{"id":2359,"date":"2014-03-07T14:04:47","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T14:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=2359"},"modified":"2014-03-08T10:05:20","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T10:05:20","slug":"the-tree-that-once-belonged-to-bob-hoskins-and-other-odd-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=2359","title":{"rendered":"The Tree That Once Belonged to Bob Hoskins (and Other Odd Connections)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last post<\/a> loosely took the E.M.Forster quotation ‘only connect’ and asked if this might be at the basis of some of the creative process — can originality be fostered by stuffing your subconscious full of stimulating ideas and experiences which could stew away unsupervised like a warming winter casserole or, alternatively, blast into each other like a psychological Hadron collider.<\/p>\n

Bearing this out, I’ve realised there’s a loosely recurring theme of odd and unusual connections in many of the experiences I’ve enjoyed or places I’ve visited over the past few months — locations which are on the margins between conflicted forces or genres where conventionally opposing styles or materials have been placed in opposition.<\/p>\n

Shoreditch is the classic example of an area that has been transformed by the influence of artists, with the Village Underground tube train carriages providing a landmark juxtaposition.<\/p>\n

\"Village<\/a>
Village Underground from Shoreditch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s arguable that Shoreditch has become so ironically commercialised that it’s developing into a caricature of itself. For several years, artists have been priced out of the area (as is Kim in my novel), not just by the geek-cool spillover from David Cameron’s beloved ‘Tech City’ in Old Street but by speculative apartment-buying business types (even more beloved of Cameron).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The warehouse-squatting, loft-dwelling artists have been dispersed to Peckham (mentioned in Time Out virtually every week), Hackney Wick (whose artists ‘took over’ the V&A <\/a>at the end of February<\/span>) and rather bizarrely, as I discovered a few weeks ago, to suburbs like High Barnet.<\/p>\n

I climbed four storeys up an external fire-escape with my friends from Love Art London<\/a> way out in the hipster-there-be-dragons territory of zone 6 to visit the artist, David Shillinglaw<\/a>. He was a thoroughly generous and entertaining host, welcoming us into his loft studio which was located in an old false-teeth making factory (if it was in a novel this detail would seem way too far-fetched!). The studio was an amazing jumble of finished artworks, pieces in progress, plants (the tree apparently belonged once to Bob Hoskins!), huge rubber balls, artists materials and cats plus everyday objects (I think he lived there too — David Shillinglaw, not Bob Hoskins).<\/p>\n

\"Inside<\/a>
Inside David Shillinglaw’s High Barnet Loft Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the artists move to the likes of Stoke Newington, Deptford and, er, High Barnet, property developers haven’t been slow to make the connection between exploiting the lingering aura of edgy cool and the large plots of under-exploited land in Shoreditch. Schemes that have been approved are in the pipeline that will transform the area irreparably: <\/span>a 40 storey tower<\/a> is to be built almost opposite Village Underground with a new shopping centre on the other side<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

I may have written a partially historical novel by accident as I have scenes in my novel set in Holywell Street, which will be completely transformed within the next couple of years. (The scene is set in the road between the Village Underground tube trains and the new high rise building in the centre left in the developer’s projected image below.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Planned ‘Shoreditch Village’ Either Side of the Railway Viaduct on the Existing Surface Car Park Opposite Village Underground (Below Left) — from \u00a0www.ellis-miller.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking of developers trying to muscle-in (and, in so doing, destroy) \u00a0on ‘cool’, ‘gritty’ urban locations, I took the photograph below just before Christmas of one of the most bizarre connections in London — the South Bank’s Bavarian Christmas market set opposite the graffiti-plastered undercroft of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, adopted as London’s skateboarders’ spiritual home. <\/span><\/p>\n

Drinking steaming gl\u00fchwein while watching skateboard jumps in a reclaimed space of brutalist architecture is the type of accidentally cosmopolitan experience only London can offer.\u00a0Unlike some of the most favoured spots for Shoreditch street artists, the <\/span>undercroft has been reprieved <\/a>from development into shops.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Bavarian<\/a>
Bavarian Christmas Market Meets Graffiti Covered Skateboard Undercroft<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are a quite a few posts on this blog that mention street art: in the novel Kim brings her graffiti artist skills to places that haven’t traditionally welcomed them. Perhaps its appeal is partly because of another unusual combination — the traditionally reverential and formal world of fine art and the constantly changing, chaotic, almost anarchic urban spaces that foster street art culture.<\/p>\n

My friend Sabina Andron, who runs the I Know What I Like Meetup Group<\/a> in London, is studying street art for a PhD at University College, London. Over a period of 100 days last year she conducted an intriguing initiative, photographing the same stretches of wall on Leake Street (a virtual tunnel underneath Waterloo station) every day over a month and recording the organic, rapid changes in the artwork.<\/p>\n

\"One
One of Sabina Andron’s Leake Street Photos — Click on the links in the blog text for the full animation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sabina won the <\/span>UCL Graduate School research poster competition<\/a> for a poster featuring 100 images of one wall. Her website has <\/span>a page which has time-lapse animations<\/a> of all the walls. Its well worth viewing and may change your view of street art if you’re sceptical of its artistic value.<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing, art and geography are, of course, not the only areas in which ‘only connect’ produces exciting \u00a0and unusual innovations. Musicians often cross-fertilise, with many whole new genres created from the fusion of apparently unrelated styles. In my local pub the recent English graduate cellarman often exposes the village regulars to his eclectic musical tastes, gained from working at music festivals across Europe. It’s a bizarre experience to walk into a rural English pub and hear dub reggae by the likes of King Tubby flowing from the speakers.<\/p>\n

I was having a drink in the pub recently and began to recognise a song I knew very well but was also simultaneously unfamiliar. I worked out it was a track from Dark Side of the Moon. <\/em>The skanky,offbeat rhythms meant it definitely wasn’t Pink Floyd but it was surprisingly \u00a0good — like any good, radical cover version, making the song sound written as if it was specifically for the other genre.<\/p>\n