filippa's blog about audience and fine art

pdf file for email

2011-08-18T13:29:00.000+01:00

I have spent all morning trying to compress a Word file for email. It is my dissertation file which I want to enter into a competition. The file with images was 59 MB. Email only allows 15MB from ntlworld.com. Firstly I saved as a .pdf file which was 49.1 MB. Then I compressed the .pdf which became a zip file but was still 49.1MB. How come? Then I laboriously cut out all the images and pasted them into a separate word file whilst maintaining the pagination in the original document. But hey ho the images file became 57.3MB even bigger than the original complete document. Only by trolling through Mac and Word user forums etc did I find that on a PC right clicking pictures brings up the format picture compress option which is not available on a Mac. I can save the complete original file as a .pdf file then open the .pdf file in Preview and save as format PDF and in the Quartz filter box click reduce file size. Hey presto 48KB!!!! I am posting here because I would never remember how to do this another time.

With Landscape in Mind

2011-05-21T19:35:00.000+01:00

Joe Cornish Landscape Photographer showed his film 'With Landscape in Mind' a feature length documentary from Light and Land produced by Environment Films at Hyde Park Cinema Leeds on Friday 20th May 2011.Born in Exeter the artist has an affinity with North Yorkshire and Scotland. I asked him to explain his connectedness to these landscapes and his references to limestone pavement being 'like bones' and a hawthorn tree rooted in the pavement as being 'muscular'. He though mine a wonderful question. Without anthropomorphising he recognised the planting of the body within these landscapes and agreed with my allusion to early humankind. He also referred to the bones of animals in caves at Malham Cove and Gordale Scar from the inter-glacial period when human beings had receded from England and Scotland. His is a human response to land and arguably an ancient one. The film was shown as part of the UK Green Film Festival 2011.

2011-05-21T18:05:00.000+01:00

Journey to Stonehenge (Durrington Walls Henge) A Time Team Special 19/05/11 at 10 pm first shown 2009 1

2011-05-19T19:54:00.000+01:00

This programme is the followup to the Time Team Special 'Durrigton Walls' first screened 28th Novemebr 2005 Britain's biggest henge built about 4500 years ago in the Neolithic era. In 2003, as a prelude to the recent excavations, English Heritage carried out a magnetometry survey, which identified two new entrances to the henge. Over the next two years, excavations were carried out outside the henge and in one large segment cutting across the bank and ditch.

The area outside the east entrance was found to contain a series of Neolithic pits, large quantities of animal bones, pottery and worked flints, including arrowheads. There were also traces of hearths, again suggesting feasting. Study of the bones found on the site, as well as of the fat residues found on pottery, showed that a large proportion came from pigs, as well as a smaller quantity from cattle. Examination of pig teeth finds showed that they belonged to animals that were about nine months old when they were killed suggesting that this took place in midwinter. The teeth were also found to suffer from caries, or decay, leading to speculation that they had been deliberately fed honey to sweeten their meat.

Other finds on the site included flint representations of male and female sexual organs, a fragment of a carved chalk plaque and evidence of Neolithic domestic buildings. Most exciting of all for the archaeologists, they also found a massive Neolithic roadway – the first of its kind in Europe – made of compacted chalk and leading down to the river Avon from the henge entrance.

Linking the living and the dead
This led Professor Mike Parker Pearson Sheffield University to claim a definite link between Durrington Walls and Stonehenge, which also had The Avenue leading down to the river. His Stonehenge Riverside Project Fieldwork in 2008 drew on his experience of archaeological work in Madagascar, he has put forward the idea that the two sites were interlinked and in use at the same time. He believes the wooden structures at Durrington Walls, temporary and subject to decay, were representative of the land of the living, while the stones at Stonehenge, permanent and unchanging, represented the world of the ancestors. The two were linked by ceremonial routes – the roadway at Durrington Walls and The Avenue at Stonehenge, joined by the river Avon – along which the remains of the living would make a literal and metaphorical journey to the land of the dead. Included further reading. English Heritage does an interactive map.

Sheep poo paper

2011-05-15T18:08:00.001+01:00

I have been thinking about how to use sheep poo. It may be possible to make my own sheep poo paper. However this site in Wales does the 'dirty' job of making paper. However the largest size is 450 x 640mm that is between A1 and A2 size 300 grams weight. I have been screen printing templates of one aspect of the badger stone. The template is roughly A2 size so this paper not big enough. The company Creative Paper Wales will make custom size paper for a price. Perhaps this is too Chris Ofili who used elephant dung to punctuate his canvases and as a support to his paintings

Sexing the Stone

2011-05-05T11:37:00.001+01:00

Sexing the Stone (2011) forms part of a larger body of work BARREN (Yeld): Spectral Traces of Ain, which
is part of my PhD Proposal to Bath Spa University about Postcolonialism, Landscape and Identity (Yeld is Scots
for Barren). I am performing a series of curated art walks and drawing performances on Ilkley Moor where there
is a large number of Neolithic/Bronze Age carved rocks that sign theoretical/imaginary prehistoric tracks and
trails of a Nomadic people. The largely masculine archaeological record is mediated as ‘Rock Art’ and no
mention is made of the sexual significance of the marks. The rocks belong to everyone but the landowners,
English Heritage, Bradford Metropolitan Council and the Archaeological community claim ‘ownership’. Many of
the rocks have been placed behind Victorian railings as a mark of ownership and (possibly) prudery. My
interpretation is gendered and transgressive. As a woman artist I am reclaiming the marks and the territory as a
feminine space. The rocks are neither male nor female, hetero or homosexual. They are both. They are sexual
signifiers in the landscape. I am drawing on the rocks as a transgressive act. I do not have permission or official
sanction. I draw with eco charcoal and water, making impermanent environmentally conscious post-landscape
installation art. It is possible that the rocks were originally coloured. Further drawing experiments will be made
with ochre, chalk and various clays and earth and I will film a performance. I see the lines in the landscape as
essentially matriarchal and I am reclaiming the land for my Traveler forebears. Travelers pass down inheritance
through the female line and were nomadic until forced onto permanent sites.

Homo Sacer

2011-04-26T13:40:00.000+01:00

Homo Sacer

Walking the sacred tracks on Ilkey Moor
We remember the man my dad
Homo Sacer or ‘sacred man’
A man who can die and not be sacrificed
But be remembered
In ancient ritual and shared memories.
He passed these very rocks
Not once but many times
With Harry, with mum and with me.
Here was our ‘picnic spot’
And here the stream
Where I wrote long letters
To Jane and Joanna and Elaine
About boys and hope and no regrets.
And there high on the ridge
Mum said we were on top of the world
And we’d come back for bilberries.
Today a lark sings high overhead
Whilst the shadow of a man stripped bare
Slips down the hillside
And out of sight
In blackness glimpsed
In clints and grykes.
With these bare arms I lay you to rest
A life’s end and a life’s beginning
Bare Life Bios Zoë
And the curlew cries Amen.

A Pagan poem in memory of my Father Kenneth Bingham Dobson 22/01/22 – 03/04/11 a lifelong self educator who read Latin and Greek as well as German with a smattering of Russian. As a young Communist sympathizer he raised a glass with Harry to ‘the end of Civilization as we know it’ He endured World War II and lived to tell a different tale. The poem is dedicated to my neice Zoë Miranda Hutchison
Filippa Jane Dobson
Easter Monday 26/04/11 and Saturday 7/05/11

The Badger Stone

2011-04-23T11:24:00.000+01:00

Drawing the Badger Stone

2011-04-23T10:57:00.000+01:00

Thornborough Henge

2011-04-09T20:08:00.001+01:00

I visited the Thornborough Henge complex in April 2011. n 1994 a five-year research project was established to address two fundamental problems with interpreting the Thornborough complex. The first of these concernes the chronology of the three henges and other nearby monuments. There was no artefactual evidence or radiocarbon dates for these sites, and a targeted programme of excavation was initiated to establish a sequence for the complex. It was particularly important to explore any sites that may have existed prior to the construction of the henges, and address whether the latter were the product of a single phase of building or of more intermittent development. There was excavation at a small oval enclosure, a double pit alignment and the southern and central henges. The second major problem concerns the lack of evidence for contemporary settlement in and around the complex. Research undertaken in southern England, and in particular across the Wessex chalkland, suggests that Neolithic activity was often highly structured in the vicinity of monument concentrations. It was therefore decided to undertake a programme of intensive surface collection across the extensively ploughed Thornborough landscape. About 170ha were fieldwalked across a 4km by 3km study area. Although this project was part funded by English Heritage little has been made public. Certainly the feelings expressed by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society was that English Heritage did not stand up to the interests of the Tarmac Aggregate Quarry. North Yorkshire County Council has persistently granted Tarmac permission to quarry within the ritual landscape of the Thornborough Henges. In 2005 Timewatch, Heritage Action and Friends of Thornborough Henge handed the Council a petition with 10,000 signatures with the following text To: UK. Government, North Yorkshire County Council, Tarmac.

It has come to my attention that the quarrying activities at
Thornborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom are destroying
archaeological remains related to the internationally important henge
complex on Thornborough Moor.

It is my wish that all quarrying in the vicinity of the Thornborough
Henges should be stopped and that the areas surrounding these
monuments be protected against future quarrying or other activities
that may cause any archaeological remains to suffer damage.

It is my wish that the area surrounding the Thornborough henges, to a
radius of one mile from each of the henges and cursus should be
recognised as part of a historic landscape and protected against
further damage.

Sincerely

The undersigned

BARREN (Yeld) Spectral Traces of Ain

2011-04-02T19:32:00.000+01:00

Title of Proposed Research: BARREN (YELD): (Spectral) Traces of Ain
Subtitle: Landscape, Postcolonialism and Identity
A Practice-led Inter-Disciplinary Contemporary Fine Art PhD

Foreword: Two poems, one English, one Scottish signifying BARREN or Yeld in Scots

April is the cruelest month, breeding 
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain.  
Winter kept us warm, covering  
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding  
A little life with dried tubers.

From Eliot (1922) ‘1. The Burial of the Dead’ The Wasteland

The Gaelic for whisky means water of life.
The Navaho have several words:
one is todilhil, water of darkness
The Firth of Thames is Caribbean blue.
Darkness moves the current under bright creole.

The trace in your voice is slanting light
That comes from a long spent star. You can’t recall

Its name but it informs us. Stop the car by Whalebone Stream,
Breathe salt air and listen to the tide, stretching.

From Riach (2001) ‘Traces of Ain’ Clearances

Outline the research you propose to undertake, specifying the aim, scope and approach.
1. Aim:
Aim

The aim of the Practice-led Inter-Disciplinary Contemporary Fine Art PhD BARREN: Spectral Traces of Ain; Landscape, Postcolonialism and Identity is to adopt postcolonialism as a strategy to interrogate a national and regional landscape in Scotland and Yorkshire creating new ‘post landscape’ artworks. Postcolonialism as a strategy is a methodology adopted by writers interrogating literature that often predates the period of decolonization. Where Pollock (1996) uses feminism as a strategy for examining 19th Century English novels, McLeod (Interview 2009) employs postcolonialism as a strategy for reading text. Postcolonialism and Postcolonial Feminism will be employed in the M Phil/PhD as a methodology for ‘reading’ contemporary landscape. Identity can be problematized as absence, loss and the spaces of history played out upon the stage of the landscape. Psychogeography and psychoanalysis theory, Semiotics and Discourse analysis will be employed as a means of digging deeper and unearthing the signs for the body and disembodiment.

