Anthony Gormley as the mighty god-king
Jul. 12th, 2007 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burntcopperSelf, you are not allowed to snigger at authors just because their last name is 'Dalekos'. Resist the urge to go 'exterminate!'.
Went Anthony Gormley at Hayward yesterday. The Blind Light exhibition - where it's all about spatial awareness and fucking with it. The main one is the one you see on the poster, a large glass box filled with fog and light so that when you enter it, you can just see your hand in front of your face. Really, really disorienting. You can hear other people's voices as they grope around, several trying for the walls, and that's it, because there's no way of telling where you are, or how close or faraway things are - just the light and occasional shadows. When you step outside, it's really fascinating, because you can see people's hands groping for the wall, maybe only three inches away - and missing. Complete and utter disorientation.
And if you're me, you add to it by being an evil little sod and singing in a low key as you drift around, specifically songs like 'Look for the Silver Lining' and 'Wilkommen, Bienvenue'. You could hear people going 'and there's the singing, which makes it just that much spookier and you really can't tell where it's coming from'. :snicker:
Then there's the box with poles in it that disappear when you view them from certain angles, and the wire shapes with wire figures inside you can only see from particular angles, and the maze of concrete blocks that have the basic dimensions of actual people, which are spectacularly weird due to them being the same size and shape as people and all being different - After they'd drifted a bit, you saw people start to search for one of their dimensions.
Topping it off was going outside and looking at all the figures placed on the top of buildings across the city - some are miles away. And some you could swear were people until they didn't move. Lots of people going 'oh, they really need to keep these up permanently'. Anthony Gormley, edging his art in sneakily with a view to populating the world (or at least the UK) with moulds of his body. We start off as going 'argh, get rid of 'em' then slowly transmute to 'nooo, stay! They fit!' as they somehow seem to resonate once they're there. Seriously, if you think about it, it's rather weird - very few people in England know what his face looks like, but they all know what his body looks like. It's going to be another case of Stonehenge and archaeologist theorising. 'Well, of course there's the buildings, but there are the representations across Britain of one figure, who is exactly the same dimensions, so this person - perhaps a God-King? - must have been very important, or the ideal. There's the giant protector against invaders from the North, who also represents flight, the sea temple out on the east coast, clearly also some form of spiritual defence, where the figures go into the sea, and then the figures on the roofs of London. It's quite clear it also spread to to other countries, since similar figures can be found in other continents. It gives us great insight into their spiritual beliefs.'
And in conclusion to the post yesterday - after a bit of a doze yesterday evening (interrupted by letting agent, during which I opened door, went 'grmph', stumbled back to bed, then went 'grmph - yeah' on them asking to check the room, went 'grmph' again as a goodbye - I think I'm adopting this for all future viewings, it *works*) and getting what I think was 7 1/2 hours last night (took me a while to fall asleep), feeling oodles better.
Went Anthony Gormley at Hayward yesterday. The Blind Light exhibition - where it's all about spatial awareness and fucking with it. The main one is the one you see on the poster, a large glass box filled with fog and light so that when you enter it, you can just see your hand in front of your face. Really, really disorienting. You can hear other people's voices as they grope around, several trying for the walls, and that's it, because there's no way of telling where you are, or how close or faraway things are - just the light and occasional shadows. When you step outside, it's really fascinating, because you can see people's hands groping for the wall, maybe only three inches away - and missing. Complete and utter disorientation.
And if you're me, you add to it by being an evil little sod and singing in a low key as you drift around, specifically songs like 'Look for the Silver Lining' and 'Wilkommen, Bienvenue'. You could hear people going 'and there's the singing, which makes it just that much spookier and you really can't tell where it's coming from'. :snicker:
Then there's the box with poles in it that disappear when you view them from certain angles, and the wire shapes with wire figures inside you can only see from particular angles, and the maze of concrete blocks that have the basic dimensions of actual people, which are spectacularly weird due to them being the same size and shape as people and all being different - After they'd drifted a bit, you saw people start to search for one of their dimensions.
Topping it off was going outside and looking at all the figures placed on the top of buildings across the city - some are miles away. And some you could swear were people until they didn't move. Lots of people going 'oh, they really need to keep these up permanently'. Anthony Gormley, edging his art in sneakily with a view to populating the world (or at least the UK) with moulds of his body. We start off as going 'argh, get rid of 'em' then slowly transmute to 'nooo, stay! They fit!' as they somehow seem to resonate once they're there. Seriously, if you think about it, it's rather weird - very few people in England know what his face looks like, but they all know what his body looks like. It's going to be another case of Stonehenge and archaeologist theorising. 'Well, of course there's the buildings, but there are the representations across Britain of one figure, who is exactly the same dimensions, so this person - perhaps a God-King? - must have been very important, or the ideal. There's the giant protector against invaders from the North, who also represents flight, the sea temple out on the east coast, clearly also some form of spiritual defence, where the figures go into the sea, and then the figures on the roofs of London. It's quite clear it also spread to to other countries, since similar figures can be found in other continents. It gives us great insight into their spiritual beliefs.'
And in conclusion to the post yesterday - after a bit of a doze yesterday evening (interrupted by letting agent, during which I opened door, went 'grmph', stumbled back to bed, then went 'grmph - yeah' on them asking to check the room, went 'grmph' again as a goodbye - I think I'm adopting this for all future viewings, it *works*) and getting what I think was 7 1/2 hours last night (took me a while to fall asleep), feeling oodles better.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 05:19 pm (UTC)This one is only wearing a rubber glove, but they've had many, er, votive offerings of woolly hats and so on. Strange gods indeed.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-12 05:38 pm (UTC)That should be Gormley of course. But at least the picture came out a sensible size.