Post Urban Regeneration

A mixed social and co-working space is at the cutting edge of urban regeneration. Dendron and Sons had franchised the concept of sticking a bunch of tables and pop-up street food shacks in an empty warehouse, repeating the prize winning combination across deserted urban spaces up and down the country.

The real genius had been branding each business as a separate entity, yet behind the scenes was part of a conglomerate of various functions sitting within the umbrella organisation. The burgers, the curries, the beer, the atmosphere and the prices were the same wherever you went. Underground were vats of food and drink piped up into fake kitchens, where employees would pretend to cook and serve the grub to the clueless customers.

This years trend was maximalist minimal. The ceiling betrayed the buildings industrial heritage, yet this is obscured by houseplants spilling from plant pots suspended in the air with locally sourced macrame. Vivid wallpaper of toucans and panthers hiding amongst patterned botanicals was used to focus the viewers attention as it constantly searches for meaning. There are bookshelves filled with leatherbound books rejected from charity shops, volumes of poetry, first edition books of science, piles upon piles of books grabbed by drunks, laughed at, then thrown onto the fire pits that dot the room.

A number of other businesses occupied the fringe of these consumer zones. Tattooists, barbers, magazine sellers, people peddling vintage military clothing, shops that can replace the screens of phones, sometimes even a candlestick maker could be seen hammering their metals with a candlehammer, whistling a haunting tune.

The killer idea for these zones was to utilise its failure. As more and more of these spaces pop up, often spreading their customers across miles of pop up restaurants, the ones that became abandoned had its own regeneration built in. Pillars of soil were embedded in each building, the tables were saturated with mushroom spores, the houseplants would eventually break from their hammocks and crash to the floor, spreading root systems through an accumulation of dirt. Within a growing season, nature would take over entirely and transform the space into an internal garden.

These internal gardens offer a home for animals, insects and birds of all weights and volumes. A family of deer can live in these regenerated spaces living off the fruits of blackberries and lemon trees, often in the heart of a city centre. The franchise had built in the rot of failed businesses to serve as the basis for micro-urban green regenerative zones, managing to offset surrounding businesses by sucking up carbon. Sewage is often pumped into the abandoned rooms, creating a rich swamp for toads and catfish to live amongst. Animals we didn't know existed have been found hiding amongst shrubbery. 

Is this the future of gentrification? Rather than artificially inflating the value of land bought previously and used to develop tiny flats for future miserables, Dendron and Sons are turning the usual business model on its head. By simply doing nothing, nature does its thing and before you know it your neighbourhood is a forest filled with badgers and foxes and bears, which in turn act as a kind security company for the rapidly growing trees and foliage breaking from the ground. The earth cracks open and swallows cars and a lake fills in the sinkhole. A wolf appears at a window, its yellow eyes looking down at the person sleeping in the room beneath. A prelude to a world without people, made all the more sweeter by walking through the trees and empty buildings, your footsteps totally silent, traceless.

Oxford Road Regeneration

The regeneration of the Oxford Road roadside architecture via construction sponsored by Americans is a modern day retelling of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Or is it? Facsimile mall fronts boast a potential future of the BBC car park, the cornerhouse and the over-street covered arcade, a third quarter perspective three dimensional building plans are juxtaposed with photographs of people laughing together. South Oxford road as a mindscape, a lived out dream for the Yuppy flying north for the winter.

“This £300m scheme will bring business into the area. There’s a mile long stretch from the universities to Whitworth park that is an underdeveloped retail zone, offering a –3% drop to the cities potential gold reserves. There’ll be gyms and a nando’s and cat themed bakeries and a Boots. All of it made of glass and steel done in the style of Joseph Paxton. But smart tech enabled. Pedestrians can choose to have their favourite music play as they walk in order to give a televisual sense of scope in their lives, remembering years as a montage accompanied by Florence And The Machine or Kitchen Jumper. Instead of the selfie they’ll be the actualfie, people will actually see other people with a hologram shone under their face, makeup made of light. Driverless cars will potter along the smart road on duvet wheels, it’s occupants talking to artificial intelligences through their glasses about gopro pro-sport statistics.” Said Alphonse Masters, lead designer on the project. He was giving a press conference in front of the cornerhouse, addressing a crowd of ten.
“This is our heritage!” someone shouted, thin body tucked deep into a waterproof jacket. He had that hair.
“The visual concept of Manchester is unimportant. London has Big Ben, New York has the Statue of Liberty, Manchester has The Stone Roses. And rain. Sometimes it might feel like the world is ending, and that’s because it is. Constantly ending and beginning, a reality shaped onion with as many layers as moments in time constantly growing into infinite. There is the potential that we can extend human lifespans far beyond our current frame of mortality. Five or ten times a lifetime today. What would one do after experiencing everything, becoming a master at every subject, to have done everything? Perhaps mutate into a piece of intelligent art positioned in the wilderness, thinking thoughts for eternity. We have several such pieces being commissioned already, conceptual art pieces in which a consciousness could exist in post-biology. The Venus De Milo could have a supercomputer fitted that predicts weather patterns. Every work in the Tate could be animated by holograms and answer questions from the visitors.” said Alphonse.
“What is the point in all this.” Somebody else called out.
“I…It’s the gateway to the knowledge capital.
Improved public community zone realms
Leisure Strategy, including 1000 new jobs.” He said, tanning in adolescent rage. A bolt of lightning zipped through the air and into his eye. On an MRI machine you would see his body turn into light. Around the corner turns a Finglands bus, the last artifact of the 20th century drives away towards Rusholme never to be seen again.

