Rob - can we shift thread this over into The Green Room, please...?
I'm not one for ranting (
, but... this was a shambles.
People said to me "well, it was only two quid" but I think that really isn't the point.
Thank goodness it was though!
It started nearly 40 minutes late (though Mark Fisher confirmed afterwards that they - the panel - were equally frustrtaed by this as they were all there on time and waiting to go ) and seemed to drift about without any chairmanship, direction or purpose. It then just kind of 'ended'.
It desperately needed some structure and introduction. There was an assumption made that everyone knew who they were and what they were there to discuss / present, which would have helped bring it down a peg or three.
Mark used a lot of terms that didn't really get explained or put into any kind of Foxxian context, and he didn't refer the conversation back to John foxx enough times. 'Brutalist utopia' anyone. 'Pulp modernism'?
The Ghostbox element in particulalr seemed weak and vague, especially when set up next to Iain Sinclair's work. he was in a different league, and the whole session lifted when he started to speak.
In terms of subjects and themes though, there were a lot of fascinating ideas on the menu. I 'get' the whole layering of the city with its constituent and ever changing time periods. I 'get' the way we create our own reality and our own cultural history. The notion of a sense of place suffused with memory, and the very interesting idea that today, ou collective / digital memory means that nothing is lost and forgotten and therefore can't be 'rediscovered' by future generations. Instead they form part of the mashup that is the 21st century.
We could have done with some interaction and Q&A sessions, and I think it needed rehearsing.
Fascinating and thought-provoking ideas, but badly organised. They shouldn't have been set in a line if it was a discussion, and the mikes weren't working. The flims were not set up in advance and it just made the Roundhouse look unprofessional...
It came across as a bit self-indulgent and - actually - was it really relevant to the show that followed?
Sorry , but hope this is constructive...
