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Storm Thorgerson comments on LZ's Presence Object


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Last month, Matt from Brain Damage - Pink Floyd News Resource, interviewed Storm Thorgerson, of the British art design group Hipgnosis, about his career and work. Although, a majority of the conversation was about artwork for Pink Floyd, Thorgerson said the following on The Object from Led Zeppelin's 1976 album, Presence.

..... a similar story was for Led Zeppelin's Presence, one of my favourite pieces, I have to say, mostly as I was so surprised that they ever took it. I mean, it's kind of like a piece of kitsch, but not. Anyway, the black object as it became to be know, was painted on the side of a hollow pillar, in black, so if you tapped it, you'd get a response. Underneath it, I cut a hole, the same shape, in the hollow pillar, it was also black because there was no light in the pillar.

I was doing this Q&A in Japan, in a different city this time, and my interpreter said there's a man here who's been a fan of Zeppelin for twenty-five years, and is desperate for you to talk about Presence, so I did.

So I told him all about Presence, and about what the object meant, and that it was in every walk of life, and I tapped the black thingie, and he nodded his head, and then I put my hand through the hole, and he fell over. It was extraordinary! He was so shocked. And he wouldn't let me put his hand through the hole. He would not let me. His friends were laughing all over the place, and they kept saying to him "Put your hand through the hole". But he would not. Because it was twenty five years of an illusion that he'd just realised was a trick on him too. Because you see it is not an object, it has no moulding, it has no shadow, it's just a funny shaped hole.

So Zeppelin don't have to be there, any more than the hole is. Which is why Zeppelin called it Presence, because they don't have to be there. Robert Plant says that Presence was "one of the best bits of synchronicity between sound and picture." I didn't know he thought that.

Alva Museum Graphics in New York was contracted to produce 1000 individually numbered 12" tall black "Objects" for Swan Song to use in their promotion of the record. This is the only way and the only time "The Object" was ever released by Swan Song/Atlantic Records. On each side at the base of "The Object" is the following, LED ZEPPELIN, "THE OBJECT" c 1976 SWAN SONG INC, PRESENCE, _#_/1000.

Pretty interesting.

http://www.led-zeppelin.org/joomla/current-news/1656-storm-thorgerson-comments-on-lzs-presence-object

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Thanks for posting.

BTW, how does one cut and paste an article of this length? Since the most recent upgrade, anytime I've tried to cut and paste anything, it will only allow me to paste one sentence at a time. I usually just try to post a link but in some incidences I'd like to post the entire article, particularly if it's relatively short (as this one is).

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Thanks for posting.

BTW, how does one cut and paste an article of this length? Since the most recent upgrade, anytime I've tried to cut and paste anything, it will only allow me to paste one sentence at a time. I usually just try to post a link but in some incidences I'd like to post the entire article, particularly if it's relatively short (as this one is).

I have never encountered that problem I just do the simple copy and paste of the whole article

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Nah it can't be, so am I. Try highlighting all the text and the clicking and dragging it into a new post in the next tab

Must be another issue. Thanks for the hint on how to cut and paste but I already know how to do that. That's said with all due respect by the way.

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I´ve had that problem but it´s not a browser issue.

The problem is: the text you want to paste comes formatted with html tags and the system does not ¨like¨ those tags, so the text flow is interrupted (cut).

Try pasting the text onto a notepad, then copy-paste from the notepad to the forum. By pasting on a notepad you automatically eliminate programming tags.

I´m using Mac and I have two pasting options: 1)paste and 2)paste without format, clicking on the second choice also works.

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Last month, Matt from Brain Damage - Pink Floyd News Resource, interviewed Storm Thorgerson, of the British art design group Hipgnosis, about his career and work. Although, a majority of the conversation was about artwork for Pink Floyd, Thorgerson said the following on The Object from Led Zeppelin's 1976 album, Presence.

..... a similar story was for Led Zeppelin's Presence, one of my favourite pieces, I have to say, mostly as I was so surprised that they ever took it. I mean, it's kind of like a piece of kitsch, but not. Anyway, the black object as it became to be know, was painted on the side of a hollow pillar, in black, so if you tapped it, you'd get a response. Underneath it, I cut a hole, the same shape, in the hollow pillar, it was also black because there was no light in the pillar.

I was doing this Q&A in Japan, in a different city this time, and my interpreter said there's a man here who's been a fan of Zeppelin for twenty-five years, and is desperate for you to talk about Presence, so I did.

So I told him all about Presence, and about what the object meant, and that it was in every walk of life, and I tapped the black thingie, and he nodded his head, and then I put my hand through the hole, and he fell over. It was extraordinary! He was so shocked. And he wouldn't let me put his hand through the hole. He would not let me. His friends were laughing all over the place, and they kept saying to him "Put your hand through the hole". But he would not. Because it was twenty five years of an illusion that he'd just realised was a trick on him too. Because you see it is not an object, it has no moulding, it has no shadow, it's just a funny shaped hole.

So Zeppelin don't have to be there, any more than the hole is. Which is why Zeppelin called it Presence, because they don't have to be there. Robert Plant says that Presence was "one of the best bits of synchronicity between sound and picture." I didn't know he thought that.

Alva Museum Graphics in New York was contracted to produce 1000 individually numbered 12" tall black "Objects" for Swan Song to use in their promotion of the record. This is the only way and the only time "The Object" was ever released by Swan Song/Atlantic Records. On each side at the base of "The Object" is the following, LED ZEPPELIN, "THE OBJECT" c 1976 SWAN SONG INC, PRESENCE, _#_/1000.

Pretty interesting.

http://www.led-zeppe...presence-object

at the risk of sounding totally stupid ...... can someone explain what the hell he is talking about? i don't get it.....

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I´ve had that problem but it´s not a browser issue.

The problem is: the text you want to paste comes formatted with html tags and the system does not ¨like¨ those tags, so the text flow is interrupted (cut).

Try pasting the text onto a notepad, then copy-paste from the notepad to the forum. By pasting on a notepad you automatically eliminate programming tags.

I´m using Mac and I have two pasting options: 1)paste and 2)paste without format, clicking on the second choice also works.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot but the difference occurred as of the most recent upgrade to the board.

at the risk of sounding totally stupid ...... can someone explain what the hell he is talking about? i don't get it.....

If you're referring to the discussion of The Object™ itself, it sounds like most people are under the impression that it's solid, when in fact, it's hollow. That's the impression I got anyway. Never knew it was so large that one could put their hand inside of it though.

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at the risk of sounding totally stupid ...... can someone explain what the hell he is talking about? i don't get it.....

at the risk of sounding totally stupid ...... can someone explain what the hell he is talking about? i don't get it.....

The obelisk in the front cover of Presence is just a hole

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What he's saying is that on the original photos on the cover of presence the object shape is just a cutout - so you can put your hand through it.

So it's more of an absence than a presence.

This could all get very philosophical from hereon in.....

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I´ve had that problem but it´s not a browser issue.

The problem is: the text you want to paste comes formatted with html tags and the system does not ¨like¨ those tags, so the text flow is interrupted (cut).

Try pasting the text onto a notepad, then copy-paste from the notepad to the forum. By pasting on a notepad you automatically eliminate programming tags.

I´m using Mac and I have two pasting options: 1)paste and 2)paste without format, clicking on the second choice also works.

^ this

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