Neon, Necropolis, Silence

[squirmelia]

Neon

The queue for neon grew longer and longer as I watched from above. I yearned for neon; the sky was grey. A quick glimpse of brightness, of astounding green lights, was caught as the door briefly opened for someone else who had been drawn in, despite the wait.

Necropolis

I walked on, firstly around display boards filled with brightly coloured manga and then to the former location of the London Necropolis Station. An ordinary-looking lion-adorned building stood at 121 Westminster Bridge Road, but apparently it was used as a terminus station for the transportation of the dead.

Silence

The collection of silences exhibition appealed to me - sitting silently in a room with the artist while the sound of silence is recorded. Although I missed the sessions, I've since been thinking about collecting silences also. The silence of neon, silent phonecalls to myself, the silence of closed down funfairs, silence caused by option paralysis.

Comments

[melston.livejournal.com]

Wonderfully evocative!

Necropolis

I never cease to be amazed at some of the bizarre, macabre things in London...

[p-a-n-d-o-r-a.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea of the collection of silences, i've often appreciated different silences and wondered if others do too

[purplepiano.livejournal.com]

I could play Cage's 4'33" to her, but I wouldn't know what to do with the other 5 and a half minutes. Maybe adjust my dress and do it again, interpreting it in a different way?

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

I am rather fond of Dan Flavin's work, in an odd way. It's strangely restful. I went to an exhibvituion of his at the Serpentine some years ago, which was particularly good.

I presume you've read "The necropolis railway"? A fiction set arounmd that very station, and highly evocative...

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I hope to see the Dan Flavin exhibition eventually, when the queues are shorter and less people are pining for neon.

I've not read The Necropolis Railway, but might have a look for it at the library. Thanks for the suggestion!

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

It's good stuff, set around 1895, if I recall. Written by Andrew Martin.

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

have you heard of reynol's "blank tapes" CD? the sound of blank cassettes. a kind of silence. of course from blank cassettes you then have the idea of EVP, the idea of voices within silences.

how often are you in london? i'm planning to come down for a weekend at the end of march, alan moore talking about art at the tate (assuming i can get everything sorted with my wooly and abstract head).

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

A blank cassette tapes CD sounds cool.

I'm planning to go to the Alan Moore gothic nightmares talk as well, if I can figure out what time I should book for (some confusion? (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/23455)) and if they have tickets left.

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

folk i know phoned up when it was first announced and just asked for tickets for alan moore, and thats what they were given. though reading that isn't entirely reassuring. we are using it as an excuse for members of the william gibson board to get together, only a fraction of the group are interested in moore, so i guess regardless of what happens i plan to be there. ah, the complications of life.

the blank tape CD is something like 8 tracks, 8 different cassettes, each with a different texture, though all essentially minimal. not something i listen to often actually. though certainly not the weirdest thing i have - the limited edtion of 25 mini discs by NO called "wassermaschine" would probably take that credit, a straight recording of a washing machine...

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I booked a ticket for 2pm in the end, since the other times seemed sold out, so yeah, I'll probably be in London for the whole weekend, so if you want to meet up sometime during that weekend and go to a silent laundrette, so I can record it, let me know. ;)

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

i wonder how this alan moore thing is going to work, doesn't sound very well planned - should have ticketed his talk in a sensible fashion. sounds like they could easily have 100s of people turn up and only a fraction of them will see anything. i guess it becomes a zen roulette, you gets your ticket, you cast a little magick out in the world and hope for the best.

i'll let you know my plans as they coalesce. any tips on somewhere worth staying? its been about 10 years since i did anything more than just pass through london. i'm definitely up for meeting at some point.

talking of silent laundry recordings, reminds me of the last time i did some "field recordings". had my mini disc and microphone with me in berlin. we had been in my favourite berlin pub (yeah i've not been in that many, but i really liked that one), and i decided to start recording sounds on the way back to the hotel. we stopped in for chips, and one of the guys decided to ask for chips and cheese, but unlike over here where he would have got chips with grated cheese on top, he got chips with a slab of thick white hole riddled cheese, balanced precariously on top. this triggered a drunk rant for the rest of the trip back to the hotel, quite erratic and unpredictable, and i got it (to some degree) on mini disc.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

The Alan Moore thing sounds completely chaotic, it is true, but then surely a gothic nightmare should be?

I have no tips on where to stay, I'm afraid - I usually just stay with friends or with my parents, and failing that, I end up staying up all night in clubs or sleeping in parks, which I don't really recommend.

I think my favourite Berlin pub (well, okay, club) was the one with the dragon attached to the ceiling that breathed real fire, although I haven't been there for years, so maybe it now breathes the silence that already grated cheese may make.

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

true. chaos it should be. but imagine if instead of a gothic nightmare all you got was a gothic milling about.

i have a few links for hotels, so no doubt i'll manage. actually the last few times i was in london did involve staying in slimelight all night - not ideal for a long weekend.

ah. the silence of grated cheese, a lot stressful than the ungrated european kind...

i'm going to upload a few tracks for you, something from blank tapes and maybe francisco lopez, who is minimalist and then some - i am currently listening to him at the moment, full volume, with little impact.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Slimelight all night is okay, but becomes somehow tedious when you realise that you can't really leave and have to stay there for at least another few hours.

I listened to the tracks and they seemed cool, but couldn't work out how to get to the 4th one (if there was a 4th one?). I don't think I understand MySpace enough - any hints?

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

the last time we did slimelight there were three of us, and we managed to find a chair which we took turns sitting in, but when we discussed it later we found that each of us had had audio hallucinations - each time we sat in the chair we thought we heard someone saying our names. weird. but yeah. by that stage we had no interest in the club and were just trying to make it through till it was time to get our bus back up the road.

i'm guessing that i've ticked the download box for the tracks, and the forgot to do it for the menche track. i'll go see if i can do that. all 4 should be streaming ok. though i have been finding myspace a little buggy for music recently, which is about the only thing i really use it for anyway.

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

had a look, all 4 tracks should be working ok, so don't know what it is. i'll have another poke at it when i get home, maybe upload an alternate link or something.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Ah, I can see it now. It hadn't occurred to me to press PgDwn before. Oops.

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

i've just got myself a ticket for 2pm (nearly typed ticklet there, what a concept!). the woman i spoke to had just been in to see the exhibit and was quite enthusiastic. she seemed confident that you could go in at 2 and linger as long as you wanted, so could stay till after the talk no problem. i guess we shall see.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should write a ticklet script to tickle Alan Moore with your ticket?

[remotepush.livejournal.com]

or tickle sigil?
but then maybe he would get me back with a turning tickler into toad script/sigil?
eek!