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.
April 4th 2014
Light cloud
Storm-damaged rail line reopens
She was the youngest of the three princesses. No more and no less beautiful than her older sisters, but more loveable
April 5th 2014
Light cloud
Afghans vote in historic election
Yes, that was the word, loveable. She inspired love, and her name was Marijeka
April 6th 2014
Light rain shower
Plane search signal ‘important lead’
A narrator so unreliable one might almost say he was treacherous
April 7th 2014
Light rain
Plane search has ‘best lead so far’
Which was during the silver age of American comic books
April 8th 2014
Sunny
Peaches Geldof family ‘beyond pain’
…and he was convinced the lyric was ‘hey you, get off of my car!’
April 9th 2014
Light cloud
Miller quits as culture secretary
A crow was patrolling along the guttering, taking two hops and then stopping to look down at the people below
April 10th 2014
Sunny intervals
Co-op woe as ex-minister quits board
She blew noisily at the cold air to see the vapour of her warm breath form little clouds and then dissipate
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.
A rare digital piece which incites me to slow down, to contemplate rather than accumulate. Thank you …
Bobby and Cathy,
I continue to be intrigued by the sequential nature of your blogs. Both of you create forms of chronology that are sometimes ‘wide’ and sometimes ‘deep’.
I wonder how much each ‘day’ carries forward an imprint or memory of the previous days? What happens when 365 is reached; are significant events summarised or does the seasonal cycle re-cycle?
David
Two very different blogs. But what’s similar, and what makes both projects enjoyable, is that although they start with a very tight formula (‘the same walk 365 times’, ‘the same view every day for a year’) they then see how far they can push against the boundaries of that formula.