London and its Deep Topography

This is the only excerpt I could find of 'London' by Patrick Keiller (1992) on youtube. I didn't want to focus on the political element of the film, but as I said, it's the only bit I could find. The film is WONDERFUL and well well worth a watch for it's ideas, beautiful shots, interesting composition... A narrative is spoken by Paul Scofield of his journey through London with Robinson, his companion who is conducting some sort of research into the city and whereupon is able to cite historical and literary and other art related snippets in - what could be called - a 'deep topographical' manner.

It's funny that I've ended up with the most political part of the film. After watching it I realised that my co-viewer wasn't very impressed by this overtly leftwing rant. Perhaps I was trying to justify the politics within the 'art' of the film, but it felt to me that the pessimism à la 1992 Tory victory was merely a further reference to the Frankfurt school as Walter Benjamin seems to be only just about acknowledged source of much of the idea content of the film. I appreciate the presence of the political, but do suspect that 'the political' is necessarily transformed somehow by being relegated to the status of a device within the wider artness of the film. Or is it.

This is from the sequel 'Robinson In Space':

Loved this one too, and feel I should say that it is less political - is it? More focus on structures - big, industrial structures in the landscape.

And to finish, I'm listening to Ventures and Adventures in Topography which is where I get 'deep topography' from. They also are on to Patrick Keiller and Walter Benjamin (episode 1). Thanks to Some Landscapes for the pointer.

Cornish Landscape V

This will be the last installment of posts from my trip to Cornwall in December. I welcome the distance that a bit of time passing grants me when selecting images - I felt in December after taking the photos the immediate rush of quantity and possibility, now I'm more -er- discerning.

The first two images continue a formal interest of mine - using the photograph's rectangle shape to draw in different elements around a central composite of accidental things. That sounds a bit abstract, what I mean is the hope that the object(s) of the photograph are photographed in a way that their interrelatedness with the things around them and their setting are apparent - empirically and aesthetically.

I have spoken as clumsily about related thinking in writing form here, and the lower of these images is a favourite of mine that I think is the most obvious example of this aggregation thinking.

I'm not sure yet if I'm succeeding at an aggregation, conglomeration thing... These two images (above) do have a centralising orientation where the different bits are already organised around each other, but what is interesting to me is the accidental nature of this conglomeration - the bits of rubbish sit within their own damp halo or frame, an emphasis that I hope questions their status as things, raising it perhaps. Other images of mine that are dealing with these issues are more constructed (and on an aside, I see that 'construction' has nearly risen to the top of my tags tower on the right - interesting...).

The bottom two are just views from Cornwall. After tinkering with images from Egypt it is apparent how grey Cornwall is! UK winter is dark compared to the golden bright light of Egyptian winter.

Congratulations to Egypt - what an inspiration you are!

In this amazing moment that Egypt has created for all of us, I'll slip in some more photos from Egypt, winter 2008/9.

Alexandria

 

(The Mediterranean)

Abu Simbel

 

Aswan

Luxor

The Nile

Cornish Landscape IV

I've been meaning to continue this small project I set myself in December, to blog a series on my thoughts and experiences of (the) Cornish landscape after a trip I made there. I've had the following post in mind for over a month, and inevitably it has now changed as what seems interesting to me enough to post has changed with the subsequent delay.

The previous posts were made with the landscape still very much fresh in mind. I had been grappling with different ideas of what contemporary landscape is, and how different places present it as art. The Peter Lanyon retrospective at Tate St. Ives was fantastic and felt by far the most stimulating to me personally, out of all the art I saw there.

I'll just put down the notes that I took at the time as I think trying to render it a smooth essay would fail to retain the freshness of my response at the time.

Constructionist? Of landscape - of perceptions of landscape? History of construction. 
"impurities" -> localisation
reference
development
breakthrough
abstraction


How to integrate references (D. Dalwood)
Thought shapes - Ben Nicholson - psychology of perception


Danger and potential of abstraction


"to create complex weathered surfaces." Wall text 1952-1955
          experience of moving through a landscape - phenomenological.


Mine as the social world, sociality, monuments
"shame" in/on the landscape
Social markers within the paintings


A [symbol]? gesture/abstracted can share meanings.
The social - death, loss, shares meaning with wind, waves.
J. of anger too.


Linking the ancient throughout.
Boundaries between painting, collage and construction.
Red signs like map route-ing on top.
Integrating objects - hosepipe.
Modern materials - melted polystyrene.

It's funny putting it in italics - such an old device to indicate a different voice, a handwritten personal voice. Anyway it's appropriate here, and helps to mark the passing of time.

Looking at the notes, I see my interest in integrating a practice of art with sociality - the lives of people, their experiences, and where that crosses into a politics and practice towards flourishing lives. Lanyon painted with these issues in mind. His use of abstraction wasn't allowed to become divorced from the landscape - the abstraction was materialist, and within that landscape he directly invoked the lives of the people who inhabited and sculpted it - most obviously by painting the old tin mines of Cornwall. The black mark of this scar on the landscape was said by Lanyon to retain some of the shame of the horrors of the tin mining industry and the lives lost underground and undersea.

I don't know if painting can be said to affect sociality but it lends itself well to a kind of tacit exploration of that experience.

 

(Apologies for the poor quality, I lifted the image from the internet. Source: the arts desk)

In Solidarity With Egypt

These photos are from my two months in Egypt over the winter of 2008-2009. My heart goes out to this beautiful country.