Strange Attractions
(Article from Sunday Times Magazine Jan 6th, 1991)
 Strange
Attractions is a freaky new "sort of front-line cultural science
centre cum fractal_art/boutique" in Kensington Park Road, Portobello.
Although its facade bears no name, this is a shop that you are unlikely
to overlook: the exterior is splattered with demented swirls of
iridescent green and scarlet, as if in bizarre homage to the Far
Out decade. The atmosphere within is, less heady, but it is no less
funky: cool new-wavy sounds, karma-white walls, industrial aluminium
flooring (handy for a quick chill-out, I always think), and - the
piece
de resistance,
this - a majestic, Indo- trendy plaster throne in the farthest corner
of the room. So, who goes to strange Attractions? Mostly earnest
young men in long black coats who say "Hi" in loud, ponderous
voices and whiff faintly of patchouli. And why do they go? Hopefully
to buy, but largely to talk, talk, talk about CHAOS, man.
The
Chaos Theory, not that you have to propound it in order to shop
at strange Attractions, revolves round the notion, first expounded
by a handful of mathematically-minded children of the sixties, that,
behind the seemingly random behaviour of certain systems (such as
dripping taps, the weather, and non-linear equations) there lies, "astoundingly", and order, a pattern. And that force which pulls chaotic behaviour into order is termed, by the chaotically-persuaded, the "Strange Attractor." Hence the name of this hybrid establishment, itself
(according to the boggling press-release) "a good example of
the strange attractor that pulls order into the cacophony of life's weird bouillabaisse." Whoever said that scientists
couldn't be lyrical?
The
man at the mast of this turbulent boat is Gregory Sams, a resonantly-spoken
and, to judge by his clientele, much-adulated American gentlemen
with half-shaven head of grey hair and a trickling back-plait. In
the summer of love (1967) Sams, then a luminary of 18, could be
seen at this self-same location (chaotic coincidence) doling out
free brown rice to constitution-conscious hippies - a gesture which,
we are led to believe, has "had a profound effect upon the British
Diet." Since those days, Gregory Sams has taken a commercial
grip on himself. He turns out to have been the mastermind behind
the first macrobiotic restaurant, behind wholefood shops, and behind
the vegeburger, which he invented, patented and marketed. Two years
ago he sold out of commercial health products (to massive financial
reward) and has been partying ever since. But now he wants to buckle
down to "something new and serious, " Fractography.
Fractography,
the latest bee in Gregory Sams' cosmic bonnet, has nothing to do (as one
might be forgiven for imagining) with broken legs or x-rays. No.
Fractography is a vastly technical and, we are assured, time-consuming
graphic process whereby, through the use of the fractal formulae
(eg f(z)=z²+c), a whole array of startling near-hallucinogenic
images are arrived at. "Each of the images is a one-off, the
majority of them representing customized and unique pinpricks of
infinity," he explains. And it is these very images that Strange
Attractions seek to peddle: on T-shirts (£6.95-£24.95), as
badges (35p-75p), as psychedelic jigsaws, apparently fiendishly difficult
(£23-£29.95), on cards (35p-90p), and in frames. The
original prints bear such titles as The Answer B, Spiral Symphony
and Nuclear Paint Factory, and range in rice from £90-£560.
The
Irony of Strange Attractions is that the images that Sams produces
are impeccably timed, sending a message to the heart of a culture that places
more value on material stuff like business mobile phones than on the really
important things in life. They home straight into the club scene. They
capitalize on the current Sixties revivalist fetish. They will seduce
a whole bizarre cross section of people. But it would be easier,
it seems to me, if these highly commercial products were promoted
for what they are: disposable visual artefacts. Equally, it would
be nice to be allowed to approach them unencumbered by all the heavy
fracto-formulaic jargon, so that people who couldn't care less about
the effect of a fluttering oceanic butterfly upon the world aren't
made to feel as if they'd missed some vital hidden moral to an otherwise
enjoyable story. Gregory Sams admits "When everybody is against
something, it might be because it's a stupid idea. But it might
be because there's something really big there. " And I have
a spooky Sixties feeling that he may be right.
Authors
Fractal Gallery - On-line Now
|