There are two possible meanings of postcolonial in relation to Scotland. The first interpretation is territorial. It can be argued (Dobson 2010) that Scotland is peculiar in relation to other postcolonial nations in that Scotland has never been decolonized. The second meaning relates to an attitude’ of ‘resistance’ Riach and Moffat (2008). McLeod interviewed by Dobson (2009) developed the argument that there might be two conflicting views of postcolonialism: one that describes only decolonized nations or territories and specifically excludes Scotland and one that might include Scotland whereby postcolonialism can be described as an attitude.

This attitude is explained by Moffat and Riach (2008) in their book Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland, when they define:

arts (1) any imaginative or creative narrative, or non scientific branch of knowledge e.g. literature, history, fine art, music; (2) ingenious abilities or schemes
resistance (1) standing firm, refusing to submit; (2) a covert organization fighting for national liberty in a country under enemy occupation [my italics] Moffat, A. and Riach, A. (2008 p168)

It will be argued that both meanings signify the landscapes of Scotland and Yorkshire and point to universal global processes of colonisation, decolonisation and postcolonisation. In discussion with Keith Boughey, Independent Archaeologist he emphasises that establishing prehistoric migration routes depends on the archaeological evidence. He asserts that ‘cup and ring’ or ‘Galician’ rock art is thought to have begun:

outside the UK altogether, possibly in the W Mediterranean, further S in Galicia in NW Spain and in N. Portugal, spreading gradually northwards through Brittany and into S and E Ireland, before crossing the Irish Sea into Man and Argyll, from where it diffused throughout Scotland going N as far as the Orkneys, and S as far as Yorkshire.

McLeod (2000) emphasises the settlement of land as one of the key processes of postcolonialism and further unpacks those processes as of colonialism, imperialism, empire, globalization and decolonization:

‘Colonialism’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘imperialism’, but in truth the terms mean different things…Colonialism …specifically concerns the settlement of one group of people in a new location. (McLeod, 2000, p7)

The PhD will push the boundaries further and consider the traces left by migrating people in two distinct but related archaeological sites in Kilmartin, Argyllshire and Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire. (May be extended to include the Orkney/Shetland Isles) . By considering Neolithic/Bronze Age tracks and trails and the cup and ring marks new post landscape or imaginary landscape artwork will be created. The scope of the PhD may be extended to consider the Bronze Age burial mounds and cist graves where cup and ring marks were ‘hidden’ and also the pottery of the Beaker people (essentially some of the first potters).

The Practice-led Inter-Disciplinary Contemporary Fine Art PhD BARREN (Yeld) Spectral Traces of Ain Contemporary Inter-Disciplinary Fine Art will seek to answer the following questions:

1. How does Trauma manifest itself in the landscape- where landscape specifically refers to what is now Scotland and Yorkshire?
How does the presence or absence of the body/ies articulate that trauma with reference to the theories of postcolonialism? How does sex signify in the landscape?

2. How is Identity navigated within closed (contained) and open spaces? What do the linear ‘cup and ring marks’ of the first people (our Neolithic ancestors) signify and why do they resonate with contemporary humans particularly women? What do they represent to our collective imaginaries/imagination?

3. How do we interrogate lines and more specifically the feminine lines?
Do the patterns inherent in cup and ring marks, hill forts, enclosures and burial mounds represent matriarchal lineage and matriarchal pathways?

4. What is the meeting place of the artwork with literature and science? How does the archaeological evidence inter-play? How is the Time-Line to be interrogated? What are the connotations of Memory? How do personal and historical narratives intertwine?

5. What is the role of politics and cultural resistance to a postcolonial reading of Neolithic art? Is there a gendered resistance? Where there is no record except the marks made in the landscape can those marks signify a gendered resistance and a gendered mapping? Were the upland pathways and sea routes unboundaried? Are Landscapes ‘undisciplined’? Can stone carving and inscription be truly described as Rock ‘Art’?

6. What are the power relations inherent in making Contemporary Fine Art in response to Neolithic/Bronze Age Rock Art? Can there be a gendered resistance and a gendered mapping? Can site-specific Fine Art be made in those same places? How? What? Who are the postcolonial ‘Others’ in the landscape? How can Images of these Others be made? What would their voices sound like?

7. What is the connection between contemporary walking practices and Neolithic/bronze age track ways ? How does walking as a form of contemporary performance practice relate to prehistoric ritual and sacrifice? How does ritual inform life, death and burial?

2. Scope:
Scope
How does a contemporary Scottish Fine Artist reply to the unanswered questions that deconstruct British boundaries and link Scotland via Kilmartin in Northwest Scotland to the Yorkshire Dales and beyond to Europe? Can concepts current in postcolonial studies in disciplines such as history and comparative literature (diaspora and migration, minor artistic cultures, translation, accented art making, displacement, intercultural vs. transcultural, hybridity, presence/absence) help a contemporary Scottish Fine Artist re-envision the objects of study? How might postcolonial concepts be used to interrogate the canon(s) of Neolithic/Bronze Age art? To what extent can such theories help bridge the methodological gap between postcolonialists and contemporary Fine Artists? How might postcolonial questions help to engage new audiences and new generations of students who are alert to the global reach of contemporary Fine Art practice?

At which point does a place become transformed into a ‘home’? How is Identity negotiated there? How is Identity threatened? What is the role of land ownership? How is walking the land connected to making art? What happens when that connection is broken? What is damaged? How is Identity changed by damage, what happens next? The Scottish Artist Charles Avery describes the process of change as postcolonial ‘hybridity’:
Children were born on the Island, had their own children there, and died without ever knowing the old country. They did not think of themselves as islanders because they had no experience of any other place. Avery (2008) p 23

The ‘old country’ can be mainland Scotland (or Britain). The artist is signifying the experience of diaspora and settlement, the experience of ‘living in one country but looking across time and space to another’ McLeod (2000 pp206-7). Like Riach (2001) in his poem, Traces of Ain, Avery understands the displacement and subsequent mixing of cultures that arises from the production of empire. The civilization, which has preceded the ‘incomers or colonizers’ The Islanders: An introduction (2008 pp152, 161) is a hybrid, collectivized space mixing (in his case) India with Scotland.

My Contemporary Fine Art research project is practice-based, enquiring into and examining the complex relations between postcolonialism and Neolithic and Contemporary Fine Art Practices. It will be argued that postcolonialism is an ongoing process with a time-line extending across time and space from the Neolithic to the present day. Extending the scope of the unpublished Dissertation (2010) Postcolonialism and Identity in Contemporary Scottish Art Practice Identity and specifically Damaged Identity will be explored in a series of inter-disciplinary art works that will blur the boundaries between postcolonialism theories and Contemporary Fine Art practices. By responding to the drawing, inscriptive, performance (or ritual) and installation practices of the Neolithic ‘Artists’, my own practice will encompass drawing, performance (or ritual), inscriptive and installation practices. By imagining the mind set of my Neolithic/Bronze Age Artist ancestors new imaginary landscapes will be created. By investigating the theoretical migration routes and pathways of the Neolithic/Bronze Age settlers in Scotland and Yorkshire it will be argued that matrilineal lines can be traced (as spectral traces) and new gendered artworks created. (See Footnote 3 above) By walking the lines and making performance art at the Neolithic/Bronze Age sites new resistant politicized postcolonial artwork will be made within the landscape, a form of boundaried and unboundaried (undisciplined) landscape art. (My italics) It will be argued that new ‘post’ landscape’ art work or art work ‘after’ landscape will be created.
Pollock (2004) identifies that:

The AHRC has recently identified Land, Human Agency and the Built Environment as well as Diaspora, Migration and Cultural Practices as key areas not only for advanced research across the arts and humanities, but as strategically significant areas of national policy.

The new practice-led research will argue that the colonized subject treats of the absence of the body in the landscape. However it is too simplistic to argue that the colonizer is ‘present’ in the landscape. Both may leave spectral traces. The new research will extend and expand the questions raised by the theoretical Dissertation (2010) comparing and contrasting the artwork of male artists with women. Whilst it can be argued (Dobson 2010) that the artwork of Scottish artists Coley and Avery reveals a uniquely Scottish post Bhabba (1994-) hybrid identity as both colonized and colonizing it is the purpose of the new research to determine women artists’ (and my) place and politics within a British landscape that links Scotland to Yorkshire.

It will be argued that the new landscape art is postcolonial in scope. Themes to frame the discussion include:   1. Analysis of existing available research into the Archaeological and Anthropological record of Neolithic/Bronze Age ‘marks’ in the landscape including Rock Art. A detailed study of (at least) two specific sites in Scotland and Yorkshire: preliminary investigations are being carried out into Ilkley Moor (part of Rombald’s Moor) in West Yorkshire and Kilmartin in Argyllshire, North West Scotland. 2. Analysis of existing available research into Postcolonialism as a methodology for interrogating artworks and specifically for creating Landscape Installation Art. 3. Walking and Installation as a case study for wider discussion of the parameters of postcolonialism applied to practice-led research in Inter-Disciplinary Contemporary Fine Art.  4. Defining areas of originality and significance within  Drawing and Inscriptive Practices. 6. Installation and Performance practice innovation   7. Installation within Inter-Disciplinary research, including Video-recording and Digital Fine Art and Ceramic Casting using fired and unfired earthenware.

3. Approach:
Approach

I have developed my Practice-led Approach to Inter-Disciplinary Contemporary Fine Art over a number of years and over a number of discreet Fine Art projects culminating in my 2010 Degree Show ‘Dead Sea: Why She Married a Whale’ which was exhibited at Leeds College of Art and at Free Range, Brick Lane, London www.free-range.org.uk. The Shetland Isles Development Agency http://www.shetlandarts.org/ in conjunction with the Shetland Museum and the Vaila Fine Art Gallery (on the island of Vaila) are considering showing ‘Dead Sea’ in Shetland. The final Installation Appendix Image 4 of fired and unfired earthenware casts of a whale vertebra found on the Shetland Isles was mediated via a performance of projected sea bird and boat trip imagery. My installation began and concluded with a performance. The initial performance was a returning of the bone to the sea at Whitby in a ritual recalling the migratory path of the Greenland Right whales and the Whitby whaling ships. It could be argued that the artwork is postcolonial if the nature of whales and whaling is considered in the context of colonialism and imperialism. (Is not Moby Dick: Or the Whale (1851) the quintessential (American) postcolonial novel?) A photograph of the ritual comprised one of my winning photographs in the Northern Design Competition 2010 Appendix Image 5.
http://www.northerndesigncompetition.co.uk/archive/
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/northern_design_competition_2010_leeds_photographer_among_winners_1_2248491

Performance is an integral element of my Inter-Disciplinary Contemporary Fine Art Practice. Digital media and Photography record my processes and may be artwork in their own right. Video- recording and Video (and film) projection can form part of my processes or form one element within an installation. Drawing and Casting (using fired and unfired earthenware ceramic) extend my practice and may form part of an Installation within the Landscape, within the Studio or as an Inter-Disciplinary Fine Art Exhibition Appendix Images 5 & 6. Sculpture extends my Drawing practice and is a means of meditating on found object/s. The whole of my exploration is a response and dialogue with landscapes linking Scotland and Yorkshire.

