Tag Archives for guerilla henge

The Guerilla Henging Craze (and the Land of the Frozen Maple Leaf )

photo from this article

Happy solstice to our reader(s)!

Listen. We need to have a talk about, yes, guerilla henging. Everybody’s used to guerilla theatre and, more recently, guerilla crochet. But for years a hidden epidemic of Stonehenge building or henging has been going on without fanfare and without triggering any alarm in the unsuspecting public. Wake up, people!

It took this throw-away article on street art involving city-abandoned planters in (not surprisingly) Toronto (Ontario again!) to stir our thinking. It involves only one guerilla henge, but we know this is just the tip of the iceberg! [Note to Canadians–we used that as a common figure of speech. It is not, we repeat, NOT a cheap Canada/snow and ice joke.] This is not just a few flaky hengers, drifting along at glacial speeds, but a blizzard of henge creation that is crystallising now and is unlikely to melt at any time in the foreseeable future. *wink wink* [blah, blah, blah, Mounties, white bears, ice floes…]

Anyway, after a lengthy hiatus, we have been doing a little searching around the internet for new henges and the results are startling. Everyone is building Stonehenge replicas! We don’t mean stone circles, as we have explained before. That is a completely different category of creation. We’re talking about structures with lintels, meant to mimic Stonehenge itself. They are appearing in unprecedented numbers, from pre-made kits and models to instructions for junior hengers, to the usual alcohol-inspired henges and foodhenges, plus the mysterious henges that appear on lawns and in public places like mushrooms springing into existence overnight.

What is going on with people? The human race has gone into a frenzy of Stonehenge reproduction–those little worms that entered their minds upon seeing pictures of Stonehenge, or the real thing, taking over their wills as if they were wombs, and forcing them to give birth to Stonehenge’s children! There should be a task force on this or something.

But for now there is only Clonehenge. We are the voice crying in the wilderness, warning everyone of the danger of Stonehenge replicas eventually taking over every vacant square inch on the earth’s surface. Alas! We cry out but no one hears us. Our valient warnings fall on deaf ears. Et cetera, et cetera.

What we’re actually saying here, for those who are incapable of reading subtext, is–Day-um, ma peeps, git your asses out there and put henges in all the oddest and most surprising places. This is our time! Flash mobs are going out and guerilla henging is IN! Clonehenge wants YOU.

So once again we wish you happy henging! But please, some of you, be careful on the ice! You know who you are, eh?

P.S.: We forgot that we meant to use the word frightening in this post. Feel free to insert it where you will.

Pinball Henge, North London

Pinball henge

photo by Feòrag NicBhrìde, with permission

Oh, what fun–a bit of guerilla henging with a tantalising hint of a celebrity connection! This is great stuff.

Feòrag, our sender-in, says, “I spotted this interesting construction on the way to the Wenlock Arms the other day. It’s located in a yard at the junction of Wenlock Road and Micawber Street in Hoxton, North London.  Google Maps shows the yard still in use and full of trucks. There are no vehicles in the Street View, but none of the graffiti either, so I think the yard has only fallen out of use recently.” [ Note to U.S. readers: The British use of the word yard has a much more industrial/business-related connotation than it does in the States.]

It is just two trilithons of pinball machines, but its appearance in an abandoned freight yard is intriguing. And our alert hengefinder continues: “Located on the wall is a piece of graffiti featuring a police officer with a ghetto blaster, which looks suspiciously like a Banksy to me – he’s known to be active in the area – though much of the area is tagged ‘RESO’.”

See that bit of wall art at the right of the picture? It does have that Banksy look, doesn’t it? Then cast your mind back to Glastonbury several years ago and Banksy’s masterful Stonehenge replica constructed of of port-a-loos. Could it be that he revisited that concept with this group of  machines? If so, we don’t doubt it has deep inner meaning. Too bad we aren’t deep. We must leave such intellectual discernment to our readers!

As happened with Doorhenge, the guerilla art aspect increases the druid score. We think this is an exciting thing to have pop up among the city streets. May the trend continue. 7 druids, 7½ if it really is Banksy’s! And extra thanks to Feòrag, for taking the time to stop although she was headed for the Wenlock Arms. Now that’s what we call dedication!

Doorhenge: temporary installation

A video for this post: some people from the collaborative production game SFZero came together to create a circle of door trilithons in a public but undisclosed location. Later videos show them dancing a victory dance as a policeman approaches, and then discussing the installation with the sceptical but tolerant copper.

The henge turns out pretty well, and its guerilla art quality  gains it points from me. 7½ druids for this daring performance henge!