in your work, where does that come from? I’ve always wanted to find a new way of writing someone’s thoughts without using a speech bubble. Thoughts are not the same as speech but in your head, thoughts are in things and around things and much faster. And thoughts are not normally punctuated. Snow Day, Feb 2nd 2009 - the day everyone had off - did you write it on the day? No, but all of it is true. After snow day I’d had such a wonderful day, I should do something about this. And then snow day itself started to do this Princess Diana thing… Er? … This ‘like, where were you on snow day’ thing. People were telling me ‘well I did this then this then this’ and I really liked that everyone had a great time and that we all had a story to tell about it. The whole thing was so simple – It just snowed. Regular People Regular Stories Yeah, like doing that. Really like doing that. I have trouble writing stories, so I rely on how everyone has one story, one anecdote they always tell…

…Mine has a Pigeon in it There you go. You can be in the next one. I rely on real people telling true stories about regular life. I do know some fucking great ones. Everyone can do doodles and text but the trick is creating a relationship between the pace of the panels, the images, the speech, the thoughts…. The great thing about Snow Day is that it’s so melancholic, it’s a story that feels like imposing a Sunday afternoon in the middle of a London working week. That’s cool because I didn’t really work at that. It was just a case of getting the characters, who are all people that I know, to talk how they usually talk and then getting them to do the things that actually happened. Otherwise, knowing me, I’ll start writing intricate character profiles about each person and huge panels of text to justify them when, really I can just use real dialogue. Also, if I do a picture that I really like I usually just think, ‘let’s do that really big’, it’s a simple as that really. I’m glad that it tells the story because I just don’t really think about it. /TC More of Jessica’s work can be found at www.jessicapenfold. com and Snow Day can be purchased at selected bookshops in London. TOUGH CROWD 13

interview

“Nice middle class people have been writing gutter music for years”

untold

–––– WORDS Alistair McDonald –––– PORTRAIT Andrew Spencer

In recent years Dubstep has undergone a vigorous

metamorphosis, from a niche sound specific to south London, to a global scene incorporating a plethora of genre influences. The archetypal sounds of Techno, Electro, Soca and the new House sub-genre of UK Funky can now be found coalescing with sub-bass, in Dubstep’s ever expanding sphere of influence. Within this flux, Untold has emerged as a notable DJ, label owner, and most significantly as a producer, melding fractured beats and bass as epitomised on his Gonna Work Out Fine EP released last year. He is at the vanguard of a scene rapidly becoming more diverse, as DJs play records at a lower tempo and incorporate a wider range of time signatures into their sets. As this transformation lends Dubstep a new urgency, Tough Crowd contacted Untold to discuss his work, as well as the future potential of the scene and the sound.

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What set up do you use as a producer? A computer with nice monitors, an external signal processing unit and some vintage synthesizers. Analogue vs. Digital - does it matter anymore? Analogue is inspiring to work with and sounds great, but I’m using less and less outboard gear - the last couple of releases have been 100% in the box. I think the argument for using one or another is fast becoming irrelevant, as producers have no control over the end product. More music is being listened to at degraded fidelity – people are tune hopping on YouTube, Spotify, as well as playing stuff through phones and laptop speakers. Having good ideas that translate well in different listening environments is a more important concern for me. Your tracks frequently use unconventional arrangements. Are you deliberately trying to disorientate the audience? I liked the way that Jungle and Grime instrumentals used abrupt “switch-ups” to keep things interesting rather than use drops and build-ups. If it’s done well, i.e. it makes the crowd go nuts rather than stops them dancing, then I think it sounds ruder and keeps people on their toes. It’s a useful tool to reboot the groove on the dance floor, but it’s not my goal to disorientate the audience – I want them to dance. Are you influenced by UK Funky? I’m not looking to the sounds of UK Funky for direct inspiration, although it has definitely made me able to appreciate loads of different strains of House I never could get, and this has definitely come through in my recent music. I heard a Roska tune before I’d heard of Anthony Shakir.

Is this eclecticism possible because Dubstep’s participants are younger? That factor, coupled with the birth of social media, made Dubstep cover a lot of ground in a relatively short space of time. I think that we are at saturation point with the gamut of sounds that fall under Dubstep, and the scene will soon splinter, hopefully retaining something of a unified identity. Is there a detachment between Dubstep’s interest in urban anxiety and it’s large middle class audience? I never really understood that association. Fear, as with any emotion, is ultimately classless and listeners will vibe in their own way, with whatever resonates with them in the music. If a tune connects people from different backgrounds then all the better. Nice middle class people have been writing gutter music for years. How did you go about financing Hemlock Recordings when starting it up? Andy Hemlock and I were both working full time when we started. We both scraped together a grand each, pressed up our first tune and ordered loads of sleeves. Does piracy negatively affect Hemlock? It fucks our sales and is making vinyl tough to break even on. Although it probably leads to more DJ work, and exposure for me and the other artists.

