I made this as light as possible so the dark grey sky would overexpose as white. It worked! Bankside, London.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Shameless
Notice who has nearly finished - and who has barely got a chance to start. Is this equality? Greenwich, London.
Undignified
A bit of fish in the sink and your hauteur goes right down the drain. Greenwich, London.
Upside-down venue
The Queen Elizabeth Hall entrance, reflected in freshly-fallen, foul, cold rain, South Bank.
Winter sheen
I underexposed this as much as possible to approximate the strange effect that bright days can have on your pupils.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Fortified
This building looks like it should be some Cold War era defence complex. In fact it looks a lot like the big spaceship which features in Aliens, in a way. Southwark, London.
Starts here
And keeps going riiiiiight to the other end of the Turbine Hall. It's a lot of chasm/crevasse/dislocation.
Photo opp.
People were making a bee-line for this all the time. Once they noticed it. One girl said "where's the sculpture?" and had to have it pointed out. But despite its depth nobody seems very afraid.
This actually isn't...
...a crack but rather a penetration. Apparently. But it did get surprisingly deep in places. Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Ice Hotel
No time tonight to do anything other than link you to this — the latest incarnation of the Ice Hotel. Salivate, but not too much. You’ll sully the furnishings.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Wisdom
Having the tooth out wasn't a problem, but now i am condemned to drink warm, salty water and have no proper food for a while! I promise there'll be no photos of the clotted, gaping socket though.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The invasion of memory
Jonathan’s post about Googlereality got me thinking, especially as I’m switching over to a new mobile provider which gives me a fancy phone and free internet surfing / email over the phone as part of the deal.
Free internet surfing using a 3G network for only £15 a month?, I thought. There must be a catch. As it turns out, there is — but an intriguing one. You may surf the network’s website and news / sports / weather / info services for free. You may search the net with Yahoo or Google for free. But the moment that you click on a Google search result, you start to get charged for data transfer.
What’s interesting about this is that it’s the user equivalent of paying your library bills to get catalogue access only. And what’s strange about it is that they didn’t limit free surfing to their website only. So is the point that searching is fun, but the end result isn’t? The Google thrill-of-the-chase? Of course not — they want to dangle the carrot, get you to bite it, and then owe them money.
But the googling and reading of the result is like taking a snap of something amazing. It’s easier to lazily enjoy than it is to absorb, and quicker too. I’ve forgotten, very slightly, what the golf course near the forest looked like under the new year’s snow, but I remember very well how the photos look. If I’d left the camera at home, I’d remember more, but you wouldn’t be able to share it with me. Similarly, since we can all find the same stories online, the same glints of oft-linked wonder, are we storytelling less?
I remember reading (yes, reading. Not reading the “reading” entry in Wikipedia) about countless new and strange things with every turn of the pages, and excitedly telling everyone at dinnertime, and wonderful filigreed conversation starting to emerge. A few nights ago, I was stopped short in one conversational gambit when my dad told me that yes, he’d read about that on the BBC website already. End of paragraph.
Luckily, photos are open-ended things, as are poems. If there was a search engine called Googleverse, which gave only poems as search results, and intelligently too, that would be quite something.
As it happens, Google does have something similar. But then, it would. And no, I won’t link to it.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Surface
I had to trump the surfaces mentioned in the last post. And, thankfully, I have found surfaces that aren't just surface at all, but texture and form and movement. And stillness.
Today, while dithering over what to buy in the bookshop with my Christmas giftcard, I came across this wonderful box of Gaudà for a very cheap price indeed, so much so that I managed to buy a book on Tadao Ando’s architecture also.
Ando’s work is austere...? No, I’m not sure it is. Half of his work is the design of the buildings, and the other half is where they are sited. He can put a concrete box without one side in front of a shallow lake, and the lake becomes the building’s missing piece. Equally, he’s not above siting objects outside. The photo above shows some of of Ando’s hard lines in the background, and Richard Serra’s sculpture Joe settles like a delicate — and monumental — curlicue in front.
Of course they put it there because they knew that it and the building would chatter happily away between themselves for decades, if not longer. And similarly, while concrete says “I’ll stay here and be strong and flawless,” so Serra’s big vortex of weathering steel says “Feeling” in the way it curls (up) and blemishes and gets rough-skinned under the weather.
