A short essay and drawings in “They Live by Lamplight: Psychogeography for New Energy Vampires,” a zine edited by Justin Hopper with contributions from Tom Bolton, Jamie Cross, Gair Dunlop, Jez riley French, Laura Grace Ford, Lucy Greeves, Justin Hopper, David Knight, Asher Levitas, Pheobe riley Law, Hana Loftus, Stefan Musgrove, Foster Neville, Sonia Overall, Morag Rose, Stonecirclesampler, Stone Club & John Wild.
After a week earlier this year hiking across scree slopes and surging rivers, wandering mountain villages in the welcoming quiet of Ramadan and spending evening meals chatting with one of my oldest friends and with the hostel strangers who might become new friends, Marrakesh overwhelmed in contrast: everything compressed, all horizons abbreviated, the visual scene dense with signage and all kinds of architectural detail, thronged with people, congested with cars and scooters.
As we waited at some traffic lights, my eyes were drawn to a tall cluster of what I first thought were organic palm trees but which I soon realised were cell towers in disguise, camouflaged platforms for the antennae, dishes, transceivers and cabling needed to transmit such mobile data as the Instagram post I sent the next day that compiled a selection of phone photographs of all the similar cell towers I could find on a short investigative run.
