One Year Montage

Posted on 15/10/2014 by Bobby Seal

One Year is a project I stumbled into just over twelve months ago.  I started wondering about a view I looked at every day, the one from my office window. Would it look the same a year from now and how would it change each day? So I began taking a picture of that view every morning before I started work, the same view every day for a year. This montage is the result. It seems to me that landscape, any landscape, is not so much an objective reality in itself, but a constructed projection of those who observe it. So, sit back and observe one year in six minutes thirty seconds.

This is what I said when I started One Year back in September 2013:

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.

All images, lens reflections, shakes, under-exposures and over-exposures are by Bobby Seal. With grateful thanks to the wonderful Martin Thulin for the use of his musical piece ‘Pictures of Woods’. Why not take a look at his site and maybe try a download or two.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Psychogeographic Review’s Recommendations – October 2014

Posted on 02/10/2014 by Bobby Seal

This past month Psychogeographic Review has been reading:

SteppenwolfHermann Hesse – ‘Steppenwolf’ (1927)

On the surface Harry Haller is a respectable, educated and well-dressed pillar of the community.  But within lurks an alienated savagery: the lone wolf of the Steppes.  Through a series of hallucinatory journeys, which embrace eastern religion and western philosophy, he begins to come to terms with his inner nature and catches sight of the possibility of redemption.  I first read this book as a teenager in the 1970s when it was a totem of the counter-culture.  I feared disappointment when I read it again recently, but I needn’t have worried, it is still a profound and powerful work.  But there is also a dry wit I never managed to appreciate the first time round.

Lud HeatIain Sinclair – ‘Lud Heat: ‘A Book of the Dead Hamlets’ (1975)

‘Lud Heat’ is a short but extraordinarily influential work.  It is the book which first gate-crashed psychogeography into its present place as a vibrant sub-genre of English literature.  In verse and prose Sinclair explores the psychic connections between six of Hawksmoor’s London churches.  Beneath the surface of the city pulse shamanic incantations, given voice by the likes of Blake and Pound.  At the heart of it all lies King Lud, the mythic founder of London.

 

Memory PalaceEdward Hollis – ‘The Memory Palace: A Book of Lost Interiors’ (2014)

In this, Edward Hollis’s follow-up to his Secret Lives of Buildings, he makes an imaginative reconstruction of five famous rooms and one very personal one.  From a collection of remembrances and fragments he recreates Rome’s Palatine, the old Palace of Westminster, the Petit Trianon at Versailles, the sets of the MGM studios in Hollywood and the pavilions of the Crystal Palace.  From deep within himself he also conjures up his own grandmother’s sitting room. This book will make you look afresh at the rooms you presently inhabit, and those that live on in the recesses of your memory.

Meanwhile, we were listening to:

BSDetector1Various – ‘Bullshit Detector: Vol 1’ (1980)

I played this record to death in 1980 and was pleased to discover it again recently.  The people from Crass gathered together a clutch of tracks from a collection of post-punk DIY bands from the less-fashionable parts of the UK.   This is the first of several Bullshit Detector collections they issued in the early 1980s.  The quality of the songs varies, the recordings are without exception pretty rough, but the whole thing crackles with energy.  There are some gems, like Amebix’s ‘University Challenged’ and its spoken intro in a heavy Devonian accent: ‘We are not fascists/We are not nihilists/We are anarchists’. Quite.

a3485274743_2Various – ‘Menai Bridge: Music from Gwynedd 1980-1985’ (2014)

Talking about post-punk collections, this latest issue by Travin is a delight.  I thought I knew all about the North Wales scene of this period, but most of this material is new to me.  Shamefully forgotten bands like Fay Ray and Brenda and the Hot Dicks have all the energy of punk, but with a palpable musical sophistication.  The limited run of C35 cassettes has sold out, but Menai Bridge, in all its glory, is available for download at Travin Systems Records.

 

Something ShinesLaetitia Sadier – ‘Something Shines’ (2014)

This, the third solo album from the former Stereolab singer, is a satisfying concoction of French pop, psychedelic rock and electronica.  It’s hard to pick a stand-out track from the ten excellent cuts, but perhaps the epic Butter Side Up shades it.  In some ways this is one of the year’s best albums,  the only slight disappointment  being that it is so similar in feel to her 2012 release, Silencio.

 

And watching:

Last of England‘The Last of England’ – Derek Jarman (1987)

Derek Jarman’s films begin to make sense when you think of them as visual poetry, rather than as stories with a conventional narrative arc.  The Last of England offers up a series of dramatised vignettes interspersed with snippets of old Super-8 film and found footage.  This is Thatcher’s England in the 1980s; a nation riven by the destruction of its industry and the defeat of its trade unions.  England is dying, her life-force finally sucked dry by the City of London.  While her TV screens glory in the spectacle of war in the South Atlantic and endless Jubilee pageantry, the nation’s streets are dark, grimy and windswept, her people stumbling on without hope.

