bigideas

This July, Robert Kingham and Rich Cochrane are presenting the first two performances of their multimedia psychogeographic lecture/performance Align. It’s an immersive, hallucinatory narrative illustrated by images and music that takes an oblique slice of London psychogeography and examines it through the lenses of modernity and prehistory, geography and architecture, literature and music, anthropology and philosophy, culture and language.

Robert says of it:

For several years I have been leading Londoners on arcane historical pub crawls, performing texts by others which convey a strong sense of place. Align gives me the opportunity to tell some stories in my own words, and go deeper into some intriguing themes: of ancient continuities; and of that subconscious relationship we have with our cities, which some have named psychogeography. At the same time I tell a story which is about the countryside, and concerns the curious concept of ley lines. Some have dismissed these as fantastical. Others have embellished them with further mysteries.

It’s a shamanic journey into the depths of London via Wiltshire, Australia, Wales and Peru by means of anecdote, detail and confusion. We’ll be travelling in wood-panelled splendour, comforted by brown beer, immersed in music by the likes of Alexander Scriabin, Roedelius, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Whitehouse, Charalambides, Nurse With Wound, Alice Coltrane, Harrison Birtwistle, Otomo Yoshihide, Iannis Xenakis, Klaus Schultze and Pete Namlook, John Dowland, John Zorn, John Cage, David Toop, Coil, Merzbow, Ash Ra Tempel, Acid Mothers Temple, Zoviet*France, Jah Wobble, Brian Ferneyhough and Morton Feldman.

The performances will be on 7th and 14th of July 2009, starting at 7:30pm sharp. There’ll be a £5 charge per person to cover the hire of the lovely Talbot Room in the historic George Inn near Borough Market. Spaces are strictly limited so if you want to come we strongly recommend you email Rich to reserve a seat.