A trip to the Barbican cements it – cars are back in the zeitgeist
It’s not often that high-concept art shows and Hondas go hand-in-hand. Yet, here I am at the Barbican admiring the 17-inch TSW alloys on a sixth generation Civic.
More specifically I am in the car park of the Barbican. I’ll admit that I’ve never had to leave the building of a cultural centre or museum to actually go to one of its exhibitions before.
The Civic is sat alongside a Peugeot 206, VW Caddy and a BMW 5 Series as part of the Barbican’s Feel the Sound exhibition. The cars were the very last pieces of this particular puzzle, as part of the Joyride installation, put together by Temporary Pleasure, a collective of rave architects. Or people who know how to put on a good show.
I wade through a great deal of futurism to get to the cars. Highlights? I liked the thing that looked like several bathroom scales stitched together and made noises when you stepped on them. There was something called Chimera (nothing related to TVR) that looked a bit like a lampshade. Except touching it didn’t turn on lights – it created noise. Oh and there was this amazing interactive yoga/dance class projected onto a large wall. Visitors were encouraged to copy the movements they saw. Each movement had different noises associated with it. I had a great time watching our former social media executive do that.
@autocar_official You lovers of the Max Power era will absolutely lap this one up #autocar #fyp ♬ original sound – Autocar
Get through all that, physically leave the Barbican’s main building and enter into the carpark and the real fun begins. Fittingly you hear, and feel it before you see it. I can practically sense my cochlea turning from snail shaped to something all together more funky, less uniform and beating in sync to the drum ‘n’ bass.
Once I clapped eyes on the cars it hit me. This is Max Power. But just housed in the home of the London Symphony Orchestra.
The selection of motors is very cleverly conceived. They all represent a different form of car culture and have been co-created with artists. They are especially reminiscent of the heady times of the Noughts that are very fashionable right now. Y2K aesthetics plaster the screens of many a Gen Z’s TikTok algorithm.
The aforementioned Honda Civic is called The Tokyo Tuner. It’s an ode to JDM culture, complete with mis-matched bumpers and hood, with a missing headlight (although curiously sans intake for that proper wide-boy Supra look). It was put together by Trekkie Trax, a Tokyo-based electronic music collective.
Next up is the Latin Lowrider. It’s a Mk2 VW Caddy (surely a Seat Inca would have been more appropriate?) by New Mexico based N.A.A.F.I (No Ambition and F***-All Interest). It has a wall of speakers in the bed and as the name suggests, has been done out like a low rider. Admittedly no hydraulics had it bouncing up and down but I guess that would have been a health and safety nightmare.
The Bimma (an E39 5 Series) was done by The Large, a boundary pushing dancehall DJ. Ostensibly this has been designed to be a fast-paced pusher of reggaeton on wheels. But as it’s a slightly knackered 530i I can’t help but look past the idea of it being a drift weapon. Shove on a pair of ditchfinders and I’m sure I could set a wicked set of 11s in the car park.
My favourite was The Boy Racer. A true masterpiece that could have made a spread in Max Power in the early 2000s. A boot full of subwoofer, flared wheel arches and slightly-tribal-esque paint detailing. This was pure Halfords x McDonald’s car park special. Most intriguingly this was put together by an artist called Corbin Shaw. He’s a kind of, modern folklorist, a bit like if Beowulf was written today with references to Big John off Instagram.
Each car plays something different. But you could largely categorise the music as rave or drum and bass. What really impressed me was the intermixing between cars and sounds.
Lights come from aftermarket LEDs under the car, the cars’ headlights and further auxiliary ones in the roof of the car park. They all work in sync and are timed along with the music coming out of the different cars. It really is a bit rave-like and it gives that wonderful panning sensation you sometimes get when wearing headphones – when the music has been mixed to sound different in your left and right ear. I even saw people dancing. Cutting shapes in a car park on a Thursday afternoon.
Last year’s Turner Prize winner was a 1984 Ford Escort. Shoreditch clothing shops are brimming with old-school motorsport stuff. And now Europe’s largest art centre has people paying good money to come and see a Honda Civic. Are cars…cool again?
