motel de moka

Photo: Hideaway by Roger Ballen. Prints available here.

Today’s mix is a surrealistic, collage-like exploration of the grey area between fact and fiction. An adventurous mix in which fantasy and reality seem fully entwined. The basis for this mix is provided by the above shown photograph Hideaway by Roger Ballen from Johannesburg, South Africa. I find this to be a very powerful photograph that, due to its abstract nature, can take on different meanings depending on the observer. The first thing that might strike you when seeing this photo is the impeccable composition. It immediately reveals a natural balance through the crafty arrangement of objects, shapes and grey shades that’s visually exceptionally appealing. But once you’ve gotten beyond this initial stage of purely aesthetic admiration the inevitable question is raised: what does it mean? Because with just our everyday reality as our guidance to make sense of this photo we will be left somewhat puzzled.

For me this photo is about the unbounded imagination and wide-eyed sense of wonder of children. Their capability to create a parallel universe, that for them seems to co-exist with everyday reality in the most natural and self-evident way. Here’s this kid lying on his back in a wooden crate, imagining an exciting world full of contradictions and impossibilities. I like to believe that what we are seeing in this photograph is what he is imagining inside that crate, a glimpse of what the world looks like to a child. The only things that connect us with reality are his legs sticking out of the crate; the rest – the strange sculptures, shapes and objects – is formed by his unbounded imagination. Once he crawls out of the crate, the scene would abruptly turn to normal again. Just a plain wall, dirty floor and some old crates.

Isn’t this something we’ve all done when we were kids? Sitting under the table, watching our parents cook dinner, toying around with nothing but a wooden spoon, but all the while imagining the wildest fantasies possible, that just for that moment seemed as real as anything. I don’t know what Roger Ballen’s true intentions were when making this photograph, but personally I see a child who hides from everyday reality through his own wild imagination. To make something from basically nothing.

The photograph made me laugh. Because it reminded me of my own childhood. But also because it made me think about the crazy Maher Shalal Hash Baz song Way Out that for its 52 second duration basically only consists of Tori Kudo’s plaintive questioning: “Is there a way out to paradise?”, while his clumsy orchestra runs riot in the background. I can imagine the kid in the photograph asking himself the same question while he crawled into that crate and found himself staring at its hard wooden ceiling.

The playlist I’ve compiled in honour of this photograph shares its abstract, playful nature with songs that explicitly suggest a surrealistic setting. Some of them as mystical as a fairytale and others as terrifying as a nightmare. Central piece of this playlist however is Luc Ferrari’s Rencontres Fortuites, a 23 minute composition for piano and viola that uses several improbable tape parts to create an elusive collage of dreamlike moods.

1. Maher Shalal Hash Baz - Way Out
   L’Autre Cap (K, 2007)
2. Art Fleury - E=MC²
   I Luoghi del Potere (1980; reissue on Die Schachtel, 2007)
3. Bachi da Pietra - Non Io
   Non Io (Die Schachtel, 2007)
4. Aaron Martin - Canopy
   Almond (Preservation, 2006)
5. World’s End Girlfriend - Garden in the Ceiling
   The Lie Lay Land (Noble, 2005)
6. Paavoharju - Valo Tihkuu Kaiken Läpi
   Yhä Hämärää (Fonal, 2005)
7. Luc Ferrari - Rencontres Fortuites
   Didascalies (Sub Rosa, 2007)
8. Lula Côrtes & Zé Ramalho - Omm
   Paêbirú (1975; reissue on Mr Bongo Records, 2008)
9. Scott Tuma - Nobody (River of Tin)
   Not for Nobody (Digitalis, 2008)

Stream playlist