Cerith Wyn Evans - Meanwhile…across town

A new artwork by Cerith Wyn Evans will permeate the centre of London from 14 February with a Morse code message transmitted from the neon signs of the landmark Centre Point Tower on Oxford Street. The project coincides with the 40th anniversary of the completion of the building's construction.

Meanwhile…across town, produced by Forma and curated by Mathieu Copeland, will be witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people who see the Centre Point Tower from across London every day. Wyn Evans will use the letters 'O' and 'I' from Centre Point's signs to transmit an extract from The Visible and the Invisible, an unfinished book by the French existentialist philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). The building may be seen as a host organism infected with a virus - the code of a dying language that has taken up temporary residence. The text will become buried in the urban landscape, where the pulsating narrative of the Morse code signal might even suggest that every other flashing light might be beaming out its own story.

This invasion of the social fabric of the City is at the core of the artist's intentions. Meanwhile…across town will appear an elegant and subtly perverse way of pointing to no more than the communication itself; through the archaic communication tool of Morse code, broadcast across town, its message will become, ultimately, temporarily an intrinsic part of the cityscape.

14 Feb – 31 Mar 04 | Centre Point Tower, London, UK

Produced by Forma

Related links

Cerith Wyn Evans
Cerith Wyn Evans - Meanwhile…across town (Special Edition Print)