This place of opportunity

and enterprise, of love and

laughter, of culture and

community, of knowledge

and invention.

This place.

This powerful partnership.

This theatre of ambition.

I Am The CEO

I cruised over the rocky outcrop with a cigarette pinched between my teeth, it was a recessed type of filter used by machine gun artists in the second world war. The All Terrain Vehicle came to a purring stop as I parked on the mountain side, looking at the city through my field goggles. I had been in Los Angeles a long time. And I hadn't learned nothing. Don't get a McJob, be a Steve Jobs. I had integrated myself into a large non-profit company and worked it from the inside out, sabotaging my co-workers, setting up chains of events so that they would find themselves destroyed. I was the puppet master. I was the Royal Tenenbaum. I was CEO, earning eighty thousand dollars a year just to go wine and dine chumps in order to secure investment. I sat across from gorgons eating expensive salad and drinking white wine. Success? I'd made the American Dream a reality. I was a semi-state fictional character starring in my own film before being made into life. Was this box office blockbuster going to bombasticate the socio-cultural landscape of Los Angeles? I was in the mouth of the world, my whispers being projected across multiple wi-fi dimensions directly into high definition big detail corporate monosynths. I lowered the binocs and dialled my assistant on my cell phone.
“Organise a board meeting, stat.” I whisper through cut teeth.

The limousine slinks it's way through the streets of Hollywood with me in the back, reclining on Swedish leather. Deep warbling world music swells in the speakers around me as a single tear coagulates on my bottom eye lid and captures the reflection of the street lights as they zip overhead.
“It's all so...beautiful.”
The limousine pulls up to a traffic light. I look over into the car next to me and see a young couple. The one driving looks like Danzig. His girlfriend looks over to me then says something to her partner. They both laugh. I turn back to watching the stop light and put my hands on the wheel. I rev the engine. The couple return the challenge. We are both revving our engines, the pitch of the valves increasing as explosions rapidly accelerate. The light goes green. I slam the stick shift of my ATV into Drive and begin flying down the length of the limousine. The racer next to me flies past, I can see his expression of concentration increase through the flicking windows. I hear a horn ahead of me and look up. The seven forty express train coming from Pasadena is on a collision course with me and the driver next to me. And he's slowly catching up. I flick the stick shift into it's race gear setting and begin to pull away. The train's horn toots again just as the front of the limousine smashes through the barrier across the tracks. I look over once more at the couple. He is frantic, eyes bulging, heads pressed against the wind shield. She looks over at me and winks. I push the ATV to it's limit and with a jump narrowly escape along with the rest of the limo. The other car meanwhile isn't so lucky. It's passengers are ejected two hundred feet in the air whilst the car is crushed beneath American railroad legacy. I come to a skidding stop just before the driver's compartment. A little window opens.
“Any problems boss?”
“Guess they had a train to catch.” I say to Bill.

The limousine finally pulls up on the very bottom section of the underground car park. I enter a set of steel doors and plod wearily through the benign corridors. I enter the board room and see it's members sat around a long oak table. A fire blazes in the heath, throwing shifting shapes across the little bald men. Silently I walk to the head of the table and put my seven thousand dollar Dolce briefcase on the table.
“Gentlemen of the board. Any acknowledgements?” I say.
“What are we here for?”
“I gathered you here today...for a presentation.” I say. “Just a few weeks ago the world's entire supply of titanium was bought out. All the mines, processing plants and country stockpiles were purchased overnight.” I take out a lump of titanium from my pocket and throw it onto the table.
“Gentlemen...welcome to the titanium business.”

