Pixels and digital roots: A reordering of natural things with Amon Tobin.
It's easy to go overboard describing a show like Amon Tobin's performance of ISAM – his seventh album – at The Roundhouse. And I am definitely about to. With a set that fills the entirety of stage, (the cubic structure was built to virtually the maximum dimensions that could be shipped) and one of the most esteemed electronic music pioneers of our time suspended inside a glass box at its centre, the spectacle is difficult to fathom.
A stack of glass cubes, irregularly sized, appear to be filled with smoke. As the music starts, no-one is sure where he is. The glass is opaque. It flashingly switches to transparent, revealing a figure at its centre. A dark figure in a hat: the captain of this particular craft.
The music alone is overwhelming. It entirely takes you over. ISAM is far more experimental than Tobin's earlier work (pre 'Foley Room') – which put samples in an unfamiliar context but could still be basically wrestled into a category. ISAM is wholly new. It's fitting that the performance of this work should be audio-visual because the sounds alone seem to depict a world. A soundtrack to the universe imploding and being reborn. It's like being rolled by a dark star.
Watching the chaos of complex lights and images now and what Tobin's productions hinted at is unfolding in your face. New species are forming and uniting, intergalactic armies are mobilising. Everything is entirely simultaneous – you cannot separate the music from the imagery. The blocks are seemingly alive with wires. Reactions shoot down the spines, setting off a chain of explosions. Synapses firing, the rebirth of ideas. Supersonic, we hit light speed as an enormous four ton mantis trounces the tiny people, millions of light years below. You have the sense that what you are watching is not of this earth, far beyond our understanding. And what we are watching, attempting to absorb and internalise, is more than a light show; it's a display of utter technological magic.
“One thing I’ve noticed,” says Tobin, “is that evolution of technology and technology-driven music isn’t always in sync. I think this is because, in the end, creativity doesn’t really need technology. It’s very much the other way around.”
This show utilises technology in a way that the product is all. You aren't aware that it's actually the set designers' (Alex Lazarus and Heather Shaw) breakthrough in conquering the problem of aligning a projector onto complex models. The workings are invisible. It's as if the music is creating the images, and what you are seeing is a perfect depiction of the music.
A relentless bricolage of sound and light which feels impossible to fully take in, I have the urge to film, to document, to re-watch at a later date. To remove my eyes for even a second is impossible. At times a huge bit of machinery vibrates and spins, turns into a drill, expands to slowly turning cogs, then the workings of a clock. At others a wall or city is being dismantled. The glowing blocks are pulsating then collapsing, tumbling to earth. Constant surges of energy are blowing everyone’s fuses and minds at the same time.
And then the stage goes dark. The theme of change and rebirth seems striking. “Experimenting is a way to keep yourself interested and a way to hopefully find new territory and new places to go,” says Tobin. And that is what he has always done. This sets the bar for audio-visual shows. I don't know how anyone will ever better it. It's the most unbelievable show I have ever seen. In a league of its very own.
Graphics by Leviathan and V Squared Labs
Creative Director: Alex Lazarus
Stage Concept and Design: Heather Shaw of Vita Motus Designs
Watch the making of ISAM here:
Images by Emma Gutteridge
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