Antony Gormley's 'Blind Light' on & around the South Bank

Earlier today I had the genuine pleasure to check out Antony Gormley's 'Blind Light' at the Hayward Gallery. This post isn't intended to be a review or a piece of inspired prose. What follows are simply my impressions, my jottings.

Title: perhaps an alternative title would be 'Voids'

Space Station (2007): this strikes me as the sum of the urbanised masses. It resonates with me, perhaps because I am currently reading Zamyatin's 'We' - all sharp edges and straight lines - no circles, no possibility of infinity, making you wonder is there is anything within - a dystopia. It looks like its aimed in all directions, as if hostile to all around, yet somehow, looks as if tipped on one side, half-mockingly.

Habitat (2005): the fact that it is sneakily hidden down a stairwell, behind a wall (the guides point it out), makes it out to be Hades, an underworld.

Still Feeling (1993): perhaps the one that made the greatest impression on me. The position of the down-and-out, ashamed, unseen, neglected, hiding (sadly, many attendees did indeed walk past without giving it/'him' a second look), yet at peace. To disturb him would somehow make him feel he is inconveniencing you.

Blind Light (2007): as if you are walking into a cloud, lost to those on the outside. Not sure if it is a dream or nightmare - solitude with other voices. It reminds me of detention centre 125 in Iran, which uses extreme sensory deprivation - inmates are kept in white, eat white rice on white paper plates, are forbidden to speak, and can only communicate with guards through slips of white paper. Here's the poem I wrote about it a few years back:

'White Room'

5th March 2004

White walls
white floors.
No windows -
no need for
a light external.
White clothes
and paper plates.
Plain paper messages,
bright white perfection awaits.
Deafening silence...
Grates.

White room,
white times,
is this a heavenly creation?
No,
it's extreme
sensory deprivation.

I saw a toddler in a pushchair enter the 'whiteness'; she came out after a couple of minutes completely unfazed (unlike older children and adults). Why was this? Was this state familiar to her, something that we have all experienced but long since forgotten?

Critical Mass II (1995): it appeared that the highest iron figure suspended looked dead. When turning to look at those iron figures suspended somewhat lower, I noticed that the lower down you went, the more life was in the figure - perhaps this was a factor of the angle of the neck, symbolising various states (death, meditation, exercise, struggle)?

Chair (1987-1988): a lead chair with two alabaster forms resting on it, reminded me (being close to 'Critical Mass II') of the dispossessed as witness.

Event Horizon (2007): this consisted of 27 fibreglass and 4 cast iron figures placed on rooftops and walkways both north and south of the Thames, spreading outwards from The Hayward in all directions over a 1.5 sq. km area. All the figures looked the same and therefore anonymous, expressionless in the distance, but still appearing to watch over you. This reminded me of the 'guardians' in Zamyatin's novel 'We'. If the younger Woz was in attendance, he would have stolen one of the figures. I couldn't count all the figures, but made a pretty goood fist, catching those in the far distance, perched on rooftops. But in the end, in your bid to count all 24 + 7, do you invent some, your eyes tricked by your desires?

Positioning, lighting and other environmental subtleties made it hard to distinguish between a figure in the distance and a large antenna.

So is one's view shaped (by the angle) of one's perspective?