It will be argued that my Bath Spa University PhD Draft Proposal for practice-led Contemporary Inter-Disciplinary Fine Art Title: In BARREN (Yeld) Spectral Traces of Ain Subtitle: Landscape, Postcolonialism and Identity is a postcolonial discourse. My artwork will trace the theoretical and imaginary pathways of humans between Scotland and Yorkshire. My strategy is a constructed methodology using historical, semiotic, colonial and postcolonial discourse analysis underpinned by psychogeographical and psychoanalytical theory. Images of the Rock Art at Kilmartin and Ilkley Moor can be seen in the Appendix to this Proposal Images 8 & 9 and 10- 13 respectively. An aerial photograph of a Bronze Age enclosure on Ilkley Moor can be seen at Image 2. Maps of the two landscapes can be seen as Images 1 & 3 of the Appendix and at:

Interactive Map of the Kilmartin Valley, Kilmartin House Museum, Argyllshire, North East Scotland http://www.kilmartin.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=122

Ilkley Moor, Recently excavated Neolithic settlement and Aerial Map, English Heritage National Mapping Programme (NMP)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/lower-wharfedale-nmp/2957-lower-wharfedale-summary-rep.pdf

My artwork has begun with a series of artist curated art walks on Ilkley Moor. The first art walk on March 13, 2011with Barry Wilkinson of the ‘Friends of Ilkley Moor’ http://www.ilkleymoor.org/ was a walk to the ‘Badger Stone’ Images 10-13 of the Appendix. The inscribed markings included cup and ring marks, a swastika and a phallic object. The marks are similar in pattern and scale to the Neolithic Rock Art at Kilmartin Appendix Images 8 & 9. The marks may signify boundary stones, route maps or in my interpretation fertility and sex signifiers. The walks are a linear method of transacting the landscape and the past and present time-lines. The first art walk was repeated as a solo walking and drawing performance on March 29, 2011. Drawings were made directly onto the stone with eco charcoal and water Appendix Images 15-19. Sexual connotations revealed by drawing are not necessarily acknowledged by the archaeological canon. However drawings of vulvas referenced for example by Mazel, Nash, Waddington (Eds) (2007) in the Palaeolithic Creswell caves signify the importance of sex to prehistoric ritual. If the archaeological record can be considered a predominantly masculine ‘reading’ of the landscape the final drawing Appendix Image 15 can represent a postcolonial redrawing of the landscape and the beginning of political and resistant installation making on Ilkley Moor. Whether the artwork is truly ‘post’ landscape art remains to be determined. However this second art walk represents a political and gendered re-claiming of the land.

The next step is to return to the Moor and to keep drawing until such time as drawing is prevented. The aim is to create a set of drawings in relation to the stone markers. Another visit is planned the weekend of April 2 & 3, 2011. As it has rained heavily since the drawings were created the site will be visited to ensure that rainwater will ‘wash’ off the drawings. Drawings with eco charcoal and water will continue then further experiments with other drawing materials such as clay and clay slip No drawings will be permanent and all drawings will wash off. A digital video (possibly HD) recording of a performance is planned for Easter. Templates of the drawings will be made and may be used for printmaking and/or casting in unfired earthenware or other local clay source. This may be conducted in situ, in my studio at East Street Arts, Patrick Studios or as part of a residency at the Museums of Bradford, Leeds and Kilmartin. (Bradford Museums and Art Gallery are to re-consider a proposal for ‘Art in the Park’ as a possible residency).

An examination of the pottery and pottery techniques of the ‘Beaker’ people will follow and will lead to the construction of some earthenware possibly pots or beakers which make take the form of ‘skull pots’ - the earliest form of utensil as described by the Natural History Museum. A skull found on the Shetland Isles was re-buried. My personal narrative is the sub-text to my Proposal, which intersects with the historical narrative. One of my earliest memories is of visiting and being inside a chambered cairn at Kilmartin aged 4. I have also searched for cup and ring marks with my mother on Ilkley Moor in the 1970s . She was from a Traveler Family and always, all of the time, wanted to ‘Go Home’ where ‘Home’ did not exist. Loss, Separation, Trauma and Death might feature in my own narrative. Eschewing Victimhood, my earlier artwork referred to some key elements of my Past and my Memory and helped explained ‘Why I Married a Whale’ Appendix Images 4-7.

It will be argued that there is a key difference between internal and external Memory, public (regulated) and private spaces. The Practice-led research will uncover whether there are in fact gendered places, male and female places. It will be argued that binary transactions formulate key components of Identity. A postcolonial post Bhabba (2000) hybridity as both colonizer and colonised will be tested. The Audience for the artwork will consider how does the conscious acknowledgement or denial of regional/national character in an artwork or art initiative impact upon its public reception? A number of different audiences will engage with the work from participating in Artist Curated Art Walks to witnessing the various Performances and responding to the final Installation/Exhibition. Issues of land and heritage ownership will be experienced and official/unofficial interventions encountered. Digital Media will record the Artistic Processes and will be available online. An Artist Blog will extend audience participation. An online Audience might also co-curate a Public online artwork related to cup and ring marks.

4. Time-Line
Time-Line
Prior to Year 1 Field trips to Ilkley Moor and Research
Year 1 Research into archaeological record Ilkley Moor
2011-2012 Research into postcolonialism theory
Or P/T Explore postcolonialism as a methodology for
2011-2013 making artwork
Curated art walks and drawing performances Ilkley Moor
Experiment with drawing materials and techniques using only impermanent natural substances such as eco charcoal and clay slip
Record performance/s with digital media
Negotiate with official ‘keepers’ of the heritage
Join Yorkshire Archaeology Society and possibly volunteer for
Carved Stone Investigation
Plan/explore residency opportunity with Bradford MDC Museums and Galleries
Conclude residency opportunity with Shetland Arts Development Agency
One Residency/exhibition
Attend/Contribute to Leeds Psychogeography Group
Join/attend symposia Land 2 creative practice-led network
Attend ‘Colonising, Decolonising and Postcolonising the Vikings
Attend ‘Concentrationary Imaginaries’ Conference’
Make templates of stones and explore mark making with print and ceramic
Plan making earthenware vessels
Explore Leeds Sculpture Workshop as a venue for making ceramics
(Can use kiln at studio East Street Arts)
See Bibliography for details of Conferences/Venues etc
Recommence Blog
Set up own website
First field trip to Kilmartin

Year 2 Research into archaeological record Kilmartin
2012-2013 Curated art walks and drawing performances Kilmartin
Or P/T Negotiate with official ‘keepers’ of the heritage
2013-2015 Plan /explore residency opportunity with Argyll and Bute District
Council Museums and Galleries
One (at least) residency/exhibition
Record performance with digital media
Research into postcolonialism theory
Explore postcolonialism as a methodology for making artwork
Research pottery materials and techniques of prehistoric potters
Make skull moulds
Make earthenware/stoneware vessels using appropriate materials and methods
Site impermanent vessels within the landscape
Cost larger studio space at East Street Arts for ceramic practice
Continue Blog
Expand website to include public dimension (co-curating)
Plan possible temporary move to Bath for final year
Recommence Psychoanalysis

Year 3 Plan and mount exhibitions
2015-2016 Continue residency programme
FT Work at Corsham Court
Deliver final exhibition/installation

5. Past and Present Artwork

Past and present artwork

Digital Photographs can be seen at http://flickr.com/photos/filippadobson
Digital Videos can be viewed at http://youtube.com/user/filippadobson
My Blog http://filippadobson.blogspot.com/
An Artist Web Site is planned.

See also Images appended to this proposal.

6. Bibliography:

Avery, C. (2008) The Islanders: An Introduction London, Parasol Unit and Koenig Books

http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/services/student-services/registration-2010/new-students/postgraduate/PROVENANCE%20Programme.pdf

Beckensall, S. (2005) The Prehistoric Rock Art of Kilmartin House Trust

Beckensall, S. (2006) Circles in Stone: A British Prehistoric Mystery The History Press Ltd

Bhabba, H.K. (1994) The Location of Culture, London and New York, Routledge

Bhabha, H.K. (1983) ‘The other question: difference, discrimination and the discourse of colonialism’ in Barker, F. (1976-84) (ed) Literature, Politics and Theory: papers from the Essex Conference, Methuen & Co.

Boughey, K.J.S. & Vickerman, E.A. (2003) Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding Cup-and-Ring marked Rocks of the Valleys of the Aire, Wharfe, Washburn and Nidd Yorkshire Archaeology 6 West Yorkshire Archaeology Service

http://www.brad.ac.uk/archenvi/research/NARU/Home.php

http://www.brad.ac.uk/archenvi/research/NARU/NARU_other/centrespread.pdf

Bradley, R. (1977) Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe: Signing the Land Routledge

Brown, P. &B. (2008) Prehistoric Rock Art in the Northern Dales The History Ltd.
‘ CSI Rombald’s Moor’
http://www.pennineprospects.co.uk/watershed-landscape/community-archaeology-in-the-south-pennines

CePRA Centre for Practice-led Research in the Arts
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cepra/

Cockayne, A. & Hoare, P. (2009) Dominion Exhibition and Film

‘Colonising, Decolonising and Postcolonising the Vikings’ Department of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds 17-18 March 2011
http://post-col-med.leeds.ac.uk/wordpress/?p=487

‘Concentrationary Imaginaries/Imaginaries of Violence in Contemporary Cultures and Cultural Forms’ International transdisciplinary conference organized by AHRC Research Project Concentrationary Memories: The Politics of Representation directed by Griselda Pollock University of Leeds 13-15 April 2011
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/fine_art/events/Con%20Imaginaries%20confnew.pdf

The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity (2009) Symposium, Exhibition and Exhibition Catalogue Tate St Ives

Deegan, A. (November 2004) ‘Lower Wharfedale National Mapping Programme Project Summary’ Project 2957 NMP (National Mapping Programme) acceleration: West Yorkshire (PDF)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/lower-wharfedale-nmp/2957-lower-wharfedale-summary-rep.pdf

Deegan, A Lower Wharfedale National Mapping Programme Project Management Overview: summary of resources and results English Heritage Aerial Survey Report AER/5/2004

‘Dialogues’ Northern Arts and Science Conference Leeds Metropolitan University 19 March 2011
http://www.northernartsandscience.com/projects/conference-2011/

Dobson, F (2010) Postcolonialism and Identity in Contemporary Scottish Art Practice Unpublished (Submitted to the Henry Moore Foundation Leeds Dissertation Prize 2011)

Dobson, F.J. (2009) Thinking beyond limits. What does Scottish artist Nathan Coley treatment of space tell us about identity, migration, history, and colonised culture? Leeds College of Art & Design. Unpublished essay

Dobson, P.J. (1975) Ambiguity in the Wasteland University of Stirling Unpublished Thesis

www.eaststreetarts.org.uk

Eliot, T.S. (2002) The Wasteland London, Faber & Faber 80th Anniversary Edition Originally published 1922

http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/

http://filippadobson.blogspot.com/

http://flickr.com/photos/filippadobson

www.free-range.org.uk.

