Unexpected Fragment of Messianic Time
There are, even in the most obviously grim and dystopian art forms, those most full of what we're not really allowed anymore to call false consciousness ('I can make it!' etc) sudden moments where all the bullshit clears and possibility emerges. So, listening, in a mildly amused (bars that go 'William, William, William' etc) but disappointed way to the Wiley single that came out a couple of months back, and enjoying the B-side ('Sorry, Sorry, Pardon, What') far more, despite it being based on a 4 year old track. That is, 'Ice Rink', that preposterous (someone said Super Mario Bros, which is close enough), slab of mobile phone blips and metallic clangs. So I dug out the original version on an old mixtape. And bloody hell, it's good. In amongst all the boasting, there's this odd visionary tone ('deep in the valleys and the hills, that's where I stand', 'I got eight senses'), and then, suddenly this flash of anticipatory consciousness, fitting perfectly the weird weightless space of the music: 'that's where money don't matter, in the future - material things they don't matter in the future - I travel in a time machine, I'm in the future'.
(the above picture - is that a Paul Rudolph building? - is irrelevant, but for the peculiar fact that it came up when searching google images for 'wiley ice rink'...)
posted by owen hatherley at 2:08 pm
9 Comments:
if you didn't know that building is the infamous Boston City Hall.
Perhaps the most unpopular structure in Boston.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_City_Hall
"is that a Paul Rudolph building?"
No, it is Boston City Hall - the most (in)famous work of Kallman &
McKinnell.
http://www.docomomo-us.org/about/building_watch_boston_city_hall_up_for_sale
Consider yourself sent to the gulags for your inadequate knowledge of the canon of American brutalism, Owen.
(Oddly enough, there is a major Paul Rudolph building - the Boston Government Service Center - on the opposite side of the square).
Hi, may I ask, what's the connection between false consciousness and the 'I can make it' example? Are you referring to a particular theory that describes this connection?
The best music and art come from people who are fucked, utopian art is boring and preachy.
Anon: I'm afraid both your points are clearly bollocks, viz the utopianism of Curtis Mayfield, Neu!, Kraftwerk, My Bloody Valentine, huge amounts of rave, etc etc, and the quantity of really very good music made by bohemian-bourgeois types.
L&T: yeah, I meant the particular hip-hop narrative of 'it's a cut throat world but I can and will succeed, me' as an especially dangerous bit of FC.
Everyone else: I am currently hanging my head in shame at my lack of US brutalism knowledge. Glad I was nearly there with Rudolph though...
The "utopianism" of those artists is something that you've imposed yourself, getting wasted and making pretty sounds has nothing to do with creating the perfect society. A lot of "bohemian-bourgeois types" have been against the socialist state and collectivism, or indifferent to it. You seem to want to neatly contain the work of these artists for your own political ends. The most interesting creative endeavors are filled with doubt, confusion and isolation and self engrandizement.
Thanks Owen.
I am under the impression that Boston city hall is at this time under threat of demolition, thanks to a demagogic mayor. I am convinced you would have known ALL about this if it was in Volgograd or somewhere similar...
You're almost certainly right about that...
Anon: though you've rightly noted that I'm trying to corrall all creative activity into a nefarious socialist-collectivist plan for world domination, do you really not think that, say, rave at its most expansive, or chicago house stuff like 'The Promised Land', or the gift economies of independent labels, don't have some yearning in them for a better society, and some belief that music and its reception could indicate what that would be like? If so, fine, but I'll have to admit I find that depressing, not to mention boring. (NB obviously loads of great art comes out of doubt, ego and aggression (not to mention 'engrandizement') I'd be an idiot if I denied it - but equally so if I claimed that was all art could be)
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