Shadowed Spaces

Sean Meehan, Tamio Shiraishi, Ikuro Takahashi, Denis Wood
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
12th July 2007
www.arika.org.uk

Using the Situationists International’s ‘derive’ as backdrop, Shadowed Spaces is a walking tour through the city’s lesser known public/private spaces, with improvised performances from Sean Meehan, Tamio Shiraishi and Ikuro Takahashi, and an oral history of psychogeography from Denis Wood.

The music is variously harsh and shocking, sensitive and melancholy, but always connected and resonant with the spaces. There are slightly unfair grumbles about the length of Woods’ talk, delivered, fittingly, in a cold, concrete non-space but the final improvisation, with over a hundred rape alarms, leaves the crowd satisfied. It goes entirely unnoticed by the rest of the city.

Iain Pate