Gell, A. (1998) Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory Oxford University Press

Gilroy, P. (1993) The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness UK, Verso

Haraway, D. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and the Reinvention of Nature Routledge (10 Essays from 1978- 1989)

Haraway, D. ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’ Feminist Studies Vol 14 No 3 (Autumn 1988) pp 575-599

Hatton, K. and Cuffe, S. ‘Design Pedagogy and Diversity: What are the Issues?’ in
Hatton, K. (2008) Design Pedagogy Research Jeremy Mills Publishing Ltd/Leeds College of Art and Design

http://www.ilkleymoor.org/

Ingold, T. & Vergunst, J.L. (Eds) (2008) Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot Hants, Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing Ltd Anthropological Studies of Creativity and Perception Series Editor Tim Ingold University of Aberdeen

Ingold, T. (2007) Lines A Brief History Routledge

Interactive Map of the Kilmartin Valley, Kilmartin House Museum, Argyllshire, North East Scotland http://www.kilmartin.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=122

Ilkley Moor, Recently excavated Neolithic settlement and Aerial Map, English Heritage National Mapping Programme (NMP)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/lower-wharfedale-nmp/2957-lower-wharfedale-summary-rep.pdf

Jung, C. G. (1964) (ed) Man and his symbols London, Aldous Books Ltd.
Kiernan, V.G. (1974) Marxism and Imperialism London, Edward Arnold

Kilmartin: An Inventory of the Monuments (1988) extracted from Argyll Vol. 6

http://www.kilmartin.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=122

Kristeva, J (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay in Abjection New York, Columbia University Press
http://www.land2.uwe.ac.uk/welcome.htm
‘Spectral Traces Symposium 13th February 2010
http://www.land2.uwe.ac.uk/symposia.htm

‘Land Art’ Yorkshire Sculpture Park Panel Discussion led by Ben Tufnell, Director Haunch of Venison Gallery, London 25 February 2011

http://www.leedssculptureworkshop.com/

Lewis-Williams, (2004) The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art Thames and Hudson

MacDonald, M. (2002) ‘Finding Scottish Art’ in
Across the Margins: Cultural Identity and Change in the Atlantic Archipelago
Norquay, L. & Smythe, G. (2002) Manchester, Manchester University Press

McCleod, J. (2000) ‘Can the subaltern speak’ in Beginning Postcolonialism pp 191-197

McLeod, J. (2000) Beginning Postcolonialism Manchester University Press

McLeod, A (1999) No Great Mischief New York, Vintage

Mazel, A. D., (2007) Nash, G. & Waddington, C. (Eds) (2007) Art as Metaphor: The Prehistoric Rock-art of Britain Oxford, Archaeopress

http://www.mhrc.net/mitochondrialEve.htm

Moffat, A and Riach, A. (2008) Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland Edinburgh, Luath Press.

Moi, T (1986) The Kristeva Reader Oxford, Blackwell

Morris, R.W.B. (1977) The Prehistoric Art of Argyll Dolphin Press

http://www.northerndesigncompetition.co.uk/archive/

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/human-origins/skull-cups/index.html

‘Leeds Psychogeography Group’ (Curated by Tina Richardson PhD student Cultural Studies Dept. University of Leeds
http://particulations.blogspot.com/2010/01/leeds-psychogeography-group.html

‘Peninsula Arts Whale Festival’ 18 - 20 February 2011
http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=34545

‘People, Trees, Wood and Fire’ A Panel Discussion led by Professor Tim Ingold Chair of Social Anthropology University of Aberdeen, Yorkshire Sculpture Park 4 November 2010

PSAS 95 (1960-1) No 214 p31 (Proceedings of the Scottish Archaeological Society?)

Pollock (2004) ‘Art ‘after landscape’: memory, place and identity’ LAND2D conference http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/ahrc/events/2004/1105/abs/pollock.html

Pollock, G (1999) Differencing the Canon: Feminism and the Writing of Arts Histories Routledge
Pollock, G (ed) (1996) Generations and Geographies: Feminist Readings in the Visual Arts Routledge

‘Provenance’ (2010) Symposium Exhibition and Exhibition Catalogue Bath Spa University

‘RCAHMS Argyll’ Vol 6 No 132 (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland)

Riach, A (2005) Representing Scotland in Literature, Popular Culture and Iconography: The Masks of the Modern Nation Palgrave Macmillan

Riach, A. Clearances (2001) Edinburgh, Scottish Cultural Press

Renfrew, C. & Zubrow, E.B.W. (Eds) (1994) The Ancient Mind: Elements in Cognitive Archaeology Cambridge University Press New Directions in Archaeology Series

The Rock Art of Kilmartin

RAPP 2000 ‘Rock Art Pilot Project’ Main Report Figures and Tables Bournemouth and London Release 2 January 2000

‘Shetland Arts Development Agency’
http://www.shetlandarts.org/

Smith, M & Brickley, M (2009) People of the Long Barrows: Life Death and Burial in the Earlier Neolithic The History Press

‘Spectral Traces’ A Land2 Symposium 13th February 2010 University of Leeds
http://www.land2.uwe.ac.uk/spec_abs.htm

Spivak, G. (1987) In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics Routledge

Tilley, C. A. (2008) Body and Image: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology Left Coast Press

Tilley, C. (2004) The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology Berg Publishers

Tilley, C. A (1997) Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Landscapes Berg Publishers

Tufnell, B (2006) Land Art Tate Publishing

http://www.vikingshetland.com/excavation/belmont.html

‘Yorkshire Archaeological Society’ http://www.yas.org.uk/

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/northern_design_competition_2010_leeds_photographer_among_winners_1_2248491
http://youtube.com/user/filippadobson

7. Contacts/Interviews:

Keith Boughey
Independent Archaeologist
keith_boughey@hotmail.com

Angela Cockayne
Senior Lecturer: Creative Arts Fine Art, Bath School of Art and Design.
MA [Bath Spa University], BA (Hons) [Bath Academy Of Art].
a.cockayne@bathspa.ac.uk

Artist Angela Cockayne and author Philip Hoare collaborate on a filmed performance, using artwork, objects, text, and spoken word Dominion (2009), which can be ‘read’ as a postcolonial sermon on the state of the whale and the world.
Proposed Secondary PhD Supervisor at Bath Spa University

Johanna Dahn
Senior Lecturer: Visual Culture, Bath School of Art and Design.
PhD [University of Wales Aberystwyth], MA [University of Wales Aberystwyth].
j.dahn@bathspa.ac.uk

Artist Johanna Dahn has a specialism in contemporary Ceramics in the expanded field.

Proposed PhD Supervisor at bath Spa University

Gavin Edwards Community Archaeologist
Project Co-coordinator Carved Stone Investigation Rombald’s Moor Bradford Metropolitan District Council (MDC)
g.edwards@bradford.gov.uk

Professor Liz Glass
Chair of Veterinary Immunogenetics, The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh
liz.glass@roslin.ed.ac.uk

Genomic approaches to animal health and welfare. Genomic sequencing.
Interested in Women in Science and the interfaces between art and science. A previous collaborator. Also researches Family History (And she is my sister)

Professor Tim Ingold
BA PhD Cambridge
Chair of Social Anthropology University of Aberdeen
Tim.ingold@abdn.ac.uk

Theoretical interests: Ecological approaches in anthropology and psychology; comparative anthropology of hunter-gatherer and pastoral societies; human-animal relations: Art and Architecture

Professor Catherine E. Karkov
Professor of Art History, Fine Art, Art History and Cultural Studies
BA Minnesota, MA, PhD Cornell
c.e.karkov@leeds.ac.uk

Her research centres on early medieval art, especially Anglo-Saxon art, with a particular focus on questions of voice, gender, identity, nationalism and the postcolonial Middle Ages
Professor John McLeod
Professor of Postcolonial and Diaspora Literatures
School of English University of Leeds
.m.mcleod@leeds.ac.uk

He works primarily in the field of postcolonial studies, and has a particular interest in postcolonial representations of London, England and Britain. He is interested in critical theories of the postcolonial ‘in action’ – his book, Beginning Postcolonialism, (second edition, Manchester University Press, 2010) attempts to introduce the key concepts in the field.
My original Interview with John McLeod (20o9) is Appendix 1 of my Dissertation (2010) Postcolonialism and Identity in Contemporary Scottish Art Practice
Dr Judith Tucker
Lecturer  BA Art & Design Programme Leader
BA (Oxford) MA (Bretton Hall) PhD (Leeds)
j.a.tucker@leeds.ac.uk

Her current research project is Present Tense: Drawing Close to Death. Judith Tucker is co- convenor of LAND2.

Professor Griselda Pollock
Professor of the Social and Critical Histories of Art
Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies
g.f.s.pollock@leeds.ac.uk

Expertise: women's history and art; art, 19th and 20th century art history; cultural studies; Jewish studies; gender issues; film theory; psychoanalysis; feminism; trauma and aesthetics; feminist cultural theory; postcolonialism; holocaust studies

Charlotte Weightman,
Twite Recovery Project- Habitat Intervention Officer
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
www.rspb.org.uk
charlotteweightman@tiscali.co.uk
April 2009 entitled: ‘Death: The Final Frontier; INS International Necronautical Society) Declaration on Inauthenticity’ (essay on Tom McCarthy and Simon Critchley)

APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION AS AN
ADVANCED POSTGRADUATE STUDENT

Land Art with Ben Tufnell

2011-02-25T19:18:00.000Z

Ben Tufnell is the Director of Exhibitions at the Haunch of Venison Gallery in London. He has written a book about Land Art (2006) Tate Publications. He was talking about the artist David Nash whose studio is in Blaenau Ffestiniog North Wales. Tufnell also curates land artists Richard Long and Hamish Fulton and Richard Long born in London and Bristol respectively. All three combine walking the landscape with site specific land art. I asked a question relating to my own current work. Envisioning drawing the cup and ring marked rocks of Ilkley Moor (part of the larger Rombalds Moor) I asked whether land art that is not commercially curated or recorded in mainstream publications was truly land art. If there were no specific audience or no officially recognised audience does the art exist? Tufnell pondered that art that is not official might be described as 'outsider art'. I like this tag because of the duality of the terms 'insider' and outsider'. If an artist is not an insider must she be an outsider? And must her art be considered to be outsider art? Is a Blog and the Internet sufficient exposure? Or an officially recognised course of study and associated institution such as Bath Spa or leeds Universities? Or the collective of artists connected to landscape art Land2 convened by Ian Biggs UWE Bristol, Jayne Bingham Norwich and Judith Tucker Leeds a network funded by the PLaCE Research Centre? Judith Tucker's art work explores the relationships between social history, place and memory with drawing, painting, and scholarly writing. My own artwork explores the meaning of inside and outside with regard to place within the landscape and within the human body. Mediating artwork via an institution might be regarded as a boundaried art practice. The boundaries being within an academic fine art or a contemporary fine art practice discipline. Nevertheless Tucker talks about landscape being unboundaried. Can landscape confute boundaries?