Is vinyl and dubplate culture dying then? Last year I saw less and less DJs with big record boxes, and some tunes for a myriad of reasons still don’t come out until a year after they are made. I’ve switched to CD’s because I’m a wasteman, and I But is the Dubstep scene becoming would be lying if I said I didn’t get a buzz from playmore eclectic? ing a bunch of tunes that no one else has. I think being associated with Dubstep, and the fallout What does the rest it has created, gives you a of this year hold in lot of freedom to produce store for Untold and Untold’s without too many boundarHemlock? Favourite ies - and in DJ sets join the For me - touring, finding a Jungle Record: dots between similar sounds couple of new formulas for Dead Dred in other scenes. I always try making tunes and maybe thinkDred Bass to dig deep and do some ing about an album towards the (Origin Unknown Remix) research when I play stuff end of the year. For Hemlock A canonical release for the seminal from other scenes, not just we just want another solid year Drum & Bass label Moving Shadow play the obvious tunes to add of releases; we have great tunes in 1994, the Origin Unknown remix of novelty. Using as many diffrom LV, Mount Kimbie and Dred Bass, takes Dead Dred’s frenetic ferent rhythms and grooves Ramadanman to put out. We’re reworking of the Amen break, coupled as possible is key for me to also on the lookout for another with a warped bass line, and rearranges keeping things interesting. new artist to break. /TC it, via an ethereal breakdown, into a cosmic breakbeat anthem.

TOUGH CROWD 15

interview

ebe oke

–––– WORDS Alistair McDonald –––– PORTRAIT Will Morgan

Ebe Oke – poet, photographer, musician, designer

artist and storyteller, grew up on farm in Georgia, U.S.A, and immediately acknowledges that, “nature has had a massive influence on me.” Now living in Stoke Newington, London, Oke will happily intertwine memories of his time with various cultural stalwarts including Modernist composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and fashion editor / icon Isabella Blow, with his childhood fascination for ornithology. Oke is a 21st century mythologiser. Yet, this carries with it a latent honesty. In opposition to the typical routine of self-preservation, when posed with questions about ideas, influences or methods, Oke exudes a certain confidence, a sense of grace. His attire, an umbrella delicately balanced over his arm and antique glasses perched on his nose, place him at odds with - but not outside of - modernity. His answers to questions are considered, delivered with a studious conviction. Eschewing direct promotion of his work, a conversation with Oke deftly eases into an exploration of his worldview; an all encompassing philosophy towards life, providing a candid insight into his creative approach that is rarely found with other artists. As a musician who has never formally released a record, Oke clearly remains committed to an immersive work ethic: “I’m making three albums right now. One album, which is rather orchestral, it’s based around the piano. I’m making another album, which uses a lot of drumming, and fulfils my interest in birds. And another album which is a deconstruction of what my ideas of what country music is, because I have something to say about that coming from Georgia.” Oke somehow manages to retain an enigmatic aura around his person. While arranging this interview I received an email from him entitled Letting the Universe In suggesting we go for a walk in the enchanting Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington and “get lost amongst the trees.” I agreed in the hope of delving further into the thoughts of this elusive and talented individual. My opening question, and his response, sets the tone for the rest of our conversation. What are you working at the moment? Well I’m recording some music, and I’m thinking about writing a book.

What sort of book? Fiction or Non-fiction? Well what isn’t fiction? Tell me about your time with Rough Trade. I had a development deal with Rough Trade, which I’d gotten quite easily after they heard two songs, and you know Geoff Travis? Head of Rough Trade Records, right?

Yes. He heard my songs, he contacted me and said, ‘oh you’re here in London, you need a visa, maybe I could help.’ What happened? I used to have a real problem with pride, which has changed over the past few years, and I said ‘oh I can take care of myself, but thanks’ and then I thought about and… wait a minute! The next thing I knew I was in his office for a meeting. I told Geoff that I wanted to work with Brian Eno, and he said ‘oh Brian Eno’s very expensive, but we know Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music, so I’ll introduce you to him and we can take it from there.’ I started working with Phil Manzanera, and I don’t really know what happened, but Rough Trade went bankrupt. How long ago did this happen? Five years ago perhaps… I’m not very good with thinking back along a timeline. So I decided I’m going to do this myself. I had not written a lot of music, apart from avant-garde sound explorations, but I had not written songs so to speak. Just by being around people like The Kills, who I shared a house with, I was exposed to that kind of song writing, and it got me interested in the challenge of that. Were you interested in being part of that Indie scene? I had no interest in being in a band. I got asked by The Kills and The Libertines to join their bands, and it just wasn’t something that I wanted to do, because I was really interested in sound. You were taught by Karlheinz Stockhausen? Yes, he had a big influence on me before I even met him. I grew up listening to classical music. I was really fascinated by people who explored those difficult and unseen territories within the collective psyche. Even beyond the human. Gyorgy Ligeti and Laurie Anderson for instance; they’re artists, they’re scientists, they’re poets. Those are the people that I’m interested in. How was your experience of studying under Stockhausen? I think what he was trying to stress was very similar to that William Blake quote where ‘I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.’ Stockhausen was a real inspiration to me, as someone who created his own systems for making music. I was in the presence of someone who was a catalyst you know. Like Isabella Blow for instance, someone who I saw as a conduit. That’s the word I’m looking for - a conduit. Were you close to Isabella Blow? I’ve been thinking about her, obviously, a lot, because TOUGH CROWD 17

