Translated By, Boats and Ice

[squirmelia]

"You've entered the room. It looks empty. It looks silent. There is vinyl text on the wall.
Someone in their early twenties hands you this pamphlet and a pair of ghetto-style headphones attached to a small electronic device."

That was part of the text written on the pamphlet I was handed at the Translated By exhibition at The Architectural Association School of Architecture.

I sat on a grey exercise ball, staring at a black image, listening to an excerpt of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. It was about the Street.

After that, I sat on an old garden chair (see picture), amongst some tin cans and a block of wood, looking at a picture of what looked like the end of the world, while I listened to an excerpt from Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland.

My mum and I sat in office chairs and looked at a map on the wall, while we listened to an excerpt from Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem, about Brooklyn.

We listened to other words also, but those are the ones I noted.
--

After leaving the gallery, we ate at Planet Organic, and then headed to the river, where we jumped aboard a boat that took us to the London Eye, and the big wheel towered over us, and then the boat turned around and took us to the west, and we left the boat at Canary Wharf.

The London Ice Sculpting Festival was happening and although we did not get to carve polar bears from ice, as all the sessions were booked up, we did see lions, people, London buildings, and other things carved from ice, already starting to melt.

Comments

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

I had flyers for the opening night on Friday, but it probably wouldn't have been a good time for sitting and listening. It sounds better than I thought it would though, perhaps I'll go soon.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of going to the opening night, but then decided it was not really worth going to London to just do that, so decided to go on the Saturday instead. The gallery was empty on Saturday.

I mostly listened to excerpts from books I had already read, but my mum listened to random ones and said she particularly enjoyed listening to the Tom McCarthy one about Brixton, as Brixton is a place she is familiar with.

I was a little disappointed by the exhibition, I admit. I expected the stories to be new stories, not ones I had read already. (Even though they were good excerpts). Also, I would have preferred it if the authors were reading the stories.

I could happily have spent a lot longer there though listening to the stories.