2010-03-03T13:54:00.000Z

Postcolonialism and Identity in Contemporary Scottish Art Practice by Filippa Jane Dobson (Submitted to Leeds College of Art and Design 22/02/10)

(It was not possible to copy the WORD document original exactly, Footnotes are written into the text instead of numbering with supra text - the author)

Postcolonialism and Identity in Contemporary Scottish Art Practice

Declaration of Academic Integrity

I confirm that I understand the meaning of the University’s definition of plagiarism printed on this form*. I am aware that it is my responsibility to read the University Regulations on Cheating and Plagiarism, which apply also to Leeds College of Art, as explained in the BA Regulations Handbook. I also understand that plagiarism is a serious matter, and a case of plagiarism could lead to my expulsion from the BA (Hons) course. I confirm that all work submitted for assessment will be my own and will not contain any unacknowledged work from any other sources

I confirm my consent to the College copying and distributing my work in any form and using third parties (who may be based outside of the European Union) to monitor breaches of regulations, to verify whether my work contains plagiarised material, and for quality assurance purposes.

Name: Filippa Jane Dobson

Signed: …………………………………………………. Date: 22/02/10

Programme of Study: BA (Hons) Fine Art Yr…3……

* Leeds College of Art Definition of Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else’s work as your own. Work means any intellectual output, and typically includes text, data, images, sound or performance.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr John McLeod, Reader in Postcolonial and Diaspora Literatures, Leeds University, the Artists Nathan Coley and Charles Avery, the Doggerfisher Gallery, Edinburgh for their generosity and help with my questions and Sam Broadhead, Course Leader and Chris Graham, Librarian, Leeds College of Art and Design and my Father Kenneth Bingham Dobson who first introduced me to imaginary worlds.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Declaration of Academic Integrity
I confirm that I understand the meaning of the University’s definition of plagiarism printed on this form*. I am aware that it is my responsibility to read the University Regulations on Cheating and Plagiarism, which apply also to Leeds College of Art, as explained in the BA Regulations Handbook. I also understand that plagiarism is a serious matter, and a case of plagiarism could lead to my expulsion from the BA (Hons) course. I confirm that all work submitted for assessment will be my own and will not contain any unacknowledged work from any other sources.

List of Illustrations
Frontispiece
Introduction
Chapter 1 Postcolonialism and Contemporary Scottish Art Practice
Chapter 2 Nathan Coley: Scottish Identity as Colonized Subject
Chapter 3 Charles Avery: Scottish Identity as Colonizer
Conclusion
Images
Bibliography/References
Appendices
Appendice 1 Interview
Appendice 2 Definitions
Appendices 3 After-word
Appendices 4-7 Emails

List of Illustrations

Image 1 Heroic Dosser (1987) by Peter Howson (Flowers East Gallery)

Image 2 BELOVED (2009) by Nathan Coley (photograph by F. Dobson)

Image 3 THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE (2007) by Nathan Coley
(Photograph by F. Dobson)

Image 4 BELOVED (2009) showing text set at child’s height (photograph by F. Dobson)

Image 5 The Clearances. Crofters beside their ruined croft (copyright Eric Richards (2000))

Image 6 Mull, Dail Mhor. Ruins of old crofts http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk Visited by OS 4 June 1972 between 1821 and 1881 4998 people cleared

Image 7 BELOVED (1987) by Toni Morrison Frontispiece

Image 8 Weymss estate cottages by architect Alexander Tod (photo by F. Dobson 2009)

Image 9 Island of Mull http://canmore.rchms.gov.uk and Untitled (World) (2008) by Charles Avery (Doggerfisher Gallery)

Image 10 The Hunter (2008) by Charles Avery (Parasol Unit)

Image 11 Two dilettantes (2008) by Charles Avery (Parasol Unit)

Image 12 A Duck for Mr Darwin (2009) (The Baltic Gallery)

Image 13 Avatars (Cabinet of Curiosities)

Image 14 Cruikshank, G (1822) George IV as ‘Bonnie Willie’ (J. Morrison Painting the Nation)

Frontispiece

Traces of Ain

The Gaelic for whisky means water of life.
The Navaho have several words:
one is todilhil, water of darkness
The Firth of Thames is Caribbean blue.
Darkness moves the current under bright creole.

The trace in your voice is slanting light
That comes from a long spent star. You can’t recall

Its name but it informs us. Stop the car by Whalebone Stream,
Breathe salt air and listen to the tide, stretching.

It is time to stop writing about the Highland Clearances etc.

Riach, A. (2001) Clearances

Postcolonialism and Identity in Contemporary Scottish Art Practice

Introduction

A constructed methodology using historical, semiotic, colonial and postcolonial discourse analysis will be used to interrogate the artwork of two key Scottish artists: Nathan Coley (1967-) and Charles Avery (1973-). Central to the debate within this dissertation is the work of John McLeod, (2000), Reader in Postcolonial and Diaspora Literatures at the University of Leeds. His seminal text Beginning Postcolonialism (2000) will be referred to many times. However his text will be discussed within a wider discourse with other writers. Other colonial and postcolonial theorists referred to include Peter Childs and Patrick Williams (1997), Elleke Boehmer, (1995), Edward W. Said (1993), Homi H. Bhabha (1994), Frantz Fanon (2008), and Jacques Derrida (1967). Important writers referenced concerning Scottish history and Scottish cultural history (art and literature) specifically include Leith Davis (1999), David Daiches (1986), Tom Devine (1999), (2003), Alan Riach (2005), Alan Riach and Alexander Moffat (2008), and Hugh McDiarmid, (ed) (1994) and (ed) (1995). It will be argued that BELOVED (2009) by Nathan Coley significantly interrelates with Tony Morrison (1986) BELOVED and shares a comparable postcolonial context and meaning. It will be demonstrated that The Islanders (2008) by Charles Avery can be read postcolonially and allows certain analogies to be drawn with Shakespeare (1610/11) The Tempest. The artwork and literature will be examined and interpreted contrapuntally as defined by Said (1993). As postcolonialism is primarily a literary theory, the postcolonial readings of BELOVED and The Tempest by McLeod (2004), Bhabha (1994), and Riach (2005) and other theorists, will be studied in order to determine whether the artwork BELOVED and The Islanders can be deconstructed using a similar approach as formulated by Derrida (1967) and developed by Spivak (1987-8), Bhabha (1994) and Barthes (2000). An interview was conducted with Dr John MacLeod, Reader in Postcolonial and Diaspora Literatures, University of Leeds, to discuss Postcolonialism as a critical strategy and methodology Interview Appendix 1 (17th December 2009). Postcolonialism as a strategy is a methodology adopted by postcolonialism writers interrogating literature that often predates the period of decolonization. Pollock (1986) uses feminism as a strategy for interrogating 19th Century English novels. McLeod, Appendix 1, (17th December 2009), Beginning Postcolonialism (2000) employs postcolonialism as a strategy for reading text. Postcolonialism will be employed in this Dissertation (2010) as a methodology for ‘reading’ contemporary Scottish art practice. Postcolonialism is defined in Chapter 1 of this Dissertation (2010). McLeod, Appendix 1 (17th December 2009) identifies two contradictory positions in relation to postcolonialism, one determined by historical period and place, and limited to decolonized nations, the other is best described as an ‘attitude’. This attitude is described by Riach and Moffat (2008) as ‘resistance within a country (under enemy occupation)’ to the cultural, or imperial authority of another country [my italics]. An argument is developed that Scotland cannot be excluded as a postcolonial state historically or attitudinally. Whilst accepting that Scotland is not normally described as a decolonized nation as Scotland has not (yet) achieved Independence. Postcolonial theorists and historical context are examined to determine whether postcolonial theory can be applied to Scottish Art. A case will be made that postcolonialism can reveal much about Scottish identity and that Scots have a unique hybrid identity as both colonized and colonizers. Chapters 2 and 3 scrutinize postcolonialism as a strategy for interpreting Coley (2009) BELOVED and Avery (2008) The Islanders: An introduction. Chapter 2 maintains that deconstructing the artwork BELOVED (2009) makes visible a complex narrative that uncovers the voices of the dispossessed highland and lowland Scots from the Jacobite rebellions to the Clearances with the resulting imperialist reconfiguration of a romantic Victorian Scottish landscape devoid of people. The voices of the colonized Scots in Chapter 2 become more closely identified with the colonizers in Chapter 3. Whereas, Coley (2009) problematizes Scottish Identity as absence, loss and the spaces of history, Avery (2008) eschews any kind of victimhood and demonstrates instead the opportunities afforded Scots by the British Empire and colonialism. Both artists treat of the binary colonized/colonizer divide played out upon the stage of Scottish landscape. It will be demonstrated that both portray a discourse of Scottish identity, nationality and nationhood, within the context of Scottish landscape and land issues and the very different communities and classes (and clans) of Scottish people. Each artist (2009) and (2008) creates an imaginary world, an almost reenactment within their artworks of the colonial processes of ‘worlding’, creating a world-view, described by Spivak (1990 p7). With BELOVED (2009), Coley conjures ‘the uncanny’ (Williams, 2009 p9), and produces an intriguing dialogue about colonized identity defined against Toni Morrison’s book of the same title, BELOVED (1987). Avery (2008) constructs an imaginary world in The Islanders: An Introduction, which explores similar territory to Shakespeare’s (1610/11) The Tempest. Avery examines the processes of colonization with some of the associated stereotypes and caricatures. Full definitions of key terms are found in Appendix 2. The personal motivation for writing this Dissertation (2010) is explained in the After-word, Appendix 3.

Chapter 1

Postcolonialism and Contemporary Scottish Art Practice

Postcolonialism is a relatively new discipline of literary and cultural theory that has been applied to the study of English, History, Philosophy and Critical Theory. The key postcolonialism text to be interrogated is John McLeod (2000) Beginning Postcolonialism. To understand postcolonialism it is necessary to first understand the historical processes of colonialism, imperialism, empire, globalization and decolonization:
‘Colonialism’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘imperialism’, but in truth the terms mean different things…Colonialism …specifically concerns the settlement of one group of people in a new location. (McLeod, 2000, p7)

For John McLeod, (2000) colonialism is about the issue of settlement. Imperialism, on the other hand does not demand settlement. Childs and Williams (1997) describe imperialism as an ideological concept related to political, military and legal control [my italics]. For Elleke Boehmer (1995) colonialism encompasses settlement of territory, exploitation of resources, and the attempt to govern the indigenous inhabitants of occupied lands. Whilst giving no definitive definitions, McLeod (2000), Childs and Williams (1997) and Boehmer (1995) seem to agree that imperialism concerns expansionism, of trade and commerce, and colonialism requires settlement of the imperialist power within the colonized community. A case is made for colonialism resulting ‘almost always’ from imperialism and charges imperialism with the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire. Said (1993 p.8) claims that empire can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social or cultural dependence. A new concept decolonization is introduced by McLeod (2000) when colonized nations win the right to govern their own affairs. McLeod accentuates the British Empire that flourished from the nineteenth into the twentieth centuries. He seems to suggest that postcolonialism theory can only be applied to decolonized nations, territories that belonged to the former British Empire, Footnote 1. Nowhere does McCleod mention Scotland, or indeed, Ireland. Is that because Scotland and Ireland have an even more complex and convoluted history? Like Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, why cannot Scotland and Ireland be regarded as ‘settler’ nations? Said (1993) accedes a case for Ireland stating that the Irish have historical and cultural evidence for the claim, and much can be contributed by reading the work of Irish Literature in a postcolonial context. The view of Said appears to be unaware that Scotland is a separate country. He (Said, 1993, p76) calls the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion ‘an internecine domestic conflict’ and ‘local revolution’: he calls the Jacobites ‘highland tribes’. That Irish-Scottish Studies is an accepted inter-disciplinary subject is evidenced by Willy Maley (2002) in Smyth, G. and Norquay, L. (eds) (2002). The Editors (2002 p3) depict Homi Bhabha together with the British Council presenting an international conference called Re-inventing Britain (2000) that contained no mention of the devolution debate, or how the changing relationships between England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland might contribute to a changing Britain. The dearth of postcolonial theory directly relating to Scotland does not mean that Scotland (and its art) cannot be read postcolonially. Rather, it appears there is a lack of knowledge. What the theorists do write about has clear implications for the Scottish scene, and the construction of Scottish identity, and is referenced extensively.