of Alexander McQueen passing away. I would say that Isabella was for me the personification of an artistic ideal that I had had since I was a child. She planted seeds in people and helped nurture them. She would take you to her house in the countryside and look after you for the summer, surround you with artists and discuss your work. I’d never experienced anything like that coming from a small country town in Georgia! It was a very important relationship for me, which I’ll forever honour. When you describe Blow as the “personification of an artistic ideal” would that be in reference to the merger of art and life? I think that there was a moment in my childhood when I ceased to make distinctions between the two. For me art is all encompassing and spirituality, sexuality and creativity are quite synonymous. You seem to have a strong personal mythology. I think I simply became more of who I really am, and that I allowed myself not to be conditioned, and be pushed into believing that I was something that society wanted me to be. And that was very hard for a lot of people to accept. In terms of creating a mythology, I just think I had a colourful upbringing, which was equally dark and bright and a great education in human nature. That created an insatiable curiosity in the nature of human beings and spawned a vivid imagination. In relation to the idea of mythology, does the subconscious and psychoanalysis feature strongly in your work? Before I work I have certain rituals, to set my frequency to be more receptive to states of mind that I suppose that you might call universal, and I have often had experiences, or ceremonies, with other creative artists, where you put yourself through strenuous circumstances to overstep the ego. I would say that during the course of my evolution I feel like I’m becoming more like an animal and that what really fascinates me is the primitive nature of man. Also when I feel that I’m in the stream of poetry, it’s a state of free falling, and that one of the reasons I turned to art in the first place was to possibly to heal myself. That’s how it began. What’s your relationship to nature, as it’s reoccurring as a motif in your work? I’m very fascinated by, and try to attune myself to the poetry of forms within nature. I often feel that human beings have the entire animal kingdom within 18 TOUGH CROWD

them, that you can have access to and can draw information from. It’s something that mankind has displaced within itself and is striving to find some sort of connection with its source. Returning to your music, I perceive a strong pop sensibility to your sound. Do you want to be pop? That’s very interesting because I don’t hear it. I get very mixed reactions about the music that I’m making. I’m very open minded, and I really do have an insatiable curiosity for pop culture and the avant-garde. What really inspires me are the artists who stretch the fabric of culture. Do I want to be pop? I don’t see that as a goal. All that I really want is to be able to continue making music, working with people that I admire. Tell me about your other creative work. I have been taking photographs since I was a little boy. I had a very symbiotic relationship with my camera, to the point where everything I was looking at was in the frame of a photograph. But I feel that when you’re creating something it’s wise to put all your energy into it. And for me that is musical composition and performance at the moment. And poetry of course. I see poetry as being related to the music I create, but it exists on its own, because they’re different disciplines. Do you think that there is strength in being cross-disciplinary? It just feels natural. I’m just so surprised that more artists they don’t. I mean Jean Cocteau, he was a poet but he made film. For me it seems like you just stand in front of a new interface, and find a way to express yourself within it. Our conversation has revolved around the phantasmagoric and ‘fantastical’. Would you consider yourself political? Yes, I’m very interested in politics. Right now I work on occasion with an MP called Glenda Jackson. Through that experience I’m learning a lot about English politics, but as of yet, it’s not anything that I’ve really wished to explore in my art. It’s also interesting that you use the word ‘fantastical,’ because that seems to imply that it exists in a world that’s not real, but I really beg to differ. Just because you can’t see something, that doesn’t discount it as being real. This is the world that I’m continually labouring to give expression to. /TC The latest information about Ebe Oke’s work can be found at www.myspace.com/ebeokemusic

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interview

owen hatherley

re-imagining modernism –––– WORDS Alistair McDonald –––– PHOTOS Owen Hatherley

Although the precise dates are disputed, between 1890 and 1968, architects, artists, writers and philosophers sought to reinvent their practices and the world around them. The cultural tendency of Modernism was rooted in an ideology that the complex industrialised world required new forms and new modes of expression appropriate to a new era. In comparison to the atrophied present of Postmodernism, such conviction in the future seems a distant memory. Owen Hatherley is a writer and critic who, aside from his extensive academic work, has recently devoted much of his time to defending the legacy of Modernism. His new readings of Brutalism, Constructivism and confrontations with accusations of sexlessness and alienation via Soviet film and Brechtian theatre, constitute a process of rehabilitation for the movement. These thoughts were recently collected in his book Militant Modernism. Hatherley’s demure character conceals an array of astute and voraciously critical views on architecture and urbanism in contemporary Britain. Views that he himself admits are founded in esoterica - “The Modernism that interest me is a Modernism that is quite specific. One of the reasons I talk about the industrial aesthetic of the 20th century and Brutalism is because I think that they’re all quite specific to a British context.” Yet Hatherley’s critical approach to the built environment remains distant from many of his peers. “I don’t want Militant Modernism to be totally associated with the Psychogeography industry that’s around now. There are no ley lines in my books, there’s no 32 TOUGH CROWD

pentagrams,” he states in an oblique reference to writers such as Iain Sinclair. Tough Crowd met with Hatherley before his reading at Pages bookshop in Hackney, to further discuss his approach to Modernism. Who are you defending Modernism from? Alain de Botton, Wallpaper magazine, Ikea, glossy books on Modernist houses from the 30’s, Grand Designs, Kevin McCloud, Urban Splash and urban regeneration. I think this is an attempt to create a very mutant version of Modernism, and a version of Modernism that strikes me as being very tied up in ‘Blairism.’ What is Britain’s relationship to Modernism? If you look at film, and especially music, Britain has always been incredibly comfortable with Modernism. If you look at France and their popular music - a country much more comfortable with Modern architecture than Britain - something like Grime, Jungle, or Post-punk could never have happened in France, Holland or Scandinavia. But in British architecture Modernism never quite took. Why do you think that it never quite took? As the first country in the world to industrialise we’re mourning something that we’re still much further

