Wednesday, March 11, 2009

An evening with Iain Sinclair

Went to see Iain Sinclair earlier tonight talking at the LRB bookshop about his new book about Hackney.

What was interesting hearing him talk was how even in the confines of a bookshop he was able to weave some magic as his imagination unfolded. His attitude to time is one of the things that I took away with me.

Events of the past impact the present day as well as some of the histories of key characters in history living on via landscape, memory and the odd coincidence or two.

That explained his resistance to the Olympics because Sinclair talked about the impact it would have on the landscape changing memories and causing a social amnesia. He also didn’t like the way that the collective view of the Olympics was being handed out by those building the place and via computer animation and controlled images a view of the future was being manipulated.