Life in Ones and Zeros
Jem Finer at the Trinity Buoy Lighthouse, London
I woke up this morning to the news that Shane MacGowan of The Pogues has died, and a slew of emails in my inbox from a British news journalist asking me if I was still in touch with Jem Finer, former Pogue, and best known from those days as writer of the band's iconic Christmas story, The Fairytale of New York, sung with beery gusto by MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl.
I replied that sadly (because he was such a lovely human being) I wasn't still in touch with Jem, and suggested she try Brian Eno or Michael Morris of Artangel, which sitting here in Havelock North, did for a moment feel vaguely rock n'roll. Me reaching back through time to what feels like another life I had but is still there somewhere.
The journalist's messages hit a note in me and got me thinking about time and moments and things that pass and the slow movement of the cosmos.
Back in 1999 Michael Morris asked me if I would do the PR for Jem Finer's Longplayer project that was being installed at the lovely Trinity Bouy Lighthouse in London. Finer had devised a 1000 year long piece of music that would start playing at the beginning of the new Millennium.
“I loved the location and the kind of sLow-tech antithesis to the hysteria of the impending doom ”
I loved working on this project. I loved Jem's stretch in thinking. I loved the location and the kind of sLow-tech antithesis to the hysteria of the impending doom of the Millennium bug that we were all told would bring down the digital edifice.
I loved conversations with Finer and Brian Eno at the Lighthouse as Jem (pictured in situ here) was installing the Tibetan singing bowls that were the primary technology of Longplayer; but I know that the person I am now, with my own subsequent journey through time, would find the experience even richer today.
I dug around on the web to find a video to share about this project and settled on this short clip below, but if it gets you curious there are more to be found, and I recommend the Artangel link below.
I also found myself thinking about 1's and 0's. Jem's 1000 year long piece of music, it's almost exactly 10 years since my mum being told she only had months to live, and 1 December means that it is 10 years TODAY when my project Archeus went 'live', which has had me thinking about what the next 10 years will look like. And how every Christmas Shane will be remembered.
Like the slow repetition of notes struck on Jem's singing bowls at points on the globe, these memories are created, fade, and then return.
RIP Shane MacGowan.