away from. In countries where two generations ago, your grandfather, or great-grandfather was a peasant you’re not nostalgic. Here we’re so far away from that, we have this idea of how lovely it would be to till the land. And that’s one thing that holds back our approach to Modernism, as well as imperial decline and a national narcissism. How does your project of rehabilitation negotiate this history? It’s extremely tendentious. Militant Modernism exists, in a way, to pick a fight. I’m much more interested than someone like Ian Nairn than I am interested in Nikolaus Pevsner. The proper art history approach; I’m not saying that’s a bad thing - I think that’s enormously valuable and I’ve drawn on people who do that – but it’s just not what I do. So it’s quite detached from art history I’d say. Being indebted to history, are you not at risk of falling into nostalgia? It’s the greatest danger in the stuff I do, and it’s very difficult to try not to step into that. I was born in 1981; I have no memory whatsoever of an era before Thatcherism, so if anything it’s a kind of attempt to piece together what a world without Thatcherism would have been like. And I tried elsewhere - writing about the keep-calm-and carry-on phenomenon for instance – to try inoculate my project from that nostalgia, because I’m trying to differentiate what I do from that.

How does one account for the accomplishments of Postmodernism within that? I’m fully aware that the 50’s and 60’s were more racist, more sexist, more homophobic. There are areas where we’ve come very far from that – which is good. I think on the other hand, what we’ve lost has been catastrophic. The end of Militant Modernism alludes to the possibility of a new leftist project. Is that something you want to be a part of? As a critic - this sounds like a cop out – it’s not my job say what that will look like. I’d love to see more architects thinking about this sort of thing, and in isolated places they are. I tried to talk in Militant Modernism about new media and the potentials of particular software. I think there are completely new things that can be theorised and thought about. It’s a total system; you can’t solve it in a partial way. I think there is a real need for new thinking on the left. And if I can contribute to that, that will be fantastic. It’s going to be difficult. /TC More of Hatherley’s thoughts on architecture and Modernism can be found on his blog at: nastybrutalistandshort. blogspot.com. His new book Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain will be published later this year by Verso.

TOUGH CROWD 33

interview

laura oldfield ford –––– WORDS David Dawkins

Through word and image, quintessentially both

Brutal and British, Laura Oldfield Ford’s Savage Messiah zine takes its reader on a journey through housing estates, canal tunnels and ring-roads, sourcing from the past fleeting moments of social optimism to move forwards on an alternative trajectory through the city to now. Plotting two routes; from place-to-place and from historical past into its alternative future, Savage Messiah interrogates the current fabric of our city by collecting and documenting the splintered voices of the people and places en route. Tough Crowd caught up with Laura for a chat before she takes her work over to New York for this year’s Armory art fair.

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You’re part of a network, along with Mark Fisher (K-Punk), Owen Hatherley (Page 31) who chronicle their observations through a quite low-fi means. Mark and Owen use blogs, you use a zine, do you have an affinity for the printed medium? I don’t set up an opposition between them, I just see Savage Messiah as a very obvious means of presenting my ideas about the city through my writing and drawing. I like the fluidly and dynamism of the zine, taking the work, hand-to-hand, around places that are just emerging. For me, it’s about being part of a milieu or just creating certain scenes or situations where people can get together to discuss ideas, or go

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out on walks around the city. Is walking a major part of your practice? There are quite a lot of elements to my practice; drawing, making, films, writing, but all these different things come together after the walk or drift around the city, the idea of the dérive. What’s your position on the term ‘Psychogeography’? It has reemerged as quite a polarizing term. How do you feel about that? It goes in cycles. It never really goes away though. In the 90’s there was a revival of interest in Ton Vague and Stewart Home while other writers like Iain Sinclair were popularising the term. I think at some point it changed and become less true to the original ideas of what the Situationists meant by the term. Sinclair shifted it away to a more esoteric reading by tapping into ideas of the occult and ley lines which is all very interesting but it isn’t where I would position myself in relation to the term. And when Will Self went on to do that column (Psychogeography) it went on to become a bit bloated, a bit ‘coffee-table’ and the idea of the word became a lot less radical. Recently however, it has resurfaced as more of a critical strategy again, and that’s how I like to use it. Is this linked to how the Savage Messiah Zine looks? The reason I use that D.I.Y Punk aesthetic is because it has been so reproduced and recuperated that it has been rendered meaningless, like something that you’d see in Topshop or for advertising gigs in Shoreditch. It’s very much located in a specific moment, the late 70’s early 80’s Anarcho Punk scene and it’s part of my project to reinvigorate the radical polemic of that aesthetic. Is this something you’ve picked up on walking through the city? In terms of architecture, or the ‘fabric’ of the city, we’re totally blighted by this retro vernacular, this faux Georgian / Prince Charles notion of what new buildings should look like, so that Brutalist estates are knocked down and replaced with what I call mini Poundburys’. At what point does ‘Nostalgia’ become worthy of interrogation? In relation to my own work I don’t see it as in any way ‘nostalgic.’ If it is nostalgic on any level then it’s a sort of vengeful form. It’s more about isolating certain moments that have some emancipatory potential or at least a kernal of an idea that can travel or become 36 TOUGH CROWD

