What we said at the time:

In the mid 70’s academic and (amongst other things) the architecture critic of The Village Voice, Michael Sorkin collected an influential series of essays under the title ‘Indefensible Space’. In it, he discussed the move towards an approach to town planning that attempted to design-out spaces in which furtive activities could be fostered; a kind of architecture of security, you might say.

At the same time, and I suppose gloriously counter to this argument, Denis Wood (then a recently graduated geographer, or more particularly psychogeographer) wrote an impassioned essay, titled ‘Shadowed Spaces’. It was an ardent and poetic defense of our need to feel a sense of privacy in public, and the subsequent need for places where one might take refuge, or engage in transgressions which we may be unwilling to share with a wider public, but which are important to our lives and development, to our needs and desires.

The essay Shadowed Spaces has never been published, but exists in a sort of parallel way to the kinds of spaces it discusses, handed around and sought out by people who maybe need to find it. And it’s served as a loose inspiration to a clutch of artists and musicians who are also drawn to these kinds of spaces, and to a desire to perform there, in a kind of artistic parallel to that need for privacy in public: ‘cause isn’t a musical performance just that, a private thing done publicly?

Our tour brings together 3 incredible experimental musicians from the USA and Japan, as well as Denis Wood, and takes them to some of our favourite, secret spaces, where collectively perhaps we can share in something hidden from the eyes of those keepers of the norm.

For more info about Denis Wood check out Unmappable, a film directed by Diane Hodson and Jasmine Luoma which features 8mm footage shot on the tour by Matt Lloyd.

Shadowed Spaces was previewed in the Dundee Courier here, and was reviewed by Neil Cooper for Map magazine here, Euan Andrews for PlanB here,  Andy Hamilton for the Wire here and by Andrew Eaton for the Scotsman here,