One Year – Week 25

Project Description

One Year is a project through which I intend to construct a daily photographic record of a single view: the view from my study window at around 8.00a.m. each day when I sit down to work.  One Year will annotate each picture with a note of the weather for that morning and the morning’s main news headline from the BBC News site.  In addition, there will be a note taking a key sentence or two from my daily journal.

 

7 March 2014March 7th 2014

Light rain

Obama pushes Putin on Crimea talks

She follows the thought, pulling it up by its roots

 

8 March 2014March 8th 2014

Thick cloud

Malaysia Airlines plane vanishes

Meths drinkers, feral kids, street performers, pie and mash shops

 

9 March 2014March 9th 2014

Sunny

Missing plane ‘may have turned back’

Cohen took his camera out into the streets to record a way of life that was rapidly disappearing

 

10 March 2014March 10th 2014

Sunny

Missing Malaysia jet ‘a mystery’

Those physiotherapists of bricks and mortar, striving to heal old wounds

 

11 March 2014March 11th 2014

Sunny intervals

Malaysia missing plane search widens

Slights upon the character of the landscape

 

 

12 March 2014March 12th 2014

Thick cloud

Labour ‘won’t guarantee EU poll’

She took it all in; the sun and rain belonged to her, her alone

 

13 March 2014March 13th 2014

Thick cloud

Children’s heart surgery unit ‘safe’

Nurturing with murderous love

 

 

Artist Statement

… “natural history” has no actual existence other than through the process of human history, the only part which recaptures this historical totality, like the modern telescope whose sight captures, in time, the retreat of nebulae at the periphery of the universe.

Guy Debord – Society of the Spectacle

The purpose of this project is to explore continuity and change.  Over the course of a year, I will build up a daily visual record of the same view.  Despite my best efforts, though, I will not be able to replicate the ‘same’ view each day: it is subject to changes in the environment, such as the weather or the time the sun rises.  But it is also affected by changes caused by me, the observer.  For instance, my feelings that morning may change the way I hold the camera or, inadvertently, the image may show my breath on the glass from getting too close to the window.

Looking out at the view on this, the first morning of One Year, I see a scene comprising sky, trees and rooftops.  I don’t see much evidence of human activity just yet, but that may come later in the year when the leaf cover begins to thin out.  Being on a flight path, we also see the odd vapour trail or aeroplane light in the sky too.

Some of the changes that will become evident will be pretty obvious, such as the seasons.  Other changes will be more subtle.  My daily notes will give some insight into what is going on inside my head that morning, from my journal entry, and there will also be a record of what is happening in the world in general, from the news headline.

But the ‘view’ I am recording in One Year is not neutral, it is selected and framed by me.  Similarly, my journal extracts are selected from a much larger body of work; it is the ‘insight’ into my thinking that I choose to present.  Even the ‘news headline’ cannot be regarded as neutral, for it is subject to BBC editorial bias.

But there is a third party in the One Year process, one that is outside of my control. That person is you, the reader of this blog, the interested observer of the project.  I want people to bring their own interpretations, views and insights to this project.  All comments received will be reproduced in my weekly project reports.

About Bobby Seal

Freelance writer, poet and psychogeographer
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2 Responses to One Year – Week 25

  1. Simon Lavery says:

    I’ve been enjoying this project – thanks. Interesting to see your mornings were getting brighter, until the cloud and fog in the last two days. Reminds of Auster’s character Auggie Wren in the film ‘Smoke’, who takes a photo on the exact same Brooklyn street corner at the exact same time each morning – for years. This plays an important part in the plot. I like too your mix of world news with more poetic reflections. Keep up the good work!

    • Bobby Seal says:

      Thanks for your very encouraging words, Simon. I have a fascination for projects that try to graft human meaning onto something which is ultimately inexplicable like time.

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