Seizure
If you ever find yourself south of the river, and wander east from Elephant and Castle tube station, through some suitably bleak housing estates, you will stumble across a derelict and boarded up 1960s housing block.
You will probably check you know where your wallet is.
If you head into flat 151, you will be greeted with a pitch black but clearly dilapidated interior of what was once someone’s sweet home. It’s dark, filthy and quite depressing.
But if you clamber through a hole they’ve smashed in the wall to the flat next door you’ll find yourself in a copper sulphate crystal palace.
You will probably check to see if you brought a camera.
^That’s a light bulb, or was, or something.
Robert Hiorns sealed off the interior of one of these flats, made it watertight and filled it with 75,000L of copper sulphate solution at 60’, then when it cooled to 30’ he drained out the liquid leaving this completely bizarre and quite impressive installation known as Seizure.
I recommend.
Russell Greenwood
Insanely cool!
Cathie Tranent
Pretty colour. I love the last photograph, but can’t help asking the question.
Call me a Philistine but WTF?
onetonshadow - Minister of Tees replied
Philistine.
Look, to be honest, I’m the first to attack a piece of modern art for it’s irrelevance and the fact that an embryo could have done it. But in this case, using a block of flats due to be knocked down, a process not easy to replicate without effort, and creating an atmosphere of glinting blue wonder in a house lit with three low watt lightbulbs (the long exposures and flash don’t get across what it was really like I suppose, except the last photo) was really quite awesome.
Asides from what it means, it’s completely bizarre and totally worth visiting.
natapee
wow!
roybarry
I am amazed.
Natalie Tyler
This is without a doubt one of the most insane but incredibly awesome ideas I’ve ever seen. You wouldn’t want to trip over in there though. It looks sharp.
onetonshadow - Minister of Tees replied
It was sharp as you like.
The doorway into the bathroom was so narrow I took a lot of skin off my arms.
They only let 4 people in at once.
Not that any one was there.
Mel Brackstone
What an amazing thing to do, fancy using a digital camera!
onetonshadow - Minister of Tees replied
I KNOW.
No way on earth Holga would have worked in here. Would have needed a 5 minute exposure or 43 shots on each frame or something.
mister khan
pass the mescaline guvnor.
Mel Brackstone
- smug mode -
robpixaday
Whoa….............cooler than cool.
Wish I could see it in person…thank you soooooooo much for bringing it here!!!!!!!
richiedean
wow, how bizzare ….......
brettus
Jeebus!
Scott Robinson
The flats are from the sixties, and due to be destroyed.. How long ago was this installation created?
onetonshadow - Minister of Tees replied
Last year sometime, but it hasn’t been open the whole time. Couple of months. It just reopened.
It’ll be gone soon. When the council have enough money to finish the job that is.
Naf4d
Wow – smart!
Did you see that program on the telebox the other day? The one about the Giant Crystal Caves’ – they were formed in the same way I think (well temperature, water and sulphate solutions, not Robert Hiorns that is!) – pretty amazing stuff… I thought.
onetonshadow - Minister of Tees replied
That is quite remarkable. I did not see this telebox show,
Danny
and the best part is you don’t have to worry about tree roots upsetting the foundations.
Ben Ryan
That’s pretty out there. I expect a lot of the housing commission flats here are used for growing crystal of a different kind.
onetonshadow - Minister of Tees replied
Oh. Good.
Cathryn Swanson
I especially like number three, it’s like walking into someone’s imagination, cool.
berndt2
How very cool!! (love the comment – re – wallet, too!)