Signal Chain — Episode 6
Welcome to the sixth episode of Signal Chain. This pop-up newsletter is a creative collaboration between generative musician Duncan Geere and photographer Oliver Holms.
We’re taking turns to send new work to each other. Each new piece is inspired by the piece before. We’re building a chain of influence together and you’re along for the ride. New installments are released on the 1st and 15th of every month, and you can unsubscribe at any time using the link in the footer.
::SC06::
Hi Duncan,
How are you? Good week?
Please find attached SC6.
I took this on Tuesday evening, on my way through Farringdon with a couple of friends. We had stopped at a crossroads and were chatting before going our separate ways. While we talked, I watched the shifting light play over the moped, pooling in the raindrops and drawing neon lines on its metal and plastic surfaces.
I’m always on the lookout for good light — low sun, strange weather, fortuitous reflections — that kind of thing. In this case it was a crappy LED in the window of a minicab office. I’ll take what I can get.
Initially, I thought I’d reference your London Underground sample, and looked through images I’ve taken on the tube, but nothing sat well with your piece. The location was correct, but the bright, flat light didn’t fit the mood. I even skipped a nice, but old, picture that says ‘mind the gap’ in big yellow letters… The literalist’s choice. But when I downloaded the images from my carry-around camera (a Ricoh GRIII), this picture jumped out.
I like that the subject of this photograph is obvious — it’s a moped — but the image breaks down into something more abstract and sculptural on inspection. The refracted light makes the headlights glow and the reflections dissolve the contours of the bodywork.
I’ve started to feel a feedback loop guiding this project. We’re chasing each other in smaller and smaller circles — spiralling down towards an emergent mood.
I looked for images that could act as a pattern interrupt, but by definition, none of them seem to fit into our sequence. Choosing an intentionally obtuse image would be just as formulaic as following my intuition, so I’m rolling with it. Maybe the cycle is the point? If we steer too hard, rather than flow back and forth, the sequence won’t emerge as something that is distinct from our usual outputs.
I really like how this is shaping up. I feel excited to take pictures at the moment. I feel very free.
Oliver.
P.S. Your track sounds like an alternative reality where Burial grew up listening to Godspeed and Silver Mt Zion. It makes me nostalgic for late-night tube rides and night buses in the rain and I live here…