Footnote1 Decolonized nations comprise the ‘lost’ American colonies in the eighteenth century, through the creation of ‘dominions’ at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries; Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, to the decades following the second world war and the decolonized lands of South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean McLeod (2000 pp6-10).

The subject of the Dissertation is Scotland and Scottish contemporary art practice. Is Scotland a postcolonial state? Does it depend how postcolonialism is defined? Setting aside emotion and personal experience After-word, Appendix 3, but retaining passion, is a difficult task. Is Scotland of the ‘Noughties’ a different place from Scotland in the 1990s? It is ten years since Scottish Devolution and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. Independence remains a vital issue yet a (national) Scottish Referendum has never been held. The Referendum and Independence debate is crucial for the economic, legal and political future of Scotland. On the Andrew Marr Show (17th October 2009) Andrew Marr asked the Rt. Hon Alex Salmond MSP MP First Minister:

When you present the country with your referendum proposals, are you going to give people a choice of two options - the status quo or independence - or is there a possibility of a third option, which is being called either 'independence lite' or 'devolution plus' whereby Scotland gets effective I suppose home rule but inside elements of the United Kingdom? Is that possibility going to be on offer?
Alex Salmond prevaricates:

Well the terminology I'm not sure, but I've heard it described as 'devolution max'. Perhaps that would mean 'independence minimum' or something like that. But our position, Andrew, is this…People must have the opportunity to exercise a right of self-determination. But I'm not frightened of another option on the ballot paper as long as that option is defined and meaningful, as long as it's something that people can understand and not some you know vague proposition.
The full text of the interview can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (20/01/10).

McLeod (2000) defines decolonization as when nations achieve independence. Scotland has not achieved independence, and will not achieve independence anytime soon. McLeod (2000) emphasizes the settlement of land, an economic relationship and unequal relations of power as colonization. Is not Scotland still a colony? In his book Beginning Postcolonialism, McCleod doesn’t mention Scotland until page 242 (out of 260 pages). He writes that (Irish and) Scots may appear, as colonized people but were also agents of colonization [my italics]. Why cannot Scots be both colonizers and colonized? McLeod is correct that Scots became colonizers. He writes about imperialism and the British Empire that flourished from the 19th into the 20th centuries. The Scots were enthusiastic Empire builders. But the Scots were employed in colonization before the 19th Century production of the British Empire Footnote 2. James I and VI became King of both Scotland and England in 1603. Davis (1999) and Devine (1999) conclude that the eventual Union of 1707 was a treaty between English and Scottish landowning classes.

Kiernan (1974) recognizes processes of colonialism and imperialism as instigated by a class-system. His (Kiernan, 1974) argument is a different ‘spin’. His Marxist interpretation encounters colonialism and imperialism in every epoch of history and emphasizes ‘its ultimate causes, along with war, … in the uneasy tensions of society distorted by class divisions’ (Kiernan c 1974 p111 and quoted by Said 1993 p10). His theory can be applied to Scottish Society present and past, even though he doesn’t specifically mention Scotland in his treatise. Both colonialism and imperialism can operate in Scotland and these processes are distorted by class (and historic clan) systems. McLeod (2000) writes that English colonialism was not always fully successful in securing its aims, and met with acts of resistance from the indigenous inhabitants of colonized lands. Devine (1999) writes that Clansmen and certain members of the Scottish nobility resisted the Union and continued to support the Stuart cause after the Union of 1707. Their resistance climaxed with the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. That the Jacobites were a serious threat (that sought to restore a Stuart King) to the British throne is evidenced by Devine (1999) as a drastic fall in the English pound and underwrites the seriousness of this act of resistance that predicated civil war. As with other ‘settler’ nations resistance wasn’t universal and Scots fought on both sides. However, Prebble (1961) and Davis (1999) assert that predominantly English nobility brutally crushed the rebellion in 1746 at Culloden, Footnote 3 . McLeod (2000) admits that the literatures of the British Isles, such as Wales and Scotland, can be thought of as postcolonial. He (2000) acknowledges that Wales and Scotland suffered the institutional and cultural authority of England, which the writing of each has sought to challenge [my italics]. In fact, McLeod (2000 p242) cites Schoene (1995) (even if he doesn’t agree with Schoene) that not only does Scottish Literature contain individual works of postcolonial literature but a whole tradition of postcolonial writing since the seventeenth centuries.

Footnote 2 Protestant Scots, as recorded by Devine (2003), were employed in the ‘Plantation’ of Ireland in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Davis (1999) and Devine (1999) record that the King of Scots James, son of Mary Queen of Scots, acceded to Elizabeth I English throne in 1603 and effectively became ruler of both countries. Davis (1999) documents that Scotland was not united with England until the Act of Union in 1707. Daniel Defoe, employed as a spy by the English Parliament, sought to change public opinion that was vociferously opposed to Union. Vast sums of money were paid to the Scottish nobility that had almost bankrupted itself in the failed Derien venture in the Americas.
Footnote 3 The English forces were led by the Duke of Cumberland (the Butcher) at Culloden field Prebble (1961).

The case can be made that postcolonialism theory can be applied to Scottish literature.
If Scottish literature can be treated postcolonially, it must be possible that Scottish visual art can be examined in the same way. The evidence of the postcolonial theorists suggests that there is a debate about what exactly constitutes postcolonial territory and postcolonial space. McLeod (2000) and Schoene (1995) differ in the strength of the argument for a postcolonial Scottish literature. Kiernan (1974) and Said (1993) do not specifically exclude Scottish culture. The historians set out the case more clearly, however Daiches (1986), Davis, (1999) and Devine (1999) and (2003), all treat of the processes of colonization, colonialism and imperialism operating in Scotland without necessarily defining Scotland as a postcolonial state. There is no definitive answer. However, if it is accepted that traces of colonialism and imperialism can be found in Scottish literature, it follows that it will be possible to find signification of colonialism and imperialism in Scottish contemporary visual art practice.

McLeod answered the question in the form of an Interview Appendix 1 (17th December 2009). He affirmed his view that postcolonial theory is more readily ascribed to the literature of decolonized nations: India, the Caribbean, and the former Commonwealth than to Scotland or Ireland. He reiterated that England was the cultural authority for decolonized countries and agreed that England might also be the cultural authority for Scotland (and Ireland). He developed the argument that there might be two conflicting views of postcolonialism: one that excludes Scotland and describes only decolonized nations or territories from the former British Empire or Commonwealth and one that might include Scotland whereby postcolonialism can be described as an attitude. This attitude is explained by Moffat and Riach (2008) in their book Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland, when they define:

arts (1) any imaginative or creative narrative, or non scientific branch of knowledge e.g. literature, history, fine art, music; (2) ingenious abilities or schemes
resistance (1) standing firm, refusing to submit; (2) a covert organization fighting for national liberty in a country under enemy occupation [my italics] Moffat, A. and Riach, A. (2008 p168)

Moffat and Riach (2008) are defining just such an attitude, a language of modern arts resistance which includes fine art as well as the literature more commonly associated with postcolonialism. ‘Scots’ language is itself ‘a form of resistance’ Arts of Resistance p 29. Moffat is a painter and former Head of Painting at Glasgow School of Art whilst Riach is a poet and Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University. They (2008 p29) discuss ‘painting in Scots’ and ‘how could that be done’ and envisage a Scottish language for the visual arts that challenges the cultural authority of England from J.D. Fergusson and the Scottish Colourists in the 1920s and 1930s to the present day. Whilst Said (1993) agrees with McLeod about the definition of decolonized states that excludes Scotland, he allows that although direct colonialism has largely ended, imperialism lingers. Imperialism does linger in Scotland. It is even easier to find Scottish artists and writers with postcolonial attitude in the 1980s and 90s when the Conservative Government was at its zenith of power in Britain Footnote 4. For example Peter Howson’s painting (1987) Heroic Dosser Image 1 compared with Irvine Welsh (1993) novel Trainspotting. The Dosser explicated by is a representative heroic Scottish figure, visually and politically oppositional, rendered homeless but not helpless by Margaret Thatcher Riach (2005). By comparison, six years later, Trainspotting (1993) splutters with rage and splenetic self-hatred. In a Highland romantic landscape, Renton is asked if (the landscape) makes him proud to be Scottish. Renton replies:

It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking earth, the most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. Welsh (1993 p78).

Footnote 4 From the inception of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government 1979 to the rise of New Labour in 1997, Scotland endured 18 years of a government the majority of Scots had not voted for, www.scottish.parliament.uk/ and for which it could be argued had no mandate in Scotland www.snp.org/.

Both exemplify the curse of a ‘national identity within a stateless nation’ Riach (2005 p96). It took from 1979 Footnote 5 until 1999 Footnote 6 when the first Scottish Parliament met on Scottish soil since the Union of 1707 for some of the fury to die down. It will be evidenced in Chapters 2 and 3 that contemporary Scottish artists Nathan Coley (2009) and Charles Avery (2008) are more quietly subversive than Howson or Welsh. A change of mood is detected in the visual artwork in Scotland since Devolution, which is more reflexive and better able to deal with the contradictory elements of the national psyche. By comparing two artists transacting with national Scottish identity in the ‘Noughties’, Footnote 7, a new post- Bhabha (1994) ambivalent and transgressive hybrid identity will be revealed. This peculiarly Scottish Hybridity will demonstrate a subaltern consciousness that transacts Scottish identity as both colonized and colonizers. Unlike Bhabha (1994 p277), Coley (2009) and Avery (2008) do construct the hybrid Scottish identity as a binary relationship, a different construction of the Scottish duality that permeates historic Scottish literary texts such as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2003, Originally published 1886) [my italics]. It will be demonstrated that Issues of colonialism and imperialism, diaspora and empire may be hidden but are brought to light by contemporary Scottish art practice. Nathan Coley (2009) BELOVED and Charles Avery (2008) The Islanders: An Introduction will be deconstructed and contrasted. Both use text to counterpoint their artworks, Coley (2009) in the form of a minimal one word textual insertion Avery (2008) in his ten-year (to date) Island project culminating in a traveling exhibition and artist’s book (2008). This Dissertation will seek to find answers to the following questions. What does their artwork express concerning Scottish Identity? What does the artwork reveal, and what does it deny [my italics]? What does the artists Nathan Coley and Charles Avery treatment of space say about borders, boundaries and territories?

