© Ricardo Gonçalves

In Memoriam

Peter Saville

In Memoriam is a sculptural extrapolation of the graph which depicts successive pulses from CP1919 (the first pulsar ever discovered) which Saville used for the cover of ‘Unknown Pleasures’, Joy Division 1979. The graph which is a linear illustration of the frequency and symmetry of a time-based event was first modelled in three dimensions by Saville and colleague Bill Holding of Morph in 2002 – the resultant landscape being effectively a sculpture of moments in time itself. The entropic associations which inhabit the history of the work are amplified by this memorial rendering in monumental stone – epitomising what writer Michael Bracewell describes in Saville’s work for Joy Division as “the muniments of a crematorium in deep space”.