All that is Solid Melts into Air

Blight (1996) is a pioneering film by John Smith made in collaboration with the composer Jocelyn Pook. It revolves around the building of the M11 Link Road in East London, which provoked a long and bitter campaign by local residents to protect their homes from demolition. The film constructs stories from unconnected fragments of sound and image gathered in the area over two years, bringing disparate reminiscences and contemporary events together.  

This work was commissioned by Stanley Schtinter of label Purge.XXX who produced an LP of Pook’s soundtrack for the first time. The essay borrows from the form of the film and from sleeve notes. One column features ‘lyrics’ as a transcribed dialogue of residents words that comprise the soundtrack. The other is an essay on acts of creative destruction comprised of excepts from Marshall Berman’s street philosophy interspersed with existing writings on the film, giving context to the nature of producing such radical artworks from the rubble of our homes in the city. Each line and stanza of the essay seeks to respond to the nature of the lyrics beside it.