something else. I keep on going back to 1981, that for me was a pivotal moment, but it’s not about nostalgia, it’s not about just wearing the clothes and saying: ‘oh it was all so wonderful then,’ I’m more concerned with thinking how things could have changed if they’d gone the other way. I use the zine to locate ourselves back in a former moment to then take another trajectory out of that moment. Do you have a problem with how the ideas of modernism have become more of a lifestyle choice now, than anything else? Yeah, I do. I think that people are settling for very little. For example, these new Barratt blocks (pointing towards Dalston Lane) they’re really boring, they’re really badly built. There’s none of the drama or theatricality of Brutalism but they’ve got this ‘Lite Modernism’ that reinforces the idea that people in this country are not bold enough, there’s always this feeble, apologetic aesthetic at work all the time and I find that quite depressing. I’ve heard you reference Walter Benjamin before. In relation to the city and to narratives, what do you mean by ‘shards of messianic time?’ It’s to do with what you were asking earlier about ‘nostalgia’ and the idea that, although I do move between different time zones and historical moments in my work, I don’t see it as nostalgic in a sentimental way, but more influenced by Benjamin’s ideas of about splinters of messianic time hidden in the built environment waiting to be realised. It’s to do with an “interruptive” idea of history rather than accepting the myth of progress, it is about taking charge of history. That’s why it’s important for me in my work on London to coax out hidden narratives, to bring out the histories that have been repressed or closed off in urban regeneration schemes. Benjamin talks a lot about the debris and detritus of history. He describes the present as ‘now-time’ shot through with shards of messianic time. These create interruptions in the course of history holding the power to awaken political consciousness. In the city you find these intrusions from the past, I use the example a lot of the abandoned 60’s shopping precinct next to new P.F.I. yuppieflats and retail developments. There are certain places that still have that charge, that are still imbued with the promises, desires and ideas of a certain moment which can be suddenly perceived radically differently in such a context. In a way it’s as if these interruptions have the power to wake you from the dream of now. /TC

interview

the dark mountain project –––– WORDS Karen Orton

Aiming to inject forward movement into the current lassitude in green and literary thinking, Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine of The Dark Mountain Project offer original and radical alternatives to political and individual green posturing. “Little that we have taken for granted is likely to come through this century intact,” reads the ominous statement on the Dark Mountain website. Project co-founders, Kingsnorth and Hine, believe we are living through the beginnings of an age of collapse, an age in which civilisation will be replaced with ‘Uncivilisation’. Climate change, impending fossil fuel shortages and global economic and political instability are all changing the fate of civilisation as we know it. The problem, say Kingsnorth and Hine, is that, rather than face this, the majority of society is either ignoring the coming crisis, or harbouring the delusion that ‘one more push’ of NGO and environmentalist lobbying can avert the coming collapse.

“I got really upset and angry with what I was seeing amongst a lot of the leading environmentalists who were saying things they didn’t believe,” says Hine. “Paul and I wanted to open up a more honest conversation, rather than allowing environmentalists to continue to say one thing in public and another in private.” A starting point of the Dark Mountain Project is the refusal to accept the ‘sustainability’ narrative - that a sustainable future will, or should, become a reality. Instead they believe that it’s too late to turn back a civilisation which has already begun to unravel - the ‘age of disruption’ is upon us. Those interested in green technologies, emissions trading and ethical shopping should look elsewhere. Hine explains, “I think there’s a real problem where sustainability comes to mean sustaining our current way of living.” It’s about accepting the possibility that we may be facing another reality, if the ‘one more push’ strategies and

sustainability narratives fail to work. “There’s one plan that involves keeping these massive sewage systems and the international electricity grid,” says Hine. “Then there’s another which says, well if we weren’t able to do that, what could we be doing now that puts us in the best place to carry on meeting our basic needs?” “We’re not about predicting the future, which is always impossible, but we start from the assumption that it will not be a scaled-up version of the life we know now,” explains Kingsnorth. With Dark Mountain’s refusal to accept the sustainability narrative, comes an understanding that, although life might not continue as normal, it will continue in a new direction. Dark Mountain Project has set out to chart this new path of Uncivilisation. The Project is emerging from more than just anger at the environmental faction in society, it is also striving to emerge as an alternative to contemporary cultural TOUGH CROWD 37

expressions. Bored with the ironic cynicism of contemporary art and literature, the Dark Mountain Project strives to create new literary and artistic expressions which explore notions of Uncivilisation. Hine explains this motivation to disengage with the contemporary literary scene: “The writers who are seen as the big figures of English literature today, don’t feel to me like they have much to say to the world beyond the people they meet at dinner parties. I was taught by Craig Raine, and I think that set of writers; Raine, Amis, McEwan, Rushdie, the heavyweights of that generation, see writing and literature as this big crossword puzzle, like it’s a game in being clever.” He continues, “With someone like Ian McEwan, he has a certain skill as a craftsman, but there’s a hollowness to his writing and a lack of engagement that I just find unbearable, and I think a lot of other people feel that way too.” Kingsnorth and Hine position the Dark Mountain Project’s literary journal and festival as antidotes to current literary offerings and events, such as the Hay Festival. Integral to the Dark Mountain outlook is a realisation of the importance of myths. Kingsnorth and Hine think that part of the reason civilisation is now on the verge of collapse is because it has been built on false myths. Myths of human progress and of human conquest of nature, are two of these ‘taken for granted’ stories we grow-up with. The role of the Dark Mountain Project is to negotiate new myths. Kingsnorth explains, “our myths and narratives have failed us; none of us really believe them anymore. It’s about finding new stories, or in many cases disinterring old ones, with which to help us navigate a very uncertain future.” What stories will these new myths tell and how will they empower a different kind of world view? “We need to open up the imaginative space between life as 38 TOUGH CROWD

