ALEXI K: DISK WORLDS

Here's something a little unexpected. Yesterday, it was Sunday, and I was walking along the middle of the deserted streets in the Digbeth area of Birmingham, heading for an afternoon in the studio. It was an unseasonably sunny day, and from my different perspective - being in the centre of the road, with no parked cars cluttering the view - I noticed the tarmac glittering with shiny dots. I looked closer and realised that I was looking at dozens of metal disks, washers, and off-cuts, scattered haphazardly in different arrangements. Normally, these would be invisible to the naked eye, but with the sun at a low angle, shining directly down the middle of the street, they stood out like miniature constellations. Digbeth is an area that was once busy with engineering firms ( indeed, there are still a few remaining, even in these post-industrial times ), so presumably this is embedded residue from bygone days. I don't have a fancy camera with a macro lens, so I did the best I could with my Exilim EX-Z800. I then turned down the brightness, and upped the contrast in grayscale to bring them into view. There's something otherworldly about the pictures, as if they're predicting various astral alignments. My favourite is the 'Eye of Horus'. You'll know which one I mean.

Author's note: Since these pictures were taken, the street was re-surfaced, so all the examples above have been lost. However, I have noticed a few new ones appear, so maybe they are not residue from a bygone industrial era, after all? We shall see.