more gunkanjima

In the spirit of keeping things ticking over...

Mmmmm...great.

This is perhaps the most incredible photograph that i have ever seen. From Jean-Louis Cohen's 'Le Corbusier and the Mystique of the USSR', the image is subtitled 'The unveiling of the Palace of Soviets' model, Paris, 1931.'.

Hauntogeography I : Gunkanjima

A few kilometers off the coast of Japan sits Hashima Island, abandoned in 1974 when its coalmines were closed. At one time this 450x150 meter island was one of the most densely populated spaces on earth, now it is entirely devoid of people. It seems to be a strange cross between Tarkovsky's Stalker and a Tuscan hill-top village, the perfunctory concrete housing blocks have shed all of their wooden balconies to the streets below, and the steep terrain has led to some amazing staircase configurations, now with trees growing in and out and around them. The beauty of situations such as this should not just be reduced to some guilty eschatological pleasure, what can we take from this into our own production?

Choons fir deid weans.

At the other end of the spectrum, this is rather impressive. Fischer-Dieskau manages to achieve the haunted look rather well, and there's an intriguing patina caused by the sound clipping at the top. The recording of Kathleen Ferrier singing the Kindertotenlieder is rather bloody special too. I bought the piano & voice edition recently with a view to arranging the whole cycle, perhaps even then becoming the first complete think, pig! lieder project but the sheet music is now 'entschwindet und vergeht' itself, which is a great shame.

concret pH

More pavilion work, this time the seminal philips pavilion of Xenakis. this was the film and music for the interior, courtesy of Le Corbusier and Edgar Varese. Xenakis also contributed 'concret pH' to the intervals, a charming piece of music consisting of manipulated samples of burning charcoal. I recommend it to you.

Good! He does not believe in a free will.

this is rather good.

oh well...

A slice of work in progress; a sodden wet, collapsed Apollo Pavilion. This is part of a series of works based upon various pavilions and memorials, transfigured memories of avant-garde intrusions into quotidian space.

These works will be fully documented at a later date.

Also, if I could recommend that you visit my musician alter ego before you leave, that would be great.