I ascend the spiral staircase up into the tower. Printers continually churn out stock market prices, high energy business people talk to themselves on headsets, sometimes a basketball is thrown about in order to decide who's making coffee. I stand at a cubicle in which a long haired lawyer rests his feet on the desk as he makes a yo-yo bounce up and down, speaking Portuguese into a cordless phone. He notices me and puts the phone down.
“How's it hangin, hot shot?” I say, leaning against a thin wood.
“Long, loose and full of juice padre. How was the board meeting?”
“You knew about that?”
“Anybody whose anybody heard your business deal. You've transformed a non-profit law firm into the world's one and only source for titanium.”
“Walk with me.” I say, walking off. He follows.
“So what's next?”
“How much does a kilo of titanium cost at the moment?”
“Seven hundred and sixty five dollars.”
“But how much are we selling?”
“None.”
“Exactly. By the time we finished this conversation the world will value titanium twenty bucks more than it did when we started.”
“What's the game plan though here ?”
“What do you know about titanium?”
“Well...it's strong. And it's light.”
“That it?”
“I don't mine it, I buy it.”
“It's used in the manufacture of aerospace parts, sporting goods, surgical instruments and the storage of nuclear waste. It can also be processed into a white dye used in teeth whitening. But I'm going to do something else with it.”
“What?” said the lawyer. I exit the office and stand on a balcony overlooking the Los Angeles skyline as dusk settles in, walking over to the short wall seperating myself and a sixty foot drop. The lawyer grabs hold of the door and nods.
“You're not afraid of heights are you?” I say.
“Yes.”
“I thought so. You know what else titanium can do?”
“What?” he whispers, lips turning blue.
“It can turn a man invisible.” I say, taking a potion from my pocket and drinking it's contents. I watch the lawyer look directly at me in astonishment.
“Padre? Padre?” he says. I creep towards him. “Where've you gone man?” I grab him by both wrists and begin to pull him. He yells. “Stop! Stop!” I pull him towards the balcony and begin to climb over.
“See you in hell!” I scream as I pull him over the edge.

Who Cares About Zombies Anyway

Have you ever wondered to yourself "What would I do if zombies were real?" or maybe even "I would like to kill hundreds of people with the excuse that they are zombies?"

Well wonder no longer! Ex-special forces soldier and entrepeneur Randy Shepard has combined zombies, paintballing, camping and a high ropes course to provide an action-packed weekend for anyone willing to shell out £200 for the privelidge of ambling through the ten acre estate home to 'Zombie Land', Britain's first zombie themed theme park.

"I had the idea whilst watching Dawn Of The Dead. Got me thinking, what would I do in case zombies attacked? Would I be prepared? What would it feel like? After looking round on the web for a while I found out there were a few other folk with the same idea as me. Hell, some had been thinking about it a lot!" says Randy as we drive in the jeep through Zombie Land. I nod. It has crossed my mind as to what I would do if zombies were real, though I admit on a more conceptual level. Randy Shepard had took the teenage fantasy of killing your friends and neighbours and turned it into a money spinner. We enter a forest and stop. I ask him what exactly people are paying for when they arrive at Zombie Land.

"Well, the two hundred gets you into Zombie Land. You bring your own kit, whatever that may be, and try to 'survive' the weekend. We've hired hundreds of actors to wander around in full costume to be zombies. They follow you round, moan a bit, if they catch you, you turn into a zombie. We have a couple of cabins spread out, even a little shopping mall I'm having built up by that hill over there."
"Isn't it dangerous for the actors?"
"Not at all. They have on some body armour, the guns we give visitors are just paintball guns with a little extra oomph if you know what I mean. More splatter effects."
"But what if any of them get punched, stabbed, have their heads cut off, that sort of thing?" I say, looking at the trees around us.
"We don't allow any blades, that's rule numero uno, okay? We have a full medical crew on site in case anyone gets hit with a bit of wood, but to be honest we encourage visitors to run rather than fight." shrugs Randy. He gets out to urinate against a plastic skeleton and we set off again.
"But surely the whole point of the weekend is that you can attack the zombies?"
"Well let me worry about the zombies, why don't you worry about the visitors?" laughs Randy. We are driving towards one of the cabins Randy has built. A few visitors are there at the moment, surrounded by a horde of zombies. I admit, it looks quite realistic! The zombies makeup has been done by Industrial Light and Magic, the studio responsible for bringing Yoda to life and making Jurassic Park a good memory for many children that currently exist. I walk through the moaning zombies and up towards the door.
"Hey! Get in here man!" says a visitor. His face is covered in muck and his clothes filthy. He reaches a hand out through the door and pulls me in before I have chance to respond.