Don’t think, either, that I’m leaving Gaudà out of this — his buildings, all riot and elegant dance in their sequinned dresses, are directly related. They are themselves the point and the setting doesn’t really matter, but the curves and the importance of the surface as a means of expression are... well, very obvious. If you want something to breathe plainness, make it smooth and unyielding. Otherwise... give it some feeling.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Pudding
There is a big difference between world events which happen while you are working, and those which happen while you’re not. Equally, there’s a difference between the smaller, everyday happenings, and in something of an inversion of Wordsworth, it is difficult to recollect emotions or events ‘in tranquillity’ when you got up at 6.15am and haven’t had a chance to stop until 8pm. Events are recollected in a rush, and emotions often writhe like fish out of water sometime before midnight.
But don’t worry. This isn’t a post about how, woe is me, Belfast is in work mode again after Christmas. I just noticed something about myself while slicing Panettone last night. Let me explain.
Panettone, properly made, is a joy. It is a bread so rich and moist and sweet, so packed with candied zests and fruits, that it is entirely fitting that it only ever makes an appearance around Christmas. I had bought a large loaf from Sainsbury’s and spent the holidays — among other activities — happily toasting several slices for breakfast and mumbling blissful sighs. Even if there was nobody else around.
But it’s a difficult bread to get your fingers around. Being soft, and encased in the paper equivalent of a cake–tin which has to be peeled away from the side, even getting a couple of good slices is a tricky affair. And delightful too, since you can pick at the wreckage of your latest attempt while happily surveying the pile of lovely books you got just a few days ago on Christmas morning.
Last night, however, was different. I’m off work today so I don't know why I got impolite with the latest loaf. I was, otherwise, relaxed. Perhaps it was the plane crash at Heathrow a few days back. Perhaps it was the wisdom tooth I will have extracted next month. (It isn’t painful but it’s coming out anyway.) There just seemed too many things to think about when the latest slice crumbled as I tried to keep it thin and even for a Panettone-and-butter-and-marmalade pudding. Suddenly, I hated the bloody thing.
Which was really unfair. I was hurting it far more than it was hurting me, after all. And torn Panettone actually looks far more interesting on the bubbling, golden, fragrant surface of the finished product than pristine pieces would. I don’t remember losing my temper with mince pies when news of the Boxing Day tsunami hit the screens a few years ago; I was positively calm and thoughtful in the face of the news that Bam had been more or less flattened by an earthquake.
What I realised about myself last night was simply this: that when my mind takes something in, it’s a while before it can put it down again. Awarenesses and concerns jostle beneath the surface. And when you’re in the frame of mind where the word –surface– conjures images of the grey plastic of your desk at work and the lighter grey of the dentist’s chair, you really do need a big serving of something special to clear everything up.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Apirlaat
That is the word for freshly-fallen snow in West Greenlandic, fitting because last night and this morning, a heavy and unexpected snowfall covered lots of Northern Ireland and very thickly covered my part of Belfast! I woke up and bounded out of bed like a child.
It was 6 inches deep on grass, and 5-and-a-bit on the roads. I live close to a forest, so there are plenty more appealing photos if you follow the link.
It was 6 inches deep on grass, and 5-and-a-bit on the roads. I live close to a forest, so there are plenty more appealing photos if you follow the link.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
There was a star in the east last night...
Well, since this is my first proper written post for a while — for which I apologise profusely: it has been a very busy time lately — it might as well feature a proper link. And I can’t think of a better link to provide you with at this time of year than Nigel Slater’s final column in the Observer before Christmas. It isn’t a food column in the sense that any recipes are introduced. Instead, a wonderful evocation of the Christmas markets in Vienna. Studded with special little things, and just like opening one of the food cupboards in our house this weekend.
We have plump little mince pies, which would have scurrying legs and wide smiles if they were alive. There are bulging, slightly dented bags of sugar so dark it looks almost black, most of which will be beaten into a rich, cirrhosifyingly alcoholic rum butter this afternoon.
There is a ham from what (one hopes) was a large, floppy-eared, snuffly pig in Norfolk. It sits in the fridge, golden-skinned, beside a Stilton cheese which we hope will be intense and spicy. I feel like doing a little jig, for real, when I think of the presents I have wrapped, and the look on people’s faces as they rip the paper away. I don’t feel ashamed in the least to confess that I have even given the Veuve Clicquot champagne-bottle a brisk, gentle, utterly delighted pat as I have walked from hall to kitchen.
Before uncorking it on Christmas morning, however, there is a final bit of wrapping to negotiate, stuffing to prepare, and the turkey to smother in butter and rashers of streaky bacon. There is green, prickly holly to scatter around, and there are decorations from all over Europe to peer at between the branches of the tree. Merry Christmas, everyone.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
St Pancras Churchyard, 2
You can see the gravestones heaped around the Hardy Tree in the right background, behind the fence.
St Pancras Churchyard - plaque explaining the Hardy Tree
There are many historical filaments linking the site to the church, the church to the name of the station - and the station's development to the fate of the church and those buried there.
