Liquid City

In their previous collaboration Lights Out For The Territory Marc Atkins' few dark, brooding photographs added focus to Iain Sinclair's dense, impressionistic, psychogeographical formulations about the city in which he loves to drift. Here Atkins' penetrating black and white portraits and his beautiful, troubling shots of a London we forget we know dominate. Sinclair adds occasional pieces in a lighter, more journalistic prose than readers of his wonderful, overwrought novels might expect, discussing Atkins, or one of his photographs, and their mutual project of attempting to pin down the story that is London. And he writes about other scribes (Peter Ackroyd, Michael Moorcock, John Healy) who share his fascination with one of the world's great cities. This attempt to articulate a truth about a space is an impossible project, and it is impossible to hold a fixed position on it--as the title Liquid City suggests. Sinclair and Atkins know this (Sinclair praises his friend for creating flux whereas his writing tries to "mould wriggling chaos") but the project proves worthwhile as it has produced words and some remarkable pictures that only such a troubled engagement could engender. This is a visual feast of contemporary photojournalism, in which Atkins' visions and Sinclair's words help the reader perceive a London that can easily be walked past daily. --Mark Thwaite

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