we know it, and dark imaginings that haunt our culture right now, such as the apocalyptic vision in The Road by Cormac McCarthy,” says Hine. But what will our future look like, if civilisation as we know it collapses? Far from promoting a Hobbesian nightmare, Kingsnorth and Hine see the Project as opening up a space to debate a more human kind of Uncivilisation. “The future doesn’t necessarily have to play out as a horrible individualistic race to the bottom that people imagine,” Hine explains. “If you talk to people who lived through total social and economic collapse, what you see is that human beings are remarkably good at improvising solutions, in carrying on when everything we were meant to believe has just been thrown over. You see equally a spirit of collaboration, of people helping each other. That’s what makes me hopeful.” Built on the belief that it’s too late to change the self-destructive course our civilisation is on, the Project then begs the question - is there a point in trying to effect positive change? “The notion of ‘changing the world’ is redundant,” says Kingsnorth, “the world is changing so fast that our real task is to hold tight and learn how to get through what it will bring.” Hine elaborates, “people are not necessarily aware that the world is going through rapid historical change because this change is woven into the fabric of their daily lives. It’s much more about paying attention and observing, rather than about what you do.” Kingsnorth distances himself from old notions of activism. “I think that activism for the sake of it, is a niche lifestyle choice, and it’s also hard to sustain. It is based on old assumptions and outdated political models. Change will come from the ground up, with people and communities responding to places and very specific challenges.” Hine agrees, although he’s

careful to note, “you still have the opportunity at certain moments to tip something in a less worse direction than it might otherwise have been going.” Instead of focusing on grand scale social change, Hine thinks we should take a micro perspective. “People always ask ‘What should we do to save the planet?’ but actually the ‘what do you?’ question is much more local and closer to our lives. We need to examine what you do to look after the people around you, and what you do to make sure you have skills that continue to be useful when large parts of the economy that we’ve been relying on collapse.” While the Dark Mountain Project contributes an original critique to the current environmental conversation, it also has its place within the continuum of green thought, and this lineage is something which Kingsnorth and Hine fail to acknowledge. The environmental movement has long been split along a ‘light’ versus ‘deep’ green axis, yet Kingsnorth and Hine seem to lump all green thinking into the light green camp. Many proponents within deep green philosophy champion views similar to Dark Mountain’s orientation, that current environmental problems have systematic roots, and call for a radical readjustment in the way we live. It is Dark Mountain’s emphasis on new cultural expressions which explore Uncivilisation that sets them apart. This promises to be their exciting contribution to the green movement. /TC The first issue of the Dark Mountain journal will be published in May 2010, combining fiction, poetry, essays and artwork in a book-length collection exploring Uncivilisation. Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Project will be held on May 28-30 in Llangollen, Wales, The festival promises a wide variety of speakers, storytellers, musicians, artists, workshops and ‘conversation events’.

book

dave eggers & zeitoun

Riffing on the life and work of Dave, in-house bibliophile Kevin O’Neill tells the story-so-far and offers the case for a renewed appreciation for a writer maturing and entering a new stage in his career… 1. The Satirical Precursor We begin at the first significant marker in Dave’s life of letters with a mention to his time as editor of Might, a San Francisco-based satirical magazine from the early 90s. It’s mostly known for an issue in which their ‘exclusive’ story was the death of a former child star, Adam Rich. Rich hadn’t actually died, and the whole thing was an elaborate gag on the flimsy relationship between celebrity and the media. Might’s interest in form and playing with various levels of being ‘in the know’ can be seen as in some sense a trial run for McSweeney’s. 2. The Bibliobiography Dave Eggers’ first book — A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is a (semi)fictionalised memoir about the death of his parents and his experience raising his younger brother. Two years earlier he had founded McSweeney’s, a magazine/journal devoted to publishing new literature in innovative forms, ranging from books held together by magnets and issues devoted solely to comics, to stories masquerading as bundles of mail

and cigar boxes of war memorabilia. His first proper novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002) is about a couple of young guys inheriting a sum of money and trying to give it away, How We Are Hungry (2004) is a collection of short stories, What is the What (2006) is another (semi)fictionalised memoir this time about Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee, his most recent book Zeitoun (2009) is a similar project concerning a survivor of Hurricane Katrina and his time in New Orleans before, during, and after the disaster. 3. The Flip Dave Eggers’s fame coming from his ultra postmodern first book and his involvement with McSweeney’s have led to this enduring image/ reputation as a self-centred literary poseur. This is a bit unfair, in part because of all the philanthropic stuff he gets up to (non-profit publishers that increase awareness of human rights issues, literacy programs for school kids). But it’s his writing that I think is more important, the desire to explore contemporary problems of identity and social engagement.

4. The Names of Writers This negative response to Dave is only really that evident in American literary circles (the magazine n+1, while respectful of and participatory with lots of what Dave does, has a real beef against the ‘ironic’ tone of McSweeney’s, for example). He has gotten and still gets a lot of stick for being smart and tricksy and consciously ironic and distanced and all those kinds of things that get a writer the label ‘postmodern’. In fact, disliking Eggers has become a kind of badge for a certain movement in contemporary literature. This vitriol is extended towards writers like Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Lethem — writers who play with literary form and personal experience. 5. The Moody Wars Novelist, Jonathan Franzen has, over the last few years, been arguing in favour of ‘the social novel’ — writing about big social issues like history and economic change and, well, society. Serious things. Other writers like Rick Moody have been a bit annoyed at Franzen, seeing him as misusing his position and influence to discourage publishers to take a risk on experimental writing. It doesn’t seem that interesting to try and pick sides in this debate, but what it does point to is writers paying attention to the potential for their work to make some kind of intervention. 6. The Unputdownable His latest book, Zeitoun, is a good example of this. The idea is simple — tell the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun (“zay-toon”), a SyrianAmerican painter-decorator who stayed in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. Like most residents of the city, he wasn’t that concerned about the hurricane warnings; New Orleans gets these all the time. As the situation gets worse, his wife and kids leave TOUGH CROWD 39