Pride‘Pride’ – Matthew Warchus (2014)

The plot oversimplifies complex real-life events and the characterisations are lazily shallow.  But, for once, that doesn’t matter; this is a glorious feel-good, dance-to-the-beat movie that celebrates diversity and wears its political colours with… pride.  It’s also got some pretty good 1980s music too.  A group of young lesbian and gay activists from London see echoes of their own struggle in that of the miners when the latter take on the full power of the state in 1984.  They decide to raise money to support a mining community in South Wales.  The film charts how, from initial mutual suspicion, a real understanding, respect and affection grows between the two communities.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

One Year – Week 52

Posted on 19/09/2014 by Bobby Seal

This is the final week of my One Year project.  Those of you who have followed it will be aware it was my intention 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 sat down to work.  I annotated each One Year picture with a note of the weather for that day and the morning’s main news headline from the BBC News site.  In addition, I included a note taking a key sentence or two from my daily journal.

There will be no further One Year entries, but there will be a short film and some follow up pieces to try to make sense of what the project has come to mean to me.

 

12 September 201412th September 2014

Sunny intervals

Pistorius awaits homicide verdict

Sky, rooftops, trees

 

13 September 201413th September 2014

Light cloud

Business row in Scots weekend campaign

What is noticeable about all of these pictures is that they are devoid of the presence of any human beings

14 September 201414th September 2014

Thick cloud

PM condemns hostage’s ‘evil murder’

And yet they are there.  Their impact upon the landscape is manifest

 

15 September 201415th September 2014

Thick cloud

Hammond to discuss plans to tackle IS

And the frame itself is a mere construct, beyond its edges a world vibrates

 

16 September 201416th September 2014

Light cloud

Pro-Union leaders in powers pledge

At first I thought of myself as a mere observer, a recorder, sitting there, cool and detached, choosing not to engage

17 September 201417th September 2014

Sunny intervals

Referendum campaigns make final push

But the gaze is never neutral, it affects the observer and the observed

 

18 September 201418th September 2014

Thick cloud

Voting begins in Scottish referendum

Day by day the effect upon each is multiplied.  Until

 

19 September 201419th September 2014

Thick cloud

Scotland votes ‘No’ to independence

Patrick Keiller, a fellow traveller, looked out of his window and he saw it too: ‘The desire for poetic experience of ordinary, everyday phenomena was central to Surrealism and many other strands of modernism, from Baudelaire or even De Quincey onwards, but it was perhaps most readily achieved through photography and cinematography.’ (The View From the Train)

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

This is what I said in September 2013:

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.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 2 Comments

One Year – Week 51

Posted on 12/09/2014 by Bobby Seal

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.

As we approach Week 52 and the end of the project I increasingly find myself reflecting on the meaning of it.  In particular, this week, I’ve been trying to place One Year in some kind of context by exploring other works of a similar nature.

5 September 20145th September 2014

Light cloud

Hope rises for UK peace deal

‘So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do it every day for a year’ – Cathy Dreyer

 

6 September 20146th September 2014

Light cloud

  • Ukraine ceasefire with rebels holds
  • ‘As of October 5th, 2006, I have been creating one small painting almost every day’ – Carol Marine

7 September 20147th September 2014

Sunny

Scottish referendum ‘neck and neck’

‘Every day I took a different drug or intoxicant and drew myself under the influence’ – Bryan Lewis Saunders

8 September 20148th September 2014

Sunny

Pro-Union figures step up campaign

‘Everyday started on January 11, 2000 and is a work in progress’ – Noah Kalina

 

9 September 20149th September 2014

Sunny

Parties to back more Scotland powers

‘You know how it is. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Time creeps in its petty pace’ – Auggie Wren (Smoke)

10 September 201410th September 2014

Sunny

UK leaders campaigning to save Union

‘Oddly moving to see the sky change / not change’ – Liz Lefroy

 

11 September 201411th September 2014

Sunny

Obama: US to pursue IS in Syria

‘I’ll stop when I’m dead’ – Karl Baden

 

 

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.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

One Year – Week 50

Posted on 05/09/2014 by Bobby Seal

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.

29 August 201429th August 2014

Light rain

Abusers ‘brazenly targeted girls’

Seeing a familiar view from a different direction

 

30 August 201430th August 2014

Sunny intervals

Cameron and Clegg hold terror talks

Most of these conspiracy theories are absolute guff, but I still believe governments massage information on a daily basis in order to mislead public opinion

31 August 201431st August 2014

Sunny intervals

Missing Ashya King found in Spain

So who sets the news agenda?

