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.
February 14th 2014
Light cloud
Stormy weather returns to sodden UK
He starts his walk in Manchester
February 15th 2014
Light cloud
Two people die during fierce storms
He looks. He tells us how he looks, but not what he sees
February 16th 2014
Sunny
Cameron warns of further flooding
As he walks, he composes a letter to his daughter
February 17th 2014
Light rain
Floods to continue as more rain hits
Where do all these thoughts come from? Have they been voiced before?
February 18th 2014
Light cloud
Ministers hold flood insurance talks
Walking as an act of exorcism
February 19th 2014
Sunny
Renewed assault on Ukraine protests
They call it psychogeography. I realise now I have no idea what that term means
February 20th 2014
Light cloud
Kiev truce frays ahead of EU talks
What is the significance of Liverpool? Why make that his destination?
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.
Bobby,
Liverpool is “The Pool of Life”! Enough said…
I had the same thought about ‘psychogeography’ which sent me towards Merlin Coverley’s eponymous 2006 book. He uses Debord’s definition;
“the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviours of individuals”
I take that to mean ‘how space/place/time affect people’ which makes psychogeography a possibility to integrate (make a plethi of) many different disciplines and approaches.
The Harold Sinclair Cross news is discouraging as the Chester Records Office report that there is no other detail on the two sheets of tracing paper that form the archived record other than the shape of the cross. That might depending on the shape allow us to try to find the cross. They can scan both sheets and email them to me but going to see the piece might uncover *something*.
This week’s journal extracts have all been pulled from a story idea I have been kicking around in my head and on the page. It could be a novel, a short story, a poem or even a film script. Actually, a radio play would be ideal – wonderful pictures!
I think a return visit to the churchyard is in order for the Harold Sinclair grave – at least we now know it’s a cross rather than any other kind of stone.