One of the things I enjoy most about Sight and Sound magazine is the column written by Mark Cousins. Often quirky and always extraordinarily well-informed, they can be interventions or meditations or enthusiasms – though actually, they are always enthusiasms to one degree or another. (I especially remember a fantastic discussion of Scarlett Johansson’s ability to be slow on screen, which totally made sense of her work and presence, not least in the weird Under the Skin.)
So I was really looking forward to hearing him talk at the excellent Festival of the Future City in Bristol last week. And he was indeed wonderful, talking to a selection of images of cities. Barely an academic reference made, and hugely insightful, using words to pull out particular and striking qualities in his images that a more systematic approach never could. So wonderful in fact that all I wanted to do here was list a few of his phrases. Here they are:
vabble – the visual equivalent of babble perspectival plunge
the city whent it’s too alive, too dense, oppressive. or when it’s dying, toxic, poisonous
am I there yet the Pompidou Centre is like a cathedral wrapped in elastic bands
the city as a camera mount a centrifugal imagination
At the time, in the moment, they were quirky, eclectic, poetic, funny and powerful: carrying and extending some of the effects of his chosen images into the audience, making us see more and differently. Now I’ve written them down, without the images and outwith Mark’s performance, they don’t seem anywhere near as wonderful. But they were. In the moment they really were. Here’s hoping that his new book, The Story of Looking, achieves something similarly magical.