 

1 September 20141st September 2014

Light cloud

Ashya brother defends arrested parents

Daggers of rain; cold, vindictive

 

2 September 20142nd September 2014

Sunny

IS accused of Iraq ethnic cleansing

Sun glow claws at southern edge

 

3 September 20143rd September 2014

Light cloud

Islamic State ‘beheads US hostage’

And in the fairground, empty rides, music without notes, circling in their funereal geometry

4 September 20144th September 2014

Light cloud

PM and Obama unite in defiance of IS

So when I’m offered a chance to help with a local history/arts project on a subject close to my heart, how can I possibly say ‘No’?

 

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.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Psychogeographic Review’s Recommendations – September 2014

Posted on 03/09/2014 by Bobby Seal

 

This past month Psychogeographic Review has been reading:

American InteriorGruff Rhys – ‘American Interior’ (2014)

American Interior is a book (and also a film and an album) by Gruff Rhys, the creative force behind Super Furry Animals.  The project arose from Rhys’s practice of ‘investigative touring’: combining a standard musical tour with field research.  His book is an imaginative examination of the journeys of the eighteenth-century Welsh adventurer John Evans and his search for the mythical Welsh-speaking tribe of Native Americans who supposedly lived somewhere beyond the Missouri River.  The result is a joyfully whimsical and thought-provoking work.

BlindsightRosemarie Waldrop – ‘Blindsight’ (2004)

“A frame supports what would, on its own, collapse.  Apple trees pilfered from a novel, the firmest possible squeeze of the hand, the same skin in and out.” (Certainties)

Rosemarie Waldrop is a German-American writer and critic who specialises in experimental prose poems and philosophical questioning.  Blindsight is one of her most accomplished collections and refers to the neurological concept of the brain registering far more visual information than we are consciously aware.  Thus, she uses collage effects and unusual structures in her poems to try to expand the reader’s imaginative vision.  The result is a work of profound beauty.

MusicageJoan Retallack – ‘Musicage: Cage Muses on Words, Art, Music’ (1996)

Joan Retallack is an American poet and lifelong friend of the writer, composer and artist, John Cage.  Musicage is the result of a series of interviews she conducted with Cage over a number of years.  Cage talks with candour and wisdom about the fields of music, art and literature and constructs a cohesive worldview; a beacon of opposition to authoritarianism in art and in society in general.

 

 

HovelElizabeth West – ‘Hovel in the Hills’ (1978) and ‘Garden in the Hills’ (1982)

In the 1960s Elizabeth and Alan West gave up their jobs in Bristol and bought a derelict cottage on a plot of land in North Wales.  For the next ten years or so they spent considerable time and energy repairing the cottage and turning their unpromising hillside plot into a garden capable of keeping them self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables.  But the difference between Elizabeth West’s two books and the host of other ‘good life’ titles is that the Wests were early innovators, dropping out of the system before it was considered

fashionable.  They were also a working class couple with no private income and very little in the way of savings, so life was a constant struggle of finding casual work to keep them afloat whilst they lovingly nurtured their garden.  West tells their story with straightforward humour and humanity.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, we were listening to:

Annea LockwoodAnnea Lockwood – ‘Ground of Being’ (2014)

Annea Lockwood is a ground-breaking composer who specialises in working with found sounds.  This collection gathers together works composed between 1996 and 2013 and makes uses of natural sounds, conventional instruments and conceptual experiments such as pianos gradually destroyed by water or fire.

 

Davy and BertDavy Graham & Bert Jansch – ‘Davy & Bert’ (2014)

Two of the giants of the folk guitar, Davy Graham and Bert Jansch, were brought together for a concert in Edinburgh in 2005.  Alas, neither is with us any longer, but this album provides a record of the guitar virtuosity of two very different, but equally innovative, players.

 

 

And watching:

Jimmy‘Jimmy’s Hall’ – Ken Loach (2014)

After being deported from the United States, Jimmy Gralton decides to build a dance hall in 1930s rural Ireland.  In doing so he challenges the power political conservatism and an authoritarian Church has over the people of his native village, but above all else he wants to give people the chance to dance and have fun.

Dawn‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ – Matt Reeves (2014)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is an entertaining Hollywood action film that actually asks important questions about what it means to be human and how we relate to our planet.  The apes are wonderfully realised, but a convincingly unhinged Gary Oldman in a supporting role steals the show.

