London Orbital

The Hotel presents London Orbital, Bruce Gilbert’s visionary sound work for the 2002 film directed by Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair.

London Orbital is a film about the M25, the circular motorway that surrounds London in its outer edges. Commissioned by Channel 4, the film is loosely based on Iain Sinclair’s book, which saw the author walk the entire length of the Orbital motorway over a two-year period.

Chris Petit took this concept further by electing to drive around the motorway, using nascent digital techniques and CCTV footage to reveal the uncanny atmospherics, beauty and oddly terrifying nature of the endless motorway.

The film deploys the outer-ring motorway as a metaphor for the outer orbits of the mind, driving as an exercise in forward projection, the liminal space of the motorway as a vessel towards a feeling of extreme impersonality. As Petit puts it, “a quest for transcendental boredom”.

The Hotel presents London Orbital as a sound film, with Bruce Gilbert’s rich tapestry of electronics, field recordings and electric guitar edited to create an evocative listening experience.