"What are you doing out there? Damn walkers are going to get ya." he says in an American accent.
"I'm doing a story on Zombie Land, I wondered if I could ask you a few questions?"
"Not right now man, we need all the help we can get!" he shouts. A woman runs in.
"They've breached the windows! We gotta get out of here!"
"Quick, help me pull this bookcase!" says the man, running over to a large bookcase and struggling with it. I shake my head and leave through the door again, closing it behind me. One of the zombies mimes biting me and I nod at him, feeling slightly self-conscious.
"Thanks. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about working as a zombie?"
"Urghhh." he moans in a Liverpudlian accent. I make my way back to Randy.
"I hope I didn't spoil the scene for them. They seem pretty in character."
"They love it! Get's the blood pumping. You know, every visitor we've had here so far has come back the week after? I'm thinking of building a hotel just outside the site so people can come from all over the world."
"Aren't you worried that this is just a passing fad? There were serial killers in the eighties, mutants in the nineties, zombies and spooky kids last decade. What if this time around it's giant mummy's or shape-shifters?" I ask.
"Zombies are here to stay man. As it's not just zombies you know? People can feel it. The world's coming to an end."
"People have been thinking the world's going to end for centuries though." I say. The jeep is now driving through the forest. Randy lights a cigar and looks at me through his aviator sunglasses.
"That they have. And people like you will be thinking that we're all talking a load of BS when the world actually does end."
"But look at the amount of times in history it appeared as if the world was ending, yet didn't. The amount of films and books in the last forty or so years about apocalypses is just a continuation of the belief system instilled throughout religions since the first people, that being it's a fascination of the end, of death, and how we come to terms with it. And if possible, survive it. Any post-apocalyptic fiction is the post-modern equivalent of an after life. They are but a series of limbos at varying degrees of a world without technology combined with justifiable violence. I imagine that when anyone talks about the world ending that they believe that they will survive somehow."
"But I am not talking about the end of the world in the sense of a post-apocalyptic fantasy, but the steady downfall of humans through environmental change over the next century. This park's existence, or rather, that of the zombie fantasy is a way of coming to terms with death, I agree. I am not suggesting that people will survive the oncoming apocalypse, quite the opposite. Most visitors don't survive this weekend. It allows them to perceive there own death in a much healthier manner than vague dreams of danger in which they themselves invariably survive." says Randy. The jeep has pulled to a stop in the middle of a field.
"My family is buried here. Somewhere, I'm not sure exactly. But in this field. As are the bones of a hundred other animals that I am distantly related to, all the way back to the dinosaurs. You think the dinosaurs worried about the end of the world? And when it came about, did they hope? Or did they breathe in the ashes?"
"Your family is buried here?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Well...in case the end of the world does happen to be zombies, I want to be the first to kill them." says Randy, pulling back his coat to reveal a pistol tucked into his trousers.
"You know what's better than regular zombies? Voodoo zombies. You should do a theme park based around that." I said, nodding at him as I get back into the jeep and drive away. All the talk about zombies and apocalypses has give me the urge to watch 'The Bridges Of Madison County', or perhaps 'Before Sunrise'. I hadn't yet decided, but I knew that I had both on blu-ray.

The Ritual Smoking Of Drugs

Heaving the pipe upward, the group pass it to one of the newer members. A self-described druid, his beard descends onto the mouthpiece of the black bong. It takes three people to lift the device to the druids face, another to lower the torch onto the luminous green cannabis. It's trichomes are long and bulbous like strange worms. Eldritch. Taking great care the druid begins to inhale the kush, so sticky that if it came into contact with the skin it would rip it away. Through the slightly translucent glass we watch the five feet of milky smoke begin to fill the chamber, the druid can see it too as he watches the weed smoulder in front of him. And all along, a great bubbling. Through the ice and through the water, the smoke is drawn through. Upward and upward. He begins to clear the bong chamber, chugging huge lungfuls of smoke. We all begin to chant our own songs as the thick smoke is quaffed from the cauldron bong, as it is exhaled it begins to fill the cave we are sitting in. A caveman sits in the corner, the whites of his eyes as red as an eclipsing moon. He looks over to the druid then turns back to his bongo drums.

An hour, perhaps, later we exit the cave and into the industrial estate. The factories and mill shops stand as obelisks on the landscape, intense signifiers of terror. We walk along the cracked tarmac road, one of our number carrying a crucifix. Once we have reached the cul-de-sac, our terminal destination, the cross bearer sets it upside down into a small marsh. We sit around beneath the inverted symbol and pass around a pipe made from the spinal column of an accused witch who was rumoured to have been drowned at a nearby lake. The druid takes out a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch and begins to eat them solemnly.

Canis Major

Animal slaves toil for affection, haunting dreams and stealing food.

Hope

"Crossing a desert is easy if you have a helicopter."
- Bear Grylls, 2011 at the conference of warm safety.

In Touch With Nature

Jennifer Fairholme recently tried to get back in touch with nature by trying to survive without technology. Naked and mute she stumbled through the forest, cutting her feet on broken branches as she searched for food. At night she lay curled up by a tree, hoping that no animal would attack her. This lasted for a few days until she started to raid the bins in the suburbs where she used to live, occasionally scared away by a security light. People still see her from time to time, rushing away from car headlights and the local rambling club. She's doing a lot better now.