Manafonistas

The first thing to say about The Palace of Elysium is that it never existed.
 
 
The road to Elysium
 
Google Maps wasn’t much use. The name of the approach road is marked as „unnamed road“ which is kind of amusing. You follow Unnamed Road for maybe 20 minutes. Then you find a piece of raised earth, like a neolithic burial ground. In front of it, a discarded extraction fan and some sections of plastic industrial piping.
 
 
 

 
 
 
First sight of Elysium
 
Eventually you get to the building. On first sight it’s unimpressive. It’s completely sealed off by aluminium perimeter fencing topped with razor wire. I had to photograph the building from between narrow gaps in the fence. From this angle it could be a car park, or 1960s public housing in North London. There are – inexplicably – four redbrick cooling towers outside, and someone has painted a mystical four-syllable poem on the front of the building: EXPENSIVE SHIT.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Inside the Palace of Elysium
 
Like I said, you can’t go inside. These photographs were also taken by putting my phone through gaps in the fence, hence the awkward angles and inelegant framing.
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
At this point, and for no reason, RD Laing pops into my mind. Then pops back out again, saying nothing.
 
 
The TV room & a bedroom window
 
The TV room, where people once presumably sat watching Kojak, Hawaii 5-0 and Star Trek:
 
 
 

 
 
 
And it’s odd how the blocky, concrete car park shape of the building suddenly gives way to other forms. The TV room is round. What this means in terms of architectural semiotics I have no idea. This cell block also has curved walls. Its window is now glassless and forlorn.
 
 
 

 
 
 
The Zone
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
It wasn’t possible to get a good shot of The Zone. It’s actually right on the edge of a precipice so you have razor wire in front of you and a 100 foot drop on the other. And so you can’t step back and get the whole of this structure in the shot. It’s like a flattened amphibious landing craft set on a massive plinth, with an observation window at the front, again now glassless.
 
 
My phone rings. It’s Ivan Chtcheglov. He says this:
 

All cities are geological. You can’t take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns, casino mirrors. These dated images retain a small catalyzing power, but it is almost impossible to use them in a symbolic urbanism without rejuvenating them by giving them a new meaning.

 
The Palace of Elysium must be built.

Music stripped bare. A strong promise on a concert poster. An autumn evening someday in the end oft the eighties. It’s cold outside on the stairs of the Batschkapp, Frankfurt. Just waiting to get in the black coated concrete hall to listen to four musicians. Their name was printed in small letters underneath the big promise: Paul Beavis, Trey Gunn, Toyah and Robert Fripp.

All over the world it’s Sunday
Temperatures are soaring
Runners run in the park, it all goes too fast
Except for those who find life boring …

One thing was made definitely clear in the first minutes after they started playing: there was no promise on the poster. It was simply a fact. Puristic reduction, brute pulses, roaring frippertronics and Toyah’s voice over it. No alternative facts. What a musical crash. Maximum drive, no rest, no compromise. One take. One End.

I was never told that the good things in life would be with me forever
I was never told that the good things in life are invisible friends
I was never told that the good things in life are gently disguised
I was never told that the good things in life will be remembered forever
I was never told that the good things in life cut through the night
I was never told that the good things in life aren’t in the hands of others
I was never told that the good things in life could be here forever

Gone but present forever. Years later I was really happy to find out that they decided to record this incredible stuff & it was a big flashback listening to that sound again and again. And it is still exciting. Precious treasure but neglected. Totally forgotten by the public and I never found out why … so let’s name the obvious again: today it’s Sunday all over the world. Stripped bare.

And this I dreamt, and this I dream

 

And this I dreamt, and this I dream,

And some time this I will dream again,

And all will be repeated, all be re-embodied,

You will dream everything I have seen in dream.

 

To one side from ourselves, to one side from the world

Wave follows wave to break on the shore,

On each wave is a star, a person, a bird,

Dreams, reality, death – on wave after wave.

 

No need for a date: I was, I am, and I will be,

Life is a wonder of wonders, and to wonder

I dedicate myself, on my knees, like an orphan,

Alone – among mirrors – fenced in by reflections:

Cities and seas, iridescent, intensified.

A mother in tears takes a child on her lap.

Miniaturen. Essentiell. Auf das Wesentliche reduziert. Ein Spiel mit bekannten Instrumenten, vorbeigelaufenen Geräuschen, unbekannten Perspektiven. Intim und sehr persönlich. Ein Spiel mit A-Synchronizitäten, Primzahlen, Chaostheorie und Quantenphysik und nicht zuletzt der Unschärfe von Musik, Klang und Geräusch. Warm und beiläufig. Ein Soundtrack zu einem unbekannten Tarkovsky-Film. Inspired by nature. David Sylvian gibt ein Lebenszeichen von sich und trägt das Gedicht von Arseny Tarkowsky vor. Unikate. Ein bisschen wie die Jane-Stücke von Harold Budd. Aber ausgearbeiteter. Subtiler. Tiefer. Abwechslungsreich und doch ein homogenes Ganzes. Und eigen, einfach sehr eigen. Async.