Footnote 5 The first Scottish Devolution Referendum 1979
Footnote 6 Devolution 1999
Footnote 7 The years 2000-2009 www.oed.com

Chapter 2

Nathan Coley: Scottish Identity as Colonized Subject

This chapter will explore the ways that Nathan Coley’s visual artwork BELOVED (2009) can be read as a postcolonial discourse about Scottish identity. It will be argued that BELOVED (2009) specifically considers the impact of English colonialism and imperialism upon the people and the landscape of Scotland (the Highlands and Lowlands). A case will be made that BELOVED (2009) comes to be invested with meaning that can be interpreted as a critique of national borders, boundaries and territories with an associated construction of national identity. By interrogating Scottish history and Scottish identity, it will be shown that the artist (2009) is making a national political statement about Scotland that can be transferred to a world or global stage. Schlieker (2006) has written that the artist investigates the social and political aspects of the built environment by making site-specific installations. She writes that Coley’s artwork often resonates with the associated buildings and landscape creating visual artwork that is often ambiguous. Additionally, his artworks have a political resonance, emphasized by his placement of carefully chosen texts, Schlieker (2006). Nathan Coley’s artwork BELOVED (2009) was situated within the architectural spaces of the Dean Gallery,Footnote 8, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and was commissioned by Curator Juliana Engberg, Footnote 9 for The Enlightenments exhibition (7th August – 27th September 2009). In the Artists’ Talk (15th August 2009), she set the theme for the exhibition within the context of land issues and the Scottish diaspora. She reminded listeners that the exhibition was part of a larger Edinburgh International Festival programme designated Homecoming Scotland 2009. Engberg described BELOVED (2009) as exotic and postmodern sublime and insisted the work was investigating a contemporary enlightenment, a postmodern interpretation of the 18th Century Scottish Enlightenment, Footnote 10.

Footnote 8 The Dean Gallery, formerly the city’s orphanage, the Dean Orphan Hospital built in 1833. The Gallery is set within an idealized 19th Century man-made landscape www.nationalgalleries.com (07/01/10 The Enlightenments (2009) (exhibition catalogue).
Footnote 9 Juliana Engberg is the Director for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Footnote 10 Scotland led the way in 18th Century Europe in literary, artistic, philosophic and scientific endeavour Daiches (ed) (1986). Scottish philosophers such as David Hume contradicted the teachings of the Church and Christian Faith for the first time in European history, Devine (1999).

The visual artwork Image 2 comprises seven white and green painted pillars with spaces in between and one trunk spelling out BELOVED in dots. The text was added with a meticulous process that involved the textual reference being made slightly visible through a series of tiny-drilled holes [my italics]. To determine how BELOVED (2009) comes to be invested with the political undertones of English colonialism and imperialism, Bradley (2004) counsels the inhabitants of Coley’s imaginary worlds to learn to read the signs. She writes that anything is possible. BELOVED (2009) was untitled until the official Festival announcement on 24th August, Press Release www.eif.co.uk (07/01/09) (The Enlightenments exhibition opened on the 7th). It could be argued that Coley was deliberately creating anticipation and what Bradley (2004) terms spectacle. Was the insertion of the text a deliberately provocative act? The only other textual referent with the same structure and capitalization, checked against JSTOR is BELOVED (1987) by Toni Morrison, Bhabha’s (1994) seminal postcolonial novel about slavery and racialized and subjugated society www.jstor.com (07/01/10). Is Nathan Coley’s text therefore, a representation of McLeod’s attitude, Interview Appendix 1 (17th December 2009) and Moffat and Riach’s (2009) act of resistance [my italics]? Schlieker (2006) tells us that Coley's textual research is meticulous. Is the artist signifying that (BELOVED 2009) is an act of resistance criticizing English colonialism in Scotland and visualizing Scotland as a racialized and subjugated society? It will be argued that the artist’s BELOVED (2009) initiates a postcolonial dialogue with the book (1987) that looks at cultural identity across ‘the margins of the Atlantic archipelago,’ Footnote 11, Glenda Norquay and Gerry Smyth (eds) (2002 pp 3-4). Bhabha (1994) refers to the ‘Black Atlantic,’ Bhabha (1994 p 229) and Gilroy (1993) expands his treatment of a black diaspora in The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Coley (2009) was born, raised and works in Glasgow Appendix 5 (Email 7th January 2010). Glasgow, Footnote 12, was a significant port for the Scottish (British) slave trade. The artist is re-imagining the borders and boundaries between different nation states. He is reconfiguring the slavery trade route and configuring traces of ‘slavery’ or subjugation in Scotland and America simultaneously.

Footnote 11 The Atlantic Ocean physically links Scotland to the Americas. McLeod (2000) reminds us that the Americas were the first British colonies to be ‘lost’ as decolonized territory.
Footnote 12 Devine (2003) refers to Glasgow as the second port of the Scottish (British) Empire.

Before investigating the deeper structures of the text, it is important to deconstruct the traces of colonialism signified by the pillars alone. There is another history inherent within the visual artwork BELOVED (2009), the history of the artwork itself. It can be argued that the pillars embody a postcolonial dialogue about faith and empire, and empire and identity. The pillar motif appeared in an earlier incarnation as Fear of Death (For Bertrand Russell) (2009) in the Mythologies (2009) exhibition within the former British Museum, Museum of Mankind. The Mythologies (2009) installation comprised three pillars rather than seven with similarly wrapped around text. The text is from Bertrand Russell’s (1927) lecture, Footnote 13. ‘Coley, like Russell, is an atheist Appendix 5 (Email 7th January 2010), and he is critiquing Christianity. Bhabha (1994) considers Christianity and missionary activity to be major imperialist exports during the expansion of the British Empire. Coley is engaging in a worldwide debate about faith and empire emphasized by the previous role of the building as the ethnography department for the British Museum Mythologies (2009) (exhibition catalogue) . The Museum, Footnote 14, was a showcase for ethnic colonial trophies from many faiths www.britishmuseum.com (02/02/10). By siting the pillars in the two capital cities, it can be argued that the motif has slightly different meanings. The motif is anti-faith and politically anti-colonial in both but BELOVED (2009) is arguably anti-Christian in a specific Scottish Enlightenment sense. The atheist meaning is reinforced by partnering the work with THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE (2007) Image 3. It was the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume who first disputed the possibility of miracles, Hume (1739) cited in Daiches, Ed. (1986) pp 45, 54-56. The artist is subtly changing the emphasis in the later artwork and establishing a performance of Scottish identity across the border between England and Scotland. In London the artist is interrogating the products of the British Empire, in Edinburgh, he is asserting a Scottish Enlightenment identity as quietly and confidently rationalist as Hume.

Footnote 13 Why I’m not a Christian’. Mythologies (2009) (exhibition catalogue), www.classicreader.com (07/11/09) (full text).
Footnote 14 The Museum’s collections focused on indigenous peoples from non-Western societies and cultures.

Williams (2009) ascribes the seven pillars to Scottish funerary monuments and therefore a Scottish dead. The artist declined to comment Appendix 7. The pillars certainly articulate Barthes’ (2000) symbolic communication advertising death and there are seven pillars of faith attributed to Christianity www.talkjesus.com (01/11/09). Can BELOVED (2009) also signify the voiceless people who disappeared from Scotland during the ‘Scottish Clearances,’ Footnote 15? The civilizing mission of English Imperialism was certainly transacted upon Scotland during the Clearances. If the tree trunks can represent faith, there are also pillars ascribed to empire. In his examination of decolonization, Boyce (1999) explicates the ‘Pillars of the British Empire,’ Footnote 16 . Is the artist highlighting Scotland as a missing decolonized territory? By enclosing the pillars in a room of a former orphanage the artist is certainly evoking missing people. McLeod (2000 p9) refers to European populations ‘violently displacing or destroying indigenous peoples’ in the decolonized territories. Prebble (1963 p365) describes the Clearances as the ‘extirpation and wholesale clearances of territory for ‘alien purpose’ Image 5. Scots were cleared off the land to make way for sheep and shooting estates, Devine (1999) and Meades (2009) calls Clearance denial ‘thought crime’ channelography.rattlecentral.com (07/01/09). His tree trunks are obviously real but truncated and covered in layer upon layer of green paint. Williams (2009 p8) believes the trunks refer to ‘an extremely curious mid 19th century house’ in Perthshire. It was not possible to find this reference. However, Off Kilter (2009) episode 3 discovers a verifiable reference to the 19th century estate cottages, Footnote 17, built for the Earl of Weymss, Footnote 18, in Fife, Image 8. The porches are supported by tree trunks covered in institutional green paint, Footnote 19. Williams (2009 p9) argues that the trunks are signifiers of the moment when the Highlands were first conquered for leisure (my italics). In order to conquer the Highlands for leisure, the Highlands (and Lowlands) of Scotland had first to be cleared, arguably ethnically cleansed, of the indigenous people. Estate cottages were built to house the factors and beaters who serviced the hunting, shooting and fishing activities of the landowning and ruling classes, Devine (1999). Okri (1976) cited by Riach (2005) depicts culture during a time of cultural and political impotence as kitsch. The eighteenth and nineteenth century saw the reconfiguration of nature and the Scottish landscape as Romantic Sublime, Footnote 20, in response to the expulsion of people (my italics). With BELOVED (2009) Coley’s shortened sawn off tree trunks recognize the recreated landscape and its associated ‘rustic’ architecture as kitsch. He makes visible the impotence implied by the romantic sublime. In fact, his kitsch is a political rendering of the curator’s postmodern sublime (15th August 2009). That the curious house is an estate cottage reminds the viewer of the great Scottish land grab by the ruling classes that saw 7% of the population owning 84% of the land, McGrath (1974) The Cheviot, The Stag, and the Black, Black Oil.

Footnote 15 The Clearances of the 18th and 19th Centuries were a form of ethnic cleansing described by Prebble (1963) and updated by Devine (1999).
Footnote 16 He references the pillars of empire as America, India, the Middle East and Ireland. Like McLeod, (2000), Boyce (1999) does not include Scotland as a decolonized territory.
Footnote 17 Wemyss’ architect was Alexander Tod channelography.rattlecentral.com (07/01/09).
Footnote 18 Intriguingly, Avery, Email Appendix 8 (10th January 2010) describes his grandmother ‘who was a Weymss’ and assumes that the author will understand the context of the Weymss family/clan with their castles and estates in Scotland www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/ (03/01/10). See Chapter 3 for the artist’s treatment of the Scottish landowning class.
Footnote 19 Note that the trunks are upside down compared with the artist’s trunks.
Footnote 20 The artist and critic, John Ruskin defined the 19th century Romantic arts movement. The Sublime was his interpretation of the feelings of awe and wonder evoked by (reconfigured) nature and landscape, Ferguson, F (1992).

If BELOVED (2009) references the subjugated Scots, the reference is strengthened by the frontispiece of the novel BELOVED, (1987) which is a grave marker portraying a black child angel inscribed BELOVED below, Image 7. Bhabha (1994 p8) writes that Toni Morrison’s BELOVED (1987) ‘revives and the past of slavery and its murderous rituals of possession and self-possession’. It can be argued that there are analogous murderous rituals represented in Nathan Coley’s BELOVED (2009). When Bhabba (1994 p283) discusses violence in chapter 10, , Footnote 21, he could be writing about Scotland, but he is not. Bhabha (1994 p284) states that narrative is a memorial for the ‘excluded, excised and evicted’ [my italics] and explicates BELOVED (1987) as a reconstruction, or ‘rememorization’ of African slavery. Prebble (1963) compares African slavery to the contemporaneous Scottish Clearances, Footnote 22. Startlingly, he references the sale of Scottish people for the Americas, Footnote 23. Scotland is empty of people for a reason Image 5. BELOVED (2009) refigures the Scottish landscape, giving testament to the hundreds of thousands of Scots who disappeared through forcible removal and emigration. Orphanages dispatched children too, Footnote 24. Between 1871 and 1938, Scottish orphanages forcibly removed children to colonial outposts. It is no mistake that the text of BELOVED is set at child height Image 4. The artist is reminding the viewer of the indigenous or ‘native’ story internalized within Scottish national identity. He is confuting The Satanic Verses (1988) statement cited by Bhabha (1994 p239) that the ‘trouble with the Engenglish is that their hiss hiss history happened overseas’. English history happened in Scotland too. The artist is making visible a link between black American slaves and Scottish victims of the Clearances. He is making a universal political statement and act of resistance concerning colonial violence and the continuing presence of past imperialism within the identities of postcolonial subjects.

