Northey Island

I had the good fortune to visit a small island in an estuary recently, somewhere in Essex (for a dear friend's birthday). The memory that particularly stands out is waiting for the tide water to go down, in the pitch black, as if I am standing in the middle of the estuary, while geese chat to each other across the way - their strange noises all around me.

seaweed series

Things In Themselves

Just giving myself a moment of distraction while reading Adorno's Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems. He has it that all concepts initially arise as abstractions from matter, and therefor, concepts refer to the residual material world - the two are tied, and when we conceptualise, conceptualising does not occur at the cost of the material it supersedes (idealism) but is in fact a result of the material. Things, materiality, the natural, particularities and that which changes, are accordingly elevated by this schema, without our schema merely replacing those things' materiality with another set of concepts. The material is left to exist as material, whilst not being relegated to an inferior status in relation to the immutability of concepts.

These images come from a recent trip to HMS Belfast on the river Thames in London. I managed to utterly fail at learning anything about the ship and its life at war, nor much about the lives of the men who lived and worked in it. I did get very excited about the fixtures though and took a lot of photos that I'm excited to work on. In this philosophical dualism of form and content, I wonder at the role of photography. Does the camera impose a form upon the matter? And where is the matter - in the material of objects' physical makeup, or in their relationships to human activity? I like this thought that the concept refers to its material content - it is as if the form of these objects bring with them the memory of the industry and functionality of the warship.

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 III

When I left Newlyn Art Gallery I wondered down to the Harbour. With all my questions buzzing around, I found myself trying to square up the act of framing shots and finding interest and/or satisfaction in creating images, with this problematic of art as politics, art as social activator. Do pretty pictures affirm the status quo? Can I make images that can contribute to a green politics?

Mostly, the images need to lead themselves. I can worry over the larger paradigm that will show itself positively or negatively anyway. The framing I'm always drawn to is the composite of shapes and elements... Struggling to articulate what those composites are attempting to do...

And it is clear to me as I walk down the pier, that it is not any old landscape that makes me want to photograph it. I am drawn to the places where industry provides its clear and decisive objects, where industry and human activity have fallen into a state of disrepair, where the natural is breaking it down.

 

 

 In this way, there is a material, social aspect to the work.

 

 Smells: sea, shell fish, oil, cold. Sounds: gulls crying and wheezing, chugging of small boat motors, cars in the distance, some welding further up the quay, two men chatting as they head on to one of the boats.

Beachy Birds

Just went for a walk along the seafront in Penzance, Cornwall. Saw many Pied Wagtails for the first time,

as well as the Rock Pipit  

and the Turnstone.

All very exciting for me as these birds don't visit London.

Jellyfish

The Horniman houses these creatures. The lack of flash on my camera means that you can't see the neon colouring they exhibit in UV light, but maybe you can imagine what an incredible sight it was.

Looking at animals is always a challenge to imagine life without ego-based consciousness and a more profound challenge to live an ethics of equality that takes life without ego-based consciousness into account. Reading a lot of Freud at the moment. I can't imagine that he ever imagined the different - without being less equal - consciousnesses that might inhabit creatures. But, I guess his work paves the way for us to.

Horniman Aquarium from Horniman Museum on Vimeo.

Just found this video when searching for the link to the Horniman Museum. It shows the jellyfish in all their glory.

Also discovered that there is an exhibition of Venkat Raman Singh Shyam and Rajendra Shyam on currently. I first discovered Gond art via BibliOdyssey: The Night Life of Trees It's wonderful.