ABSTRACT
The landscape over which Big Ben casts its venerable shadow is the epitome of a ‘realm of memory’. This is Pierre Nora’s widely adopted term for ‘any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element in the memorial heritage of any community’. Speculating about possible tomorrows is akin to conjuring up alternate histories of the past. They foster a questioning frame of mind, prompting a reconsideration of the seemingly settled state of things in the present. The ‘casual’ or ‘circumstantial time’ of street politics and high government alike play out amid the ‘calculated’ time of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The angle of the photograph made this Douglas Quaid-like figure appear as large as Big Ben seen in the background. The hands of the clock connect with another surreal touch: a pair of grotesquely oversized shackles that bind the captive’s wrists.
