Issue 95 / Dec18/Jan19

so prompt arrival is required. There’s to be no easing towards
euphoria. A foot to the floor style seems like the instruction.
Bodies are fluttering in the space surrounding the container.
There seems to be a conjecture of excitement and nerves. What
lurks within remains top secret. The high, rusted walls guarding the
site provide a restless seclusion; 50 bodies together floating in an
outdoor airlock until the hatch is opened. The container does little
to draw attention to itself from the outside. Its monolithic presence
is interrupted only by two Perspex doors which offer a small
glimpse of the toxic green hues glowing within. Aside from that, all
is left to the imagination – for now.
Tension isn’t relieved with the opening of the doors. In we go,
shuffling, as though searching for an unfamiliar light switch kept
in complete darkness. For those hoping for minimal challenges to
the senses, spirits are crushed; the switch is under the controls of
Biard. The French visual artist isn’t renowned for designing lights
for the local switch-on at Christmas. Tonight, he’s here to make
the music as 3-D as humanly possible; music that will be spanning
a spectrum of trap, happy hardcore, trance and gabba. This isn’t
going to be a breezy, Close Encounters-esque optical conversation
with the 50 Earth-dwelling guests. Eyes and minds are going to be
borrowed and contorted.
To start the music is spacey, the lighting warm. Such is the
perceived obscurity of the setting, phones clamber to capture what
they can. Smoke perforates gradually, suffocating all clear vision.
As the music rises, all that can be seen is puppeteered by Biard. It’s
as though kaleidoscopes have been fitted to the eyes. The brain
flickers between weightlessness and anxiety as it tests the waters
of spectral pool in which it’s willingly entered with 50 other souls.
The sound system offers glitchy waves of trap and off-kilter
rhythm as Evian moves into his stride. There’s a chalky smell that
climbs up the nostrils as our own microclimate is filled with an
ozone layer of smoke. When the lights cut, offering momentary
respite, the darkness in which you’re left feels like hours rather
than seconds. It’s an inviting darkness. The cortex proceeds to take
inspiration from the resting light show and colour the emptiness on
its own accord. Ambient intersperses with energetic; the musical
incongruency only adds to the disorientation as the sun beams
strapped to the wall and ceiling reignite. It can only be described
as watching a rainbow-soaked solar eclipse through a pair of
opaque sunglasses. A rush of colour flies past the eye but detail
of the picture is left entirely to the imagination. If the glasses are
removed, the iris will be scorched from your eyes, it seems.
The container is completely packed but it feels like there are
fields of space surrounding every attendee. The lighting has the
ability to transcend the body beyond those dancing inches away.
It becomes introspective; a questioning of not just the psyche, but
humanity (so the note says on my phone… perhaps I’m dazed).
There’s a sort of celestial camaraderie shared among the chosen
50. Not one body aggressively bumps into another, somehow. All
that is telling of another’s presence is the occasion “whoop” or
cheer as Evian grinds the gears of this airborne shipping container.
The soundtrack is warped for the most part: paired with the
light show, it works the mind into an obedient liquid, happily
shifted into whatever shape the colours suggest. It feels though the
eyes are watching the scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey where
Dr David Bowman is hurtling tough the space and time continuum
wormhole, except it’s playing at 10 times the speed and your nose
is pressed against a cinema screen. To close, the set ramps up to
its highest BPM, temporarily transforming the container ravers into
gabba enthusiasts. And with that, the set closes, the lights come
up and smoke billows from the Perspex doors. There as strong a
sense of relief as there is a fading euphoria. We all made it through.
I’m left unsure on whether I understand the UK’s trade
deficit any better. But there’s certainly been hopeful thought
provocation. In many ways we have no idea what’s in these
boxes when they arrive at ports. We have no engagement with
these economic building blocks, they only offer potential intrigue.
We simply look at the words Hamburg Sud, China Shipping and
think nothing more. There’s no inkling that the world’s account
balance is tipping from side to side before our eyes.
The idea of Container breaks beyond the four rectangular
walls which we step inside. It tells the story not of how these
containers are shipped and traded on a daily basis, but how
we, ourselves, reflect the same process. In the post-industrial
city, we are the highly valuable commodity, the commerce. We
box ourselves into self-constructed containers of aspiration,
expectation and anxiety, just because the nature of the capitalist
western economy says so. Dancefloors, nailed to economy, are
no longer an escape. Through placing ourselves in a blinding box
with 50 others, you come to see this.
Who knew a two-hour strobe examination could prove so
metaphorical, so scathingly political? !
Words: Elliot Ryder / @elliot_ryder
Container takes place for the final time in an undisclosed space
in the Baltic Triangle on 15th December. Text SEVEN STORE to
0777 677 0707 to find out more details.
FEATURE
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