town and he stays put, ostensibly to look after his various properties in the city. Once the storm and its aftermath hit, Zeitoun canoes around helping people, and what he finds and what happens to him make up the bulk of the book. Cultural theory distinguishes between the experience of reading novels and watching films as the difference between ‘putdownable’ and ‘unputdownable’ texts — we get to control our experience with novels, decide when to stop reading, whereas films (considered in their natural home of the cinema) deny us this possibility. Zeitoun is one of those rare books that defies this. Dave has figured out a way to tell an incredibly moving and gripping story without any of the postmodern tricks he is so well known (and at times maligned) for. How has he done this? 7. A plateau, or a squiggly line There are traces in Zeitoun of the kind of meta-textual awareness that characterised A.H.W.O.S.G (photographs/emails from Zeitoun’s brother for example), but crucially there is no foregrounding of the act of narration. It’s more or less just a ‘normal’ book. A lot of reviews have called this his most mature book, and I get the impression this is because he’s shed the postmodern stuff. The idea of writers developing along an upwards trajectory satisfies our culture’s interest in narratives of growth and progress, but this doesn’t seem a useful way to think about Dave’s work. Much like the work of David Foster Wallace (one of his literary heroes), Dave’s writing seems to be pitched at just the right tone for whatever purpose he’s trying to achieve. (One of my favourite pieces of Dave’s is a series of fake interviews with people who dislike the work of the cartoonist Chris Ware as a way of explaining his own enthusiasm for Ware’s work.) If Zeitoun doesn’t use the style of Dave’s past, it does develop the themes of his other work: the 40 TOUGH CROWD

importance of personal experience, the fuzzy boundary between truth and fiction, the desire to use literary encounters to drive social change. 8. A note on process and methodology Why is it so remarkable that Zeitoun is a genuinely engaging work of non-fiction? It’s not that because a book recounts something true it will be boring. It’s just that it often ends up that way. Writing narrative non-fiction that moves beyond simply listing dates and events is hard. That’s why Valentino Achak Deng and Abdulrahman Zeitoun didn’t write their own books; Dave did it for them. What is playfully described as fiction/biography because it is a re-imagining based on Deng’s memories of his childhood experiences, despite being written in the first-person. Zeitoun can with good faith be called non-fiction because it is a reconstruction of Zeitoun’s experiences based upon a couple of years of research and interviews. Dave met the Zeitoun family through working on a Voices of Witness book about Katrina, Voices from the Storm. Through working on and promoting that book, he realised that Zeitoun’s story deserved to be told in more depth. The acknowledgements section of Zeitoun references one hundred and sixty-two individuals and writers, twenty-one books and reports, and thirty-four agencies and organisations that he consulted in trying to both verify and expand upon the details of Zeitoun’s narrative. For example, Dave went to Syria to spend some time with Zeitoun’s relatives, and this pays off in the book’s opening — an account of Zeitoun and his brother fishing at night over the

coast of Jableh. This anecdote of strong familial ties and the social nature of work provide the foundation for Zeitoun’s entire experience of the hurricane. Throughout the book he is divided between his desire to be with his family and his decision to protect the business and investments he has made in New Orleans (this latter decision resulting from the former desire to safeguard his family’s future). 9. The Worthy Concepts It’s this narrow focus on Zeitoun’s experiences of Katrina that paradoxically gives the book its expansive feel. The storm marked a flashpoint in the public’s attitude to the Bush administration and its Homeland Security initiatives. The way the government responded (or more accurately failed to respond) to the hurricane and its aftermath played a part in the growing discontent with the Bush administration towards the end of its second term. So while Zeitoun is in a way a simple record of one man helping people in New Orleans, it is also an indictment of the numerous failures of the government (national, federal and local) and a document of the problems that America still has in dealing with anything remotely Other. What the book seems important for is the way that it writes about America by specifically not writing about America. Zeitoun is a book about a good man and his family going through some bad times and coming out the other side. As you’re reading it and feeling quite safe and warm and comfortable with how everything works out in the end, Dave slips in a load of commentary about racial and political tensions in America. He never actually says any of this, and that’s probably why it has such impact. This is what narrative nonfiction should be – not spelling out the author’s opinion in patronising signposts, but documenting an event and trusting the reader to make their own conclusions. /TC

music

Liars Sisterworld (MUTE) “We’re interested in the alternate spaces people create in order to maintain identity in a city like L.A. Environments where outcasts and loners celebrate a skewered relationship to society.” (Liars, November 2nd 2009). Enigmatic by nature and ruthlessly conscious of their own aims and ambitions, Liars offer yet another heavily thematic album to follow 2007’s self-titled experiments in noise and rhythm. The latest album, Sisterworld, imagines a journey through an alternativereality where social losers reign and art is a tarnished commodity. This is an attempt to dissolve the outside influence of modern, contemporary life and restore something more inward and considered.

