“The Lost City of Adelaide II”
James Kenyon
19 Mar → 10 Apr 2010

James Kenyon returns to Melbourne with newly recovered artefacts from the infamous Lost City of Adelaide, shedding new light on the downfall of this once great civilization.

James Kenyon completed his Honours Degree in Fine Arts at the Victorian College of Arts in 2006. He has exhibited at both commercial galleries and ARIs, and is a finalist in this year’s McClelland Sculpture Award. This is his third solo show.

Transcript: The Lost City of Adelaide

For those who don’t know me, let me introduce myself. My name Is James Kenyon. I’m an Archaeologist and sometime huntsman. I’m the head of an Archaeological team that includes Archaeological Sonicologists Michael Armitage and WIGWAM, Cartesian Space Master Mr Jones, technicians Mr. Sam Deal and Mr. Ben Sheppar­d, and adviser James Saunders (who could not be here tonight) and publicist Yorknobbis Nick Boulkus. I welcome you to the latest chapter of the ongoing project; The Lost City of Adelaide Allow me to give a brief introduction…

The Lost City of Adelaide (also known as ‘Perdu A-town’ or Desiderium Radelaidian) was perhaps the greatest civilisation in the history of human kind. It coincidently existed on exactly the same planes as the present day Adelaide. The ruins and rubble left by this enormous megalopolis now form the present day Adelaide Hills.

The Adelaide dig site has been active since 1977, during which time I have discovered various bits and pieces, but nothing approaching this haul you see before you. These artefacts, coupled with the sound we have extracted from the Sound present the greatest insight into the most fascinating society in the history of the world. Or so I thought.

There are those of us who claim to know why Adelaide was lost. What I suspect now though is: there may be no way of ever knowing. With every find we are bamboozled and drawn further into confusion and paradox; every artefact like a white rabbit leading us deeper into a menagerie of ciphers and tricks.

I thought we were piecing it together, and although we never knew whether the artefacts we were recovering were functioning tools or merely symbols, we discovered, or at least were fed, an incredible tale that would explain the downfall of the Lost city of Adelaide. A story of catastrophic destruction caused by one human’s grief, one human racing at supersonic speeds through the almost ornate patterns of freeways and arterials. We recovered the models and symbols of broken freeways, maps, twisted remains of power pylons distorted by the passing of objects at huge velocities, both celebrating and preserving their own decay. The Speedmaster, the fastest human in the land, driven mad by the loss of his wife drove through the city at ever increasing speeds until it was literally destroyed. We had all the evidence. Those of you who attended the last presentation at Utopian Slumps saw my confidence, my foolish pride. I was taken for a mug.

The sound we were able to extract from the Sound-Stratum was a huge break through. We knew there was a good chance we could extract sound from the Sound Stratum, but we were unable to refine it. The best we could do was little more than white noise. It was not until last year however, with the help of sonicologist Michael Armitage that we were able to actually listen to events from the past. It was incredibly exciting. I literally jizzed in my pants. To have proof that every sound ever made, every utterance, every song leaves an imprint of itself on every atom was a glorious thing. We could HEAR the speedmaster racing through the city, the sonic boom! The roads breaking up! But alas…

My joy at this discovery gave way to despair upon hearing new sounds entering the original audio with every listen. It felt as though tricks were being played. Strange melodic sounds started arranging themselves over what were originally just sonic booms and roaring winds. I was confounded by this. I am a man of science, of reason of rigour!

The maps began to contradict themselves in front of my very eyes. Symbols appeared overnight, letters and marks and unknowable disinformation. I present them now as they are, but they’ve been changing and will continue to change in small ways every day. Why, just last night a large red ‘K’ appeared on one of them. A few months ago I noticed a small gold fleck appear on of the maps we’d recovered from the site. Over the next few weeks, more and more marks began to show up. I thought I was going mad. Pieces are breaking of the larger artefacts. Steel drops to the ground in the night.

The tale of the speedmaster seems now an elaborate prank. A hoax played on us by very patient and long dead larrikins of a lost city.

Every one of my notebooks is sprouting gibberish and strange unknowable three-dimensional script, resembling useless engineering. I can’t understand it. I don’t know what it means. All of my academic papers have begun to foddunk. My papens have begunt to become nonsense. My dorrenst in thot and all the riddington has pitsed ontont the page. I speak at conventions and illington barnsworth on the hoorrum- topter wrinkles like a Dam. Am I being Shell-fish? My compunter is infected with gerning-olleryeens The railian fryers of the north frown like draining………………….