St Pancras church
Another contrast. This church, in a quiet, leafy churchyard, is only a few hundred metres behind the rearing bohemoth of St Pancras station.
Barlow Train Shed, St Pancras
This wasn't built in 1990, you know. And it was built so early-on that they had to use wooden scaffolding. A marvel.
Poor neglected old King's Cross
Next to St Pancras, but not yet restored. That comes after the authorities have run out of money on St P.
Docklands, from Point Hill
What a superb view to round the corner to every morning. Greenwich. The morning after.
Barbican, from the Terrace
Looking back to Jazz and warmth and Jonathan. I went back indoors within 20 seconds.
Lakeside Terrace, Barbican
The tall tower behind is one of the residential blocks built here in the 50s, still the highest residential towers in London. I couldn't get its top because the camera was perched on top of a traffic cone for stability and would have fallen off if I'd moved it..
St Giles Cripplegate, Barbican
While the jazz was playing, I nipped outside onto the Lakeside Terrace and took this photo of an old medieval church, which survived the bombing in World War 2, in the middle of darkness and concrete architecture.
Multicolour Barbican lights, 2
The Barbican Arts Centre in Barbican, London, is an extensive Brutalist structure and contains quite a lot of colour - like these lights. Jonathan and I had been to see the exhibition about art and sex from antiquity to now, and had stopped in the foyer for a beer and some impromptu jazz.
Rikki and the Barlow Train Shed, from the arch, St Pancras
We'd had a lot of champagne by this stage.
The Meeting Place, by Paul Day, at St Pancras
This new statue inside the restored station is meant to capture of the excitement of travel. I found myself staring at his arse under his jacket.
After the exhibition
After seeing Wildlife Photographer of the Year, we wandered across the road to the V&A, on the way seeing this superbly large moon. I say.
Close investigation, before Thanksgiving
As I am returned from London, what follows in this and the next few posts are a selection of photos that you can explore in more detail over at flickr. Enjoy!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Continuing the fine tradition...
...of lazy posts when we have too little time to say anything properly, here’s an amazing online tool that's like Google Earth — except you get to see buildings from street level, for a few cities in the Us so far.
And here’s a list of things that a guy has tried, and failed, to masturbate to.
tags: [maps] [urban] [cities] [new york] [google earth] [masturbation] [sex]
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Keith Jarrett...?!
Speaking at the group's annual conference, Keith Jarrett will ask Police Minister Tony McNulty and Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to consider escalating stop-and-searches among black people to reduce the number of shootings that have claimed the lives of another two teenagers in the past week.
At first I didn’t knowwhat to think. A great jazz pianist getting into policing? It didn’t make any sense. Luckily this brainlessness was entirely due to one less cup of coffee than was wise before picking up the paper this morning.
One of my colleagues in work is a lovely man. He will approach the desk with a slim new volume of poetry every month; a periodical about art every few weeks; talk about recent trips to Paris and the architecture therein. Which is why I was knocked for six when, this week, I grandly unfolded that day’s Great Modern Buildings poster from the newspaper, and he said “Oh, what’s that?” This is a church so famous, so oft-illustrated, that I can’t believe he didn’t know it, specially in our line of work.
But what was truly amazing — and surely the Guardian must have realised this would happen — was the reaction it got from those in the office who don’t give a damn about architecture. Twenty minutes later, two people (let’s call them Agnes and Norman) were still pointing to the poster and arguing interestedly about whether the roof was thatch or concrete. I knew which, and hadn’t said a word so it was partly my fault, but I left the office feeling that the best work I’d done all day was a bit of unfolding.
tags: [architecture]
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Architectural things
Forgive the briefness, but I promise you, these links are good ones. I have a cold. Enough said.
The Stockholm subway really does give the impression of being hewn out of solid rock — because it is. Zaha Hadid — remember the name. The Glasgow Museum of Transport’s conceptual rendering looks like a line of gabled industrial workshops has been slightly melted like butter, and swirled.
I’ve touched on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house before, but this post on MetaFilter presents a rendered movie of the place which is just amazingly good.
Ignore those on the thread who tell you that he built the house on top of the commissioning family’s favourite picnic rock — he built it around the rock so that it formed part of the hearth in the livingroom. Also, ignore 2blowhards on the subject of Wright’s houses. Their criticisms are like saying of the Pantheon, “But it’s got a hole in the roof. Stupid primitive Romans.”
Seeing Wireframe London opens up a small universe of play inside my head. Not sure why yet. The river is the only thing that’s solid. Which chimes perfectly with a book I have recently devoured.
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