liars

The album tentatively opens with Scissors. Using slow vocals and a lone violin to conjure a dreamlike whimsy, the song shatters into disarray as guitar and drums run rampant. There is a reiteration of this binary momentum throughout the album, with romantic gloom often faltering into disheveled layers of anger. Tracks like Drip and Drop Dead appear to get lost within these themes, however, both bring balance to the conceptual parameters of the album. Sisterworld’s spectrum of sound is

as equally grand as their thematic intention. From the subtle haunts of slow, trudging footsteps in No Barrier Fun to the more definitive drumbeats in Proud Evolution, the constant use of opposites and variations paint a clear picture of the impassioned lands of Liars’ utopic Sisterworld. Sisterworld, as an album, is certainly a space worth stepping into. Besides a figurative journey, the band has included a bonus disc of remixes done by artist friends Thom Yorke, Blonde Redhead and Suicide, among others. Overall, Sisterworld provides dark comforts, an appropriate dose of spontaneity, and a method of escapism to all who enter. ––– Laura Phillips Broken bells broken bells (COLUMBIA) In this, his latest effort, producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) furthers his reputation for collaboration, this time with James Mercer of The Shins. Collectively known as Broken Bells the pair have produced an upbeat, playful album, distinctively unpretentious and fun. In fact, this album may just be a working remedy for the last breath of this cold winter. The album offers mass appeal, but in a good way. It’s poppy and consistently up-tempo with Mercer and Burton coming together to form Broken Bells as an equally balanced whole. From start to finish, tracks are tastefully produced with attention to subtle quirks and atmospheric blends. Broken Bells take tender vocals, acoustic hums and orchestral elements and match them with electro hooks and textured layers in a soulful attempt at lightness. Your Head Is On Fire provides hits of psychedelia while Vaporize is more of a happy-golucky acoustic jaunt. October is pensive with its catchy mid-tempo and backing female vocals. The

Mall and Misery carries a splinting guitar riff, concluding the album on a dreamy high note. This album stands as a bold example of how things don’t always have to be dark and twisted to make an impact. Mercer and Burton have already made plans for a second album together so the various factions of unhappy Shins’ fans dismayed at the shameless ‘pop’ on display should pipe down, or just get ‘meaningful’ with Garden State one last time. ––– Laura Phillips Mark Pritchard Elephant Dub (DEEP MEDI MUSIK) Mark Pritchard is a producer noted for his work under a glut of aliases, including Harmonic 313, Jedi Knights and Global Communication. Besides accomplishments spanning the decades and genres of electronic music, his recent passion for bass music was made manifest last year with the release of his track Wind It Up on seminal label Hyperdub. This new 12” on Dubstep pioneer Mala’s label, demonstrates two sides of his multifaceted musical persona. The lead track is dominated by a catatonic bass line and pinging snares. However, it’s the B-side of this 12” that really captivates. Allaying the unambiguous assault of the A-side, Heavy As Stone is underscored by hypnotic energy and soulful vocals, punctuated by a stepper rhythm with just enough dynamism to promote the idea of dancing. At times the mood is closer to the future Jazz inflections of groups such as 4Hero and Jazzanova, despite the obvious kinship to UK Garage. The end line affirms “but we know the time is now” almost functioning as a Masonic code to those in the know. ––– Alistair McDonald TOUGH TOUGHCROWD CROWD00 41

photography

simon ward –––– WORDS David Dawkins

untitled #4 (2007)

Using a single brushstroke of light, Simon Ward’s

scanned images of dead animals and loved objects intertwine serenity and violence, attachment and memorial to create a visual hyper-silence, the last, and now lost words of rememberance mouthed in the soundlessness of space. Existing each in their own void, the cat’s contorted figure and bloody nose, the rabbit’s eyes, the wax droplets on Snow White’s shoulder, the images extend beyond merely lamenting the brokenness and brevity of life to champion a very human connection. The skull and its gold teeth smiling from down a hole in east London, the sleeping squirrel (right), the gangrenous

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teddy (above), an object that was once held and loved that has now been left in memorial. The idea of death is immediate but the prevailing sense of optimism comes in the acceptance that dislocation and fragmentation are part of a singular human experience. The black space, the stillness and complete detachment from all narrative and superfluous information heightens the tiny traits and characteristics, allowing them to tell their own story of loss and remembrance. The scans as fossils, are the petrified impressions of living memories projected onto an object - the objects are silent - but in the black space behind them a very human story is told.

squirrel (2004)

Cat (2002)

crown (2009)

Epilogue… –––– Simon Ward

Contact All the scans are made at night in my studio. It brings in an aspect of performance, working at night in a darkroom composing the animals, scanning and re-scanning. What is interesting is the handling, this contact, touching of the subject. In many ways I am composing objects that shouldn’t be touched or handled. In a strange way it is giving life to the objects. Memory The idea is related to the early form of photography (photogram) where objects were placed directly on top of the surface and exposed to light. We recognise photographs to be traces of the subject – an imprint or outline exposed on the surface of the negative or photographic paper. The direct contact with the scanner, and the refusal of spatiality that is normally observed through photographing the subject, allows for nothing but a singular trace of the object. The scanner functions with no emotions, a machine that passes a beam of light underneath the object removing the humanity from the process until only the fossil – the indexical trace – remains.

untitled #2 (2007)

Movement Snow White was found whilst I was out looking for the teddies. It instantly seemed right – the idea of mourning the loss of a child, the dream or fairytale to which young children aspire. A fairytale, the iconic image, it is slightly cracking, the weather eroding away the paint, the red marks suggest stains of blood. The scanner then records and archives what I bring to its surface. Someone mentioned that it’s like archaeology, discovering and documenting artifacts, creating an archive of memorial. NEST (2009)

bobsicle (2009)