Neon Poem Project

2005 - 2010 - Neon Rendezvous London

Neon Rendezvous London is an attempt to uncover and reinterpret the hidden poetry scattered across the capital—an illuminated verse woven into the fabric of its countless neon signs. These glowing fragments, often overlooked in the city’s visual noise, form an omnipresent yet obscured luminescent poem, waiting to be revealed.

​

This video poem is composed of carefully selected neon signs drawn from the Neon Word Archive—a collection of words, symbols, and shapes discovered across London’s urban landscape and captured on Super 8mm celluloid. Each sign was filmed between 2005 and 2010, then meticulously catalogued and reconfigured into a poetic sequence that reflects both the essence of the city and the personal experience of moving through it. The process transforms commercial signage—designed to sell, direct, or announce—into something lyrical, evocative, and open to interpretation.

​

At its core, Neon Rendezvous London invites the viewer to engage with neon in an entirely new way, not as mere urban decoration but as a source of poetic expression. The interplay of words, light, and movement reveals an alternative narrative of London, one where the city itself becomes a living poem—shaped by those who traverse its streets.

​

This version of the video poem features 431 neon signs captured on celluloid, each a luminous fragment of London’s nocturnal identity. The project received international recognition, earning a Mention D'Honneur from poet John Giorno at the 2009 Romapoesia Film Festival.

Neon Rendezvous London – A Journey Through Light and Language

​

It began with late-night wanderings—solitary walks through London’s streets, where neon signs hummed and flickered, their glowing words casting silent poetry onto the city’s skin. What started as a fascination soon became an obsession: capturing these fleeting illuminations on Super 8mm film, preserving them before they disappeared into the inevitable erosion of time.

​

Between 2005 and 2010, the collection grew. Words—scattered across shopfronts, bars, cinemas, and old marquees—became artefacts, each one carefully committed to celluloid. When the films were developed, they revealed not just signs, but a hidden language glowing in the night. Every word was recorded, catalogued, and carefully arranged into what would become Neon Rendezvous London—a poem forged from the city’s own luminous vocabulary.

​

But poetry should not live only on the page or the screen. It should be spoken, felt, heard. And so, Neon Rendezvous London took on another life—a live performance where words, visuals, and sound collided. The poem was read aloud, accompanied by projected neon sequences and sonic landscapes that deepened its resonance. These performances unfolded in spaces as varied as the work itself: in underground vaults, at international festivals, in darkened galleries where the glow of neon was the only light.

At BRANCHAGE, the Jersey International Film Festival, the poem met the sea, its reflections shimmering in the Channel Island night. In Lviv, Ukraine, it found a new rhythm at the WIZ-ART Film Festival, resonating beyond the English language.

 

 In Berlin’s Raumerweiterungshalle, the poem found a new setting—a raw, self-organized space dedicated to non-commercial projects and artistic expression. The Raumerweiterungshalle (spatial-extension-container), part of the non-profit association Selbstuniversität e.V., provided an open, experimental environment where words and images could take on new meanings. Within this shifting, repurposed space, Neon Rendezvous London became part of a broader dialogue, its neon-lit fragments weaving into the fabric of a city that has long thrived on reinvention.

 

Back in London, beneath the vaulted arches of THE SHUNT VAULT, it became something else entirely—a fusion of spoken word, experimental sound, and film, shifting with the atmosphere of the night.

Meanwhile, the film version of Neon Rendezvous London took its own journey. Screened at festivals from Rome to Cambridge, London to the Isle of Wight, it found recognition, earning a Mention D’Honneur from poet John Giorno at the ROMAPOESIA Poetry Film Festival. The moving image, once a personal experiment, was now a piece of London’s story, a testament to the poetry that exists in the everyday, waiting only to be seen.

Exhibitions followed. At LE COOL, Schadenfreuding, London, the neon fragments were transformed into something static yet still electric. In Berlin’s YOU ARE A STAR, photography and video captured the project’s essence in frozen frames. And in Lights of Soho Gallery, the exhibition Lights That Say What You Want Them To Say brought together artists who, like me, saw neon not just as signage, but as something more—messages glowing in the dark, shaping the way we move through a city. 

Through these screenings, performances, and exhibitions, Neon Rendezvous London became more than just a project. It became a conversation between city and artist, between light and language, between fleeting moments and the act of preserving them. The poem was always there, written in neon, waiting to be read.

​

 

Neon Rendezvous London – Video Performance at Lights of Soho Gallery

On October 27th, 2015, as part of the group exhibition Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say, curated by artist and poet Robert Montgomery, Neon Rendezvous London was brought to life in a special live reading at the Lights of Soho Gallery. Invited by the gallery team, I performed a reading of the poem, followed by a Q&A session hosted by Hamish Jenkinson, offering insights into the project’s origins and creative process.

This video serves as a document of that evening—a moment where words, light, and film converged in a space dedicated to the language of illumination. Neon Rendezvous London, a looped video poem projection on display throughout the exhibition, transforms fragments of neon signage into a poetic meditation on the city.

At its core, Neon Rendezvous London is an attempt to distill a personal poetic interpretation from the hidden, ever-present verses glowing across London’s neon-lit streets. The work draws from the Neon Word Archive—a collection of words, symbols, and shapes captured on Super 8mm celluloid between 2005 and 2010. These signs, reconfigured into new poetic sequences, reflect both the capital’s energy and the transient experience of moving through it.

The intent of this video performance, like the piece itself, is to offer an alternative perspective on the city’s neon language—one that invites the audience to engage with the interplay of words, light, and memory, revealing the poetry that has always been there, waiting to be seen.

 

 

 

Neon Rendezvous London – First Live Reading at Schadenfreuding, London (2008)

In 2008, Neon Rendezvous London had its first live reading as part of Schadenfreuding, a group art exhibition held in the crypt of St. Giles Church, Camberwell—a setting rich with history and atmosphere, where shadows and flickering light created an intimate, almost spectral environment for the performance.

This reading was one of the only times the poem was performed in conjunction with its original Super 8mm film, projected using two looping Super 8mm projectors, casting overlapping reels of neon-lit words onto the crypt’s stone walls. The poem itself was still evolving, existing in a raw, exploratory form. Parts of the reading were improvised—random words from the Neon Word Archive spoken aloud in search of poetic rhythm, unexpected connections, and new meaning emerging in real time.

The performance at Schadenfreuding was both an experiment and a discovery, marking the first step in what would become a long journey of transforming London’s neon fragments into a living, breathing poem.