Red Eye: Intersection
by Niall McNulty
(D)urban legend holds that the roof of our City Hall can withstand 10 feet of snow. While this hasn't been tested, what is true is that the building is an almost identical replica of the Belfast City Hall. So, a small piece of Europe, bordered by palm trees, sits in the centre of a city on the east coast of Africa; just minutes away is Grey Street, Durban's energetic oriental district currently being creatively re-imagined as 'little Delhi' by the tourism agency. In the opposite direction lies the vertical slum that is the infamous Point area, where Swahili and Portuguese are now the lingua franca. Parking at Albany Parkade (the nearest parking lot to the Red Eye event), the short walk up Albany Grove highlights this inner-city milieu .
On one side of the street, black prostitutes entertain potential customers on the pavement outside escort agencies; a hairdresser braids locks in a fluorescent-lit shop while kwaito blasts out of the local Irish pub. On the other side, the imposing façade of the Playhouse, in all its kitsch 'Ye Olde English Castle' splendour, stands guard. Durban as a city exists as crossing point and meeting place for the cultures of Asia, Europe and Africa and the buildings in the city centre are testament to this. However, for most people, this site for intersection is undervalued and underused. Novelist Ivan Vladislavic writes that people cross the city in regular paths and it is:
Literally impossible for certain of these paths to cross, which is why acquaintances
may live in the same city, meeting by appointments as often as they choose, without
ever running into one another in the daily round. (Vladislavic, Ivan. 1998.
'Street addresses, Johannesburg' in Blank - architecture, apartheid and after,
ed. Judith Hilton and Ivan Vladislavic: Rotterdam: NAI Publishers).
Most Durbanites (at least, the more middle-classed and middle-aged) live their lives in certain predetermined 'paths' that take in The Pavilion, the Virgin Active and Gateway Theatre of Shopping, missing the city centre and all it has to offer. Red Eye encourages people - on their different, non-converging paths around the same city - to meet and interact through the medium of art.
Appropriately enough then it was that the latest incarnation of Red Eye was titled 'Intersection' and took as its theme the crossing-over and connecting of media, people and music. The event took place both in the Durban Art Gallery (on the top floor of our Belfastian City Hall) and in the palm-lined street in front, which was closed to traffic for the evening. The event's curators, artist Vaughn Sadie, creative duo Rike Sitas and Dean Henning, and experimental architect Doung Anwar Jahangeer, amassed a varied group of artists (and generally interesting, non-artist people) from across the country that represented the eclecticism of the city while utilising the available space to its fullest potential.
Inside, interactive pieces shared gallery space with more traditional forms, and oddball performance work such as Intersect's ant-for-the-evening interactive maze installation with video and sound. English artist Rob Fraser's sound installation highlighted his love-affair with the city of Durban. In an act of transgression, he filled the majestic foyer of the Gallery with the incessant kwaito-people-vehicular sound slam of the teksi experience. At the top of the stairs leading to the gallery space, Roger Miller's digital installation with a live performer and data generator grew and mutated as more people interacted with it.
While the interactive/ video mayhem never fails to entertain, my favourite work of the evening was the collection of mini-paintings of the strange creatures that inhabit Cape Town artist Moon Arthur's head. I'm convinced that every house needs one and I�m now being watched over by a cute, mutant-larvae thing while I sleep. Other work that stood out for me was Bronwyn Lace's bicycle-wheelish science/art site-specific installation and the noisy but fun Sound Room Collaboration in which almost a dozen musicians improvised upon instruments and computerised equipment in an ongoing performance conducted by Portia Malunga.
Outside, in front of the Gallery, a stage jutted into the street where prissy models from the Linea Academy's fashion show got leered at by rough-looking street people (one model told me her skirt was almost pulled off by a street kid) and local bands Deluxe, Rouge and Habit To did their best to rock out. The Royal Hotel, usually constrained to its staid interior, spilled out into the centre of Smith Street and competed with Indian 'aunties' to feed the crowd. The Mkhumbane Blues isicathimiya group and Durban favourite Big Idea added a uniquely East Coast 'flava' to the evening's proceedings. Niel Coppen's performance piece, presented on the stairs leading up to the Gallery, was lost on the too large crowd watching it, but looked like it could have been entertaining. Unfortunately, sitting to the side and near the back, meant that I didn�t hear a word the performers said. Later, a DJ and Ntokozo provided the ambience for a late night, 'drinking beer in public' street-party where preppy artfags mixed with Nigerian families in traditional dress.
Other contributions included Tam Young with her interactive game and video installation; Mlu Zondi's game board installation/ performance; Desmond Zeederberg's nail and linoleum installation, Brigitta Gaylard's interactive boards; Simon Gush's process-based installation; Siyanda Duma's performance piece and Gary Te Brugge's interactive computer game installation. Like most Red Eye events, however, 'Intersection' wasn't about individual artists and their work but rather the collaborative experience they created, which was exceptional.
Walking in the city is great at the best of times. Walking in the city at night is particularly special and I applaud the organisers' street-closing-partying initiative. Durban has an up-for-anything, young population and the city council needs to tap into this reservoir of 'good times' to reclaim the city space. Jennifer Robinson argues that it is 'cultural resources and creative enterprises which transform city space, as much as - or perhaps even more than - political struggle and institutional reform' (Robinson, Jennifer. 1998. '(im)mobilizing space - dreaming of change' in Blank - architecture, apartheid and after, ed. Hilton Judin and Ivan Vladislavic: Rotterdam: NAI Publishers). Red Eye does just that.
Red Eye Intersection was held (as part of the Celebrate eThekwini campaign) on September 30, 2005.
Niall McNulty is currently completing an English Master's at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, his work focusing on Urban Narrative in Post-Apartheid texts
Durban Art Gallery
2nd Floor City Hall, Smith Street, Durban
Tel: (031) 311 2262
Email: brownc@prcsu.durban.gov.za
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