Honey‘A Taste of Honey’ – Tony Richardson (1961)

Adapted by Richardson and Shelagh Delaney from her play, A Taste of Honey is a gritty slice of early 1960s social realism.   Shelagh Delaney broke new ground by creating working-class characters who were fully-rounded and believable and gave a new voice to women, gay people and others on society’s margins.  Tony Richardson and his cinematographer, Walter Lassally, evoke an industrial Salford that is now long gone.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sanctuary Wood

Posted on 01/09/2014 by Bobby Seal

Sanctuary Wood is the popular name for an uncultivated corner of land nestling in the rolling green Flemish countryside to the south-east of Ypres.  Marked as Hill 62 on Great War British military maps, the name Sanctuary Wood was first used, apparently with no sense of irony, by the British forces defending this section of the Ypres Salient during the first Battle of Ypres in 1914 when they used the flimsy cover of the wood to shelter their wounded and dying men.

What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?

     – Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

     Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Sanctuary Wood 1

When the farmer returned to reclaim his wood in 1918 he found an unearthly landscape of bare, shattered trees and ground covered by flooded trenches and pock-marked with shell holes.  Like most Flemish farmers he gradually returned the bloodied battlefields to cultivated land, ploughing up a fresh crop of human remains and the detritus of war each year for many decades afterwards.  But he left Sanctuary Wood as it was, one man’s makeshift memorial to those who had fallen.  The land, as they say in Flanders, never forgets.

No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells;

     Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

     And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

Sanctuary Wood 2

Sanctuary Wood 3

Sanctuary Wood is nowadays a museum and one of the few places in modern Flanders where one can gain some idea of what the original trench network in the Great War was like; the trenches in which hundreds of thousands of young men from all nations died.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

     Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

Sanctuary Wood 4

Sanctuary Wood 5

     The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Poem: Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen, courtesy of Faber & Faber

Other words and images: Bobby Seal

Posted in Home | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

One Year – Week 49

Posted on 29/08/2014 by Bobby Seal

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.

22 August 201422nd August 2014

Heavy rain

IS militants ‘biggest threat’ to US

The things I write about are those that I remember

 

23 August 201423rd August 2014

Sunny intervals

May pledges anti-extremist measures

The terror of kept objects

 

 

24 August 201424th August 2014

Sunny intervals

Hammond: Foley killing betrays Britain

I set a trap for my conscious mind, and wait around to see what happens

 

25 August 201425th August 2014

Light rain

Film’s Richard Attenborough dies

Integrating the irreconcilable elements

 

26 August 201426th August 2014

Thick cloud

Salmond and Darling in heated debate

Transferring all my lists into one master list: strangely satisfying, though not very productive

27 August 201427th August 2014

Light cloud

Fresh quit call over sex abuse report

The illicit thrill of climbing onto the scaffolding once the builders have gone home

 

28 August 201428th August 2014

Sunny intervals

Wright quits Labour but not PCC role

A word collage of overheard conversations

 

 

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.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

One Year – Week 48

Posted on 21/08/2014 by Bobby Seal

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.

15 August 201415th August 2014

Light cloud

Iraq’s Maliki quits to end deadlock

The redemptive power of fiction

 

16 August 201416th August 2014

Sunny intervals

Yazidi villagers ‘massacred’ in Iraq

The fictional power of redemption

 

17 August 201417th August 2014

Light cloud

PM warns of possible IS threat to UK

Nothing to beat the excitement of a good idea and a new project

 

18 August 201418th August 2014

Heavy rain

Iraq mission ‘could last for months’

Got to finish the other ones first

 

19 August 201419th August 2014

Light rain shower

Fresh unrest in riot-hit US town

It’s all connected

 

20 August 201420th August 2014

Sunny intervals

Militants ‘kill reporter on video’

We followed the river all the way back to the dam

 

21 August 201421st August 2014

Sunny intervals

US military tried to free Foley

I remember that the swearing of the older boys was more imaginative than ours

 

 

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.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

One Year – Week 47

Posted on 15/08/2014 by Bobby Seal

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.

8 August 20148th August 2014

Light cloud

Obama authorises air strikes on Iraq

…and the Reaper finally caught up with all three members of Atomic Rooster’s classic Death Walks Behind You line-up

9 August 20149th August 2014

Sunny

US aid drop follows fresh Iraq raids

Vincent Crane, 14 February 1989, overdose of painkillers

10 August 201410th August 2014

Heavy rain

US in new strikes on Iraq militants

Paul Hammond, 1992, accidental methadone overdose

11 August 201411th August 2014

Sunny intervals

Angry Iraqi PM in show of force

John Du Cann, 21 September 2011, heart attack

 

12 August 201412th August 2014

Sunny intervals

US actor Robin Williams found dead

In the hands of David Markson, this would have meaning; an alchemical creation, a crock of artistic gold

13 August 201413th August 2014

Sunny intervals

US sends more advisers to Iraq

In my hands, it seems more like a crock of pretentious shit

 

14 August 201414th August 2014

Light cloud

Iraq mountain rescue unlikely – US

But they’re shooting our kids

 

 

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.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment