Simon's speakers

I took photographs of Simon’s speakers, which are downstairs in our basement/living room. They are very beautiful objects that he handcrafted with his friend, John, who is a carpenter. While I photographed them; getting the right set-up and focussing in on the warm wood grain, I was totally reminded of the Oceanic art-objects I pored over in my master’s degree. Specifically, malanggan from New Ireland, which are elaborately carved wooden beings that house spirits. These are ephemera that also act as agents in Melanesian society, which is what also made me think of the speakers. I mean, they’re beautifully crafted objects that house the spirit of music, and what has more agency than that? 

Simon’s speakers are what give life to parties – without them people wouldn’t want to stay downstairs, into the small hours of the morning. Whenever he plays his vinyl the housemates congregate to listen, unwittingly sometimes yet the timbre and resonance hold us there. While I took close-ups of Simon's speakers I kept in mind the story of makers in Inuit society, who extended their personhood into art-objects as they crafted them, so that the maker and the made are part of the same thing. If you didn’t do that, they said, the object would never become true.

Simon said this about making his speakers

It took me about five or six years to get all the parts, from eBay – searching online; the drivers are from America. The design is from the 1960s, these loudspeakers were the ones used for public speaking. Lots of people get the parts and make their own speakers. Once we got everything (just before my thirtieth birthday) we decided to build them. Building took about two weeks – it was quick because John ran out of space in his workshop, so for a time the speakers lived in my clinic. My patients would ask, ‘What’s that?’ when they came in to see me.

The wood is walnut and valchromat, an environmentally friendly MDF that’s coloured all the way through. Ours is yellow, so we put wood oil on it to enhance the colour – at first, we used the wrong type of oil so it went really brown, looked like a turd. We had to sand it back down and then this time we used yellow oil and it worked. It wasn’t my first choice to go for these expensive woods, and the walnut weighs a tonne, so I can’t carry the speakers around like a sound system, but John wanted to got for the aesthetic choice. Even though the speakers are really heavy they’re beautiful.

They became the object they wanted to be, I guess. They’re never leaving this room though – we got them down the stairs with about an inch to spare.

Shadows

I am interested in shadows because they are the presence of something absent, which is light. I have in my time taken some good pictures of shadows. I can’t find them right now, but they exist digitally backed-up in an archive I’ll never dig through, probably with a filename composed of a string of numbers.

The other thing about shadows is that they represent the present. (I’m talking about time this time, not light.) The reason I’ve got lots of photos of shadows (somewhere) is because I couldn’t capture them any way else. A shadow doesn’t hang about you have to either capture it, or let it go. There’s the third option of appreciating it, but then you try telling someone about a good shadow. It’s a bit like describing cloud formations to someone who wasn’t there – it looked like an elephant or the boot of Italy; its not that interesting or impressive without the morphed cloud.

This reminded me of cognitive evolution and the origins of art. When did humans start producing art? Great question – no definitive answer. Something like 300-100,000 years ago. There was this all-encompassing theory that academics called the Palaeolithic Cognitive Revolution, which occurred at this time; when homo sapiens developed tool-making techniques, started burying their dead, evolved speech and began making art.

One of the questions that jumped out at me was what on earth possesses a being to make a living breathing thing you can see into a two-dimensional image?

It’s true when I see a dog, I love them and would play with them for hours, but I would never have thought to draw one. Why would I? I can’t draw shit and I’d much rather make the most of my time with a dog. However, there are some people in society who have talent and may be able to draw the dog pretty well. Even if you had the talent, what would it really take to make that leap of inspiration: to see the dog then draw the dog… it had to happen for the first time somewhere, but how?

Another thing learnt from my archaeology and anthropology degree was that most things that survive in the archaeological record are the rarest things. Isn’t that ironic? The majority of stuff made or used by humans is lost over time because it’s either rubbish i.e. detritus (like our takeaway containers), or not important enough to keep (like the stuff in our shed.) Also, they’ve got to last! You can try and hold on to your favourite blanket, but that’ll be gone in 300 years because it’s a dirty piece of fabric. So basically, barley anything survives from 300,000 years ago.

Can you imagine? No, because it’s too darn long ago. Could a rock survive that long, maybe, if it wasn’t being bashed against another rock for 1,000 years and turned into sand. It’s kind of stupid thinking about stuff that far back, but people do and Good on ‘em! What great guys and if you want to do some extra reading go for it here and here. (Although I’ve lost the reference to whatever I’m about to say, so you can take it or leave it.)

We have some cave paintings that survive from that far back, but they were painted on the inside of deep cave systems and that’s why they’re still intact. There must have been other art made by probably not-so-good artists drawn on the outer side of rocks and carved into tree trunks. All washed away or decomposed. Like artists today who make sketches to practise, there would have been the Palaeolithic equivalent of sketching going on on organic materials.

Maybe some being saw a shadow on the sand and quickly sketched around it

TA-DA-

Could it be the first ever 2-D representation of something in the world?

Capturing a moment to record it; to possess it; when the figure who’s shadow it was moved away, was that the leap in human cognition which made it possible to create art?

Peckham Perspective (or how World Cup fever worked)

WHITE HORSE

A pub where the interior decor is like a greenhouse with hanging succulents and skylights, lifting that heavy dingy pub atmosphere. You can breathe in here. The average age is 24, in fact it’s the most healthy and nonchalantly dishevelled crowd I’ve seen. Stylish ironic sports caps worn askew, and frayed backpacks that look like hand-me-downs from war veterans at Dunkirk. A vegan burger is over £10 and doesn’t come with chips - that are handcut by the way. The football is playing on one screen at the end of the room. It’s the England Vs. Colombia Round-16, I’m not very familiar with football but I’m here. Leaning across the bar with splayed elbows to cool down, at least I can see the ball. With my glasses on I can also see everyone else. Around a third of those watching care about the game, but the rest are hanging out with their tribe in a chill environment sipping on their locally brewed beers. Even in the height of summer dark ale is being supped. Once, the ball grazes the side of a goal post and skims off the pitch, people clap and give a single shout that feels like a pat on the back.

NAG’S HEAD

An England flag hangs under the telly. Tacked to the wood panelling with drawing pins, stamped in. The white of the St. George’s Cross is stained by nicotine and time. There's clenched fists and pint glasses filled with lager - lager - lager - you can even buy tinnies in here. The guy sat alone at the back with the sideburns and mullet is draining his can right now. He leers at the girls on my table like a maniac and grins with no frills and broken teeth. Everything is brown in colour, mauves and maroons seep through. Upholstery like the carpet of a forgotten ferry, docked in the shipyard since the late 1970’s. Around the island of tables in the middle of the pub are Great White Sharks. Big Fat Lads with Bald Heads. Bellies.

Gawan my Son
Not laaaaaaikely
Playin’ like bollocks
Take it daaaaaan tha liiiiiine
BOLLOCKS!
Keep ‘old of it son
Take your time, son

The match is being played over three screens. Every man is steaming, shouting, seething at all angles. I see spittle and raw joy, incensed blokes who look like they’re having the time of their lives but are about to explode. Slurs and You Wot!? Chucked at the Colombian shirt wearing cunt, perched like a pile of meat skewered to a stick on his stool. Jeering. Eruptions of laughter. You can’t take a joke? 

It’s what we call an Old Man Pub but I feel more raw energy in here than a playground. A fruit machine flashes wildly against the wall. When Colombia scores the mood gets cut. Silence like a soldier got shot. The guy in orange hi-vis punches the door and walks out on to the street, where we go next.

It’s Extra Time as we walk the length of Peckham High Street. Every window, in every shop is playing the Game. Hairdressers, chicken shops, John the Unicorn, newsagents. We peer through panes of glass at the scores staying static. We walk on through the quiet and empty street. The summer heat hangs heavy with pressure over the tarmac, and the traffic lights change colour to no oncoming vehicles. 

PECKHAM LEVELS

A converted car park with a good heavy-handed lick of paint, since I last saw it. I remember a bare building with you know those holes between the car park levels, between floor and ceiling. Because you know car parks are concrete slabs made for sheltering cars not people, though sometimes skaters use them and homeless people. Well let me tell you! Now there are windows! And fluorescent tinted tubes and industrial sized fairy lights, and wacky chairs and a working bar and proper toilets, the works. They’ve got a big screen playing the match and now it’s on to penalties. Groups of thirty year olds in tight polo shirts and arm bulges, wearing espadrilles, share a jug of beer and gesture with boyish excitement. Boho chic, tussled hair, the ambient mood-lighting is flushed with pink, setting off the sunset hues dissipating over the city scape outside and damn - this is so Instgrammable. England scores! The room erupts and hushes. Colombia misses. The room claps and hushes. The final kick is coming. The ball is soaring. England SCORES!!!!!!!! 

Field Notes from an Anthropologist: There are three pubs in Peckham filled with three types of people. I’m part of it. The hipsters, working class, and yuppies. There are invisible barriers that exist between the pubs and their clientele but the footie breaks them down. Because when you are all sharing in one activity (you could call this common activity a ritual), you can be different but it’s okay because you are all doing the same thing.