Footnote 21 Chapter 10 ‘By Bread Alone: Signs of violence in the mid-nineteenth century’
Footnote 22 Devine (2003) states that there were even more evicted Lowland Scots than from the Highland Gaeldom
Footnote 23 The sale of their people by Macdonald of Slean and Macdonald of Dungevan as indentured servants or slaves Prebble (1963 p 20).
Footnote 24 An incredible 7,000 ‘home children’ were sent to the Americas, by one Scottish orphanage alone. The children were denied their family ties and were often abused and treated like ‘slaves’ heritage.scotland.com (06/02/10).

When Curator Juliana Engberg, Artists Talk (15th August 2009) referred to BELOVED (2009) as exotic she is recognizing the ‘Otherness’ inherent within the artwork of Scots identity as Spivak’s (1988) colonized subaltern subject. In ‘The Other question’, Bhabba (1994, pp 57-65) constructs the colonial identification subject differently to Said (1993) and Fanon (2008), as both colonized and colonizer. Coley creates a similar colonial discourse by juxtaposing the artwork which references depopulation with a repopulation by visitors to the gallery, some of whom are the Homecoming Scots referred to by the Festival programme. The Scots who had been forcibly removed often became Devine’s (2003) foot soldiers for the British Empire. The Scots as empire builders and colonizers is examined in more detail in Chapter 3. Morrison cited by Bhabha (1994 p284) references ‘voids’ and ‘absences’ created by the missing and the dead which are buried deep inside the psyche. Nathan Coley first pursued ideas about voids and absences in his artist book Urban/Wild (2004). He sees the desolate empty Rannoch Moor as ‘the land of Macbeth but also Joseph Beuys’, (2004 p153), Footnote 25. He contrasts the stereotypes of wilderness and jungle with civilization and the city and he references the emotive language of empire that jungle is peopled by the ‘cannibals desperate need for civilization’ and ‘white mans law’, (2004 p46), Footnote 26. With BELOVED (2009), the artist brings wilderness and jungle howling right inside the city of Edinburgh. He addresses the jungle and wildness suppressed within the psyche, and heralds a key text from the novel:

White people believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way . . . they were right. . . . The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own BELOVED (1987 p198).

Morrison (1989) cited by Bhabba (1994 p284) highlights certain absences as so stressed that they arrest (us) with their intentionality and purpose. Williams (2009 p9) describes BELOVED as uncanny. Bhabha (1994 pp194, 206) refers to the uncanny as ‘not there’ and the unheimlich, Footnote 27, space for the interrogation of identity and history (my italics). Neither Bhabha (1994) nor Morrison (1989) directly refers to Scotland. However, the void that is presencing in BELOVED (2009) is profoundly ambiguous. On one level, BELOVED (2009) operates as a memorial for the colonized Scots. On another level the artist is bringing to light the émigré Scots, some of who became colonizers within the terms of the British Empire and could easily be the ‘white people’ referred to by Morrison above. On a deeper level still, the artist is not distinguishing between white people and black people, the colonized and colonizers, the émigrés and the ‘homecomers’, Americans and Scots. He is setting up a binary opposition that ultimately defines the identity of all-Scots. Schlieker (2006 p9) describes Coley ‘negotiating the invisible’. Bhabha (1994) does not define hybridity as a binary equation. What the artist is actually doing is making visible a duality, a peculiarly Scottish unique post-Bhabha ‘hybridity’ that transcends all these constructions of identity, Bhabha (1994 p172).

Footnote 25 Joseph Beuys visited Rannoch Moor, Perthshire, Scotland, with Richard Demarco and contributed to his Edinburgh Festival 1970 exhibition Strategy: Get Arts Beuys in Scotland CD-ROM (1996)
Footnote 26 Enlightenment philosopher David Hume cited by Coley (2004 p46)
Footnote 27 For Freud (2003) (First published 1909) the concept of the unheimlich is the name for everything that should have remained secret and hidden but has come to light often translated as the ‘unhomely’ or the ‘uncanny’

Chapter 3

Charles Avery: Scottish Identity as Colonizer

Bourriaud (2008 p 149) describes Avery’s drawings as ‘consistently unheimlich or uncanny’. It will be argued that Avery (2008) is representing a critique of the ‘colonial’ uncanny described by Ching-Liang Low (1996 p66). The artist is bringing to light something subliminal and contradictory about Scottish identity and the landowning classes. It will be recollected from Chapter 1 that the Union of Scotland with England in 1707 was primarily a treaty between (English and Scottish) landowning classes, Footnote 28, Davis (1999) and Devine (1999). The Marxist Kiernan (1974) attributes one of the fundamental causes of colonialism and imperialism to be class divisions. In Scotland class divisions were responsible for the great land grab of the Scottish Clearances, Footnote 29. Avery’s (2008) visual artwork The Islanders: An Introduction (2008) looks at Scottish identity through the lens of colonialism. Whilst Bourriaud (2009 p150) recognizes that Avery’s project is a fictional reality, he also avows that Avery’s Island owes nothing to our own epoch. Why cannot Avery be bringing the past into the present through his narrative? Avery’s island can be a distopian reality where a different kind of truthfulness is being transacted. Ching-Liang Low (1996 p2) recognizes the instability of the divide between fantasy and reality. The artist’s fiction is both timeless as Bourriaud (2009) decrees and ‘of its (historic) time’ [my italics]. Landowners were part of the empowered elite who played a prominent role in empire building, Devine (1999). The artist (2008) makes an important distinction a world of difference between the forced emigration of the poor and dispossessed Scots and the ‘Scottish elite,’Footnote 30, Devine (2003). Whilst Meades (2009) refers to Scotland as the ‘world’s longest exercise in victimhood’, channelography.rattlecentral.com (07/01/09), Devine (2003) counters that Scottish emigration was also an opportunity for commercial, militaristic, professional and sometimes violent expansionism. Whereas Coley (2009) emphasizes forced emigration, Avery negotiates Scottish landownership and opportunistic empire building. McCleod (2000 p243) discounts the Irish and Scots (as postcolonial) because ‘in other parts of the Empire (such as India…) they functioned as agents of colonization and prospered under colonial rule’. Scots can be colonized and agents of colonization [my italics].

Footnote 28 From the 18th Century onwards clan chiefs rejected the old societal order whereby the chief held land in trust for his people in return for their support in warfare, Prebble (1963). After Culloden (1746) clan chiefs began to identify with the English model of landownership and began to clear estates of people.
Footnote 29 The land-grab of the Scottish Clearances referenced in Chapter 2 whereby 7% of the population own 84% of the land, McGrath (1974).
Footnote 30 Devine asserts the phenomenal figure of 80 Million Scots involved directly in the production of the British Empire from the late 17th Century to the end of the First World War ‘Diaspora and Empire’ (19/08/09) and (2003) Scotland’s Empire 1600-1815.

Avery understands this paradox very well. The character of the Hunter is an agent of colonization. He arrives on the Island armed with a gun, surely a trope of colonialism, Image 10? He is described as an explorer by Bourriaud, an ‘avatar’ by Morton (2008 p156) and is the protagonist and arguably artist-narrator. The Hunter is also Ching-Liang Low’s (1996 pp41-42) fictional ‘man boy’ of 19th Century colonial adventure classics and refigures the literary movement that:

took the highlander out of his environment, disinfected him, dressed him in romance, and made him respectable enough to be a gun bearer for an English sportsman, a servant to the queen or a bayonet carrier for Imperialism, Prebble (1963 p22).

The Hunter may also refer to the artist’s family history. Avery’s grandfather St John Avery ‘was in the (British) army and served in Calcutta’ Appendix 5 (Email 10th January 2010). The artist’s father was born in India Artist’s Talk (1st October 2009) and the artist occasionally uses a family photograph album ‘circa 1920-30’ as inspiration, Image 11 Two dilettantes. Avery describes:

Children were born on the Island, had their own children there, and died without ever knowing the old country. They did not think of themselves as islanders because they had no experience of any other place. Avery (2008 p 23)

The ‘old country’ can be mainland Scotland or is it mainland England? The mainland is an ambiguous territory. The artist is signifying the experience of diaspora and settlement, the experience of ‘living in one country but looking across time and space to another,’ McLeod (2000 pp206-7). Avery (2008 p47) writes that before the ‘Human settlers’ arrived on the Island, there were other ‘Beings’, which evolved into the ‘If’en race’ and had a ‘caste system,’ Footnote 31. The artist explicates the If’en as ‘the indigenous’ population and a ‘Creole race’ Appendix 5 (Email 10th January 2010). Like Riach (2001), in his poem clearances, Avery understands the displacement and subsequent mixing of cultures that arises from the production of empire. The civilization, which has preceded the ‘incomers or colonizers,’ The Islanders: An introduction (2008 pp152, 161) is a hybrid, collectivized space mixing two countries, India with Scotland.

Footnote 31 An Indian form of class based discrimination www.hrw.org/ (03/01/10)

However, The Islanders (2009) is no literal transfiguration: the artist’s human settlers are not Scots, the If’en Indians. Avery is able to blur the boundaries between different races, cultures, peoples and classes because he is populating an imaginary realm. The artist/protagonist) is a colonizer of the mind and describes his metaphorical process:

There is only one world, in my mind, and it is the real one. I am creating a fiction, which is a part of this world. Pedantic, but an important distinction Appendix 5 (Email 10th January 2009).

Bourriaud (2008 p151) explains this reality is ‘born of abstract truth’, which can be represented like the material world. In a sense the Islanders are all seekers after (abstract) truth, or knowledge. It can be argued that the artist is transacting with mythological or psychological or psychoanalytical truth. Bourriaud (2008) describes the artist’s visual art as psychological forms. Barthes (2000 p131) characterizes mythmaking as a transformation of ‘meaning into form’. For Jung 1875-1961, the archetype of the artist is a visionary and seeker after truth, Storr (1991). Within The Islanders: An Introduction (2008), the artist is transformed into a visioning agent for the subconscious and brings to light a heroic quest with his visual and written artworks. The Hunter’s night journey, a frightening experience according to Jung represents the hero's descent into the unconscious, Stenudd, (2007) www.stenudd.com (04/01/10). Only in the region of danger (the Eternal Forest, the Island itself) can one find the ‘treasure hard to attain’ (the Noumenon) Storr, (1991 pp 333,335 pp. 329-39). To Avery his characters can be ‘read’ as psychoanalytical symbols. In making universal statements about the human condition and the