The Eye of the Storm

by Michael Wallace-Pigott The first thing we see on arrival in Birmingham is a free installation piece at Moor St. Station entitled There Are No Others, There Is Only Us. This open, airy station (more a big iron, glass and brick canopy than a building) is a surprisingly great location for work like this. Having already read some promotional stuff I had imagined it to be some sort of unavoidable large screen piece, to be experienced by those passing through the station whether interested or not. However, it was in fact separated from the main thoroughfare, enclosed in its own temporary tent. Inside, on a heap of fat nylon beanbags, we watched as a wide white screen slowly filled with thousands of specks. The first few seconds are minimal and slow enough to remain abstract, but the complex flowing patterns of dark dots against a bright white background soon reveal themselves to be flocks of birds dipping and turning in frightening synchronisation. These bird formations undulate and flow like globular oil blobs in a lava lamp. Their fluid mass movements are both monstrous and beautiful at the same time. They swarm like bees, an unusual association that abuses my understanding of birds. The film asks obvious questions: do you move with the crowd, or stand out? And how do you understand yourself inside or outside of the mass of human life? But it achieves much more interesting effects also. The visual component is directed by Marc Silver, while the music is composed by Ben Frost. These elements work extremely well together – the deep, sometimes atonal strings seem to come in waves, rejecting recognisable rhythm or time signature to sound like the random throb of a natural force, synchronous with the movement and density of the birdwaves. At least they seem synchronous, but then it may also be playing on the intrinsic tendency of the human sensorium to yoke sound and image together, to see causation and connection where there may not in fact be any. At points I am unsure whether it is more a case of the music sonifying the movement of the birds, or the movement visualising the music, and this, I think, is the greatest success of the piece. Another pleasurable thing about this installation is the setting. Though enclosed and dark enough to produce a clear contrasty image, air moves freely in and out of the tent, and several light leaks remind one that it’s a sunny day outside. Splayed out on the beanbags (and I couldn’t find any other way to use them) one’s proximity to the concrete floor makes the smell and feel of the platform part of the experience. When the throbbing and groaning of the strings subsides the chugging of trains just outside fades in. It was for me a wonderfully surprising and productive melding of place and piece.