Sometimes in Sequence, Some Times in Sequins. 2022.
Preface:
“I was just thinking that if football pitches make sense of how long things are, and blue whales point to how heavy stuff can be, then there must be something that relates to the different uses in the lifetime of a building. But I suppose, Elvis’s makes sense on stages.”
The exhibition is a barely, but still justifiable, attempt to replay the former council building in Woolwich, with a glitzier but also glitchier backing track. The varying stages of the career of Elvis Presley are drafted in as a wonky structure, to ponder whether the former council building’s use was like Elvis being conscripted into the army and if SET might be reflective of a teenage rebellion stage.
Adapted from Sky Arts ‘The Seven Ages of Elvis’
Teenage Rebellion
Army
Hollywood Ham
Comeback
Washed Up Has-Been
Death
Within the space, a set of pointy hand signs, also known as manicules (☛), get a night off from directing people to the bathrooms or smoking areas and exit their responsibilities. Whilst at the same time, a series of floaty texts are on hand like half-inflated armbands, to help navigate around the weird internal logics.”
I guess to try to understand things, the first step would usually be the act of attributing. And so, maybe it's not so much what it is, but what stage it is at. In terms of this building, could SET be just a rebellious teenage phase or acting it out? It could always roll over for longer. But why worry, if you're never coming back? Even kings of things probably need to reign themselves in at times. But then maybe pushing things too far is necessary, like a teenage goth stage is probably an essential trial to know how to refine an LBD in the future.
Uncertainty can be soothing, but can also cause wobbles. Shaky hands seem so formal and shaky legs seem too anxious. So maybe somewhere in the middle is snakey shaky hips. The mildest form of dancing is the loudest you can do while in a queue. Businesses use serpentine queues, where there is one meandering line you join and then split off at the top to go to the next available spot. This makes you trust them more, as it is fairer. But maybe this just depends on how you feel about skipping or how long you will play it back in your head.
Ports always had an impact on the formation of language. Apparently, the term is ‘migratory words’ in English, ‘wanderworts’ in German, or ‘un mot voyageur’ in French. They all map the mutations of things and the terms that were traded. Like how apricot was abricot in French. Journeys and being portable is always likely to muddle bits and falling out of sequence is a potential consequence. I presume at some point the b just got packed upside-down and it stayed that way. Maybe hyphens had a similar voyage in other directions where they slowly barnacled as serifs and then just sailed into the sunset as portmanteaus.
Bands are a thing. So are taxonomies. But so are bands of taxes. The X-Men is based around two rival groups of mutants, who transitioned in their teenage years from human to new states of evolution with powers. The two sides oppose each other, based on whether they lean towards believing humans will accept or persecute them. In 1993, customs attorneys realised that dolls and toys are imported at different rates of tax. Hence, if they could prove X-Men figurines were toys rather than dolls they would pay a lower amount of customs duty. So over a decade, a court had to rule over the physical attributes of each character. They deemed them all mutants and hence not human or doll. I guess it would seem to depend on whether your duty is what you are obliged to pay or you ethically feel you owe.
Teenage Rebellion:
When Elvis died in 1977, there were only 170 tribute acts, but by 2017 there were 85,000. This trajectory leads to nearly 1 in 10 people being an Elvis by 2040. Since 2016, SET has grown and moved through several buildings, with growing numbers of studio residents annually. If both trajectories stay on course, then on the 22nd of December 2027, they would converge and SET could just be the setting for all the Elvis’s. But maybe this is an unrealistic model. I mean, while it would be possible, maybe being an Elvis should be more like a civic obligation. Like when you are next in the queue for jury duty, but Elvis.
Army:
I wonder if when a building finally gets to its end use and becomes luxury flats, if it feels like its death? Knowing they can just extract every bit of value from you without even needing you present. Like reeling out the hologram version of yourself, so you can just alight and keep on sparkling as a light. But then it could feel more like you have finally retired and have just embodied the cruise you always dreamt of. Boats aren’t for everyone though, and maybe you could take up beach combing, or mining the Blockchain or pulling copper out of empty office buildings as a new hobby to treasure.
My skin dies every two to four days instead of every 28 days like usual skin. I’m not sure how exactly this must skew my relationship to stages or regeneration. But presumably as I get older this will have some sort of effect. It seems like either it will slow down as I do, or maybe it will die even faster. I think if that happened, the last resort would be to only wear sequins. And I mean on both sides, like a record, so when it clogs with dust, you can just flip it over to the B side. I feel like being constantly grated would make me look as if eternally emerging, from a poof of skin smoke, for one more encore.
Death:
I guess the problem of swirling between different roles in the world all the time is that not everything can be portable. Some things will always end up being untethered. Maybe a good way to think about it is with flotsam and jetsam. The difference in comparing the two comes down to what might float away in a time of disaster and what must be jettisoned in a crisis to stay a float. Under maritime law, it becomes about your decisions, you still own what you are willing to sink with. But whatever you are willing to discard is fair game.
It feels like more is needed than just flip flops to strategically lurch through existence. Emotional buoyancy surely needs some sort of support and maybe armbands are the thing to keep you pointing in the right direction. It depends on whether you would be willing to don the showmanship of performing in the day to day, or are more the type to provide salty customer service. I wonder if it depends on the time like the way emotions can be like salad dressing and sometimes mixed but sometimes separated. I suppose both are probably as uncomfortable as wearing swimwear under your outfit.
Washed Up Has-Been:
Benches in museums seem to be more about weighting than waiting. Like it seems to indicate the headline act, or the bit maybe you would come back for. I think it’s a little too pointed, unless that is the point. But then walking into a room and seeing a painting with a minimal bench underneath it looks like it has a line drawn under it in the physical space. Like when you get a book from the library where parts are already underlined and it becomes harder to tell what bit you naturally would be inclined towards
Comeback:
Stockholm has a port, but it also has a syndrome. So then maybe it's not always about setting stages but sometimes more about extracting them. Like a formula may help you work out the answer, but being stuck in formulaic movies may just lead to you being out of work. In the 1920s, Vegas had exhausted its mining potential and needed a new gold rush. They did this by positioning it as the state where you have to spend the shortest amount of time to get a divorce. So maybe then it makes sense if extracting metal is what you do, why not make it handier and just remove the metal people are already itchy to get off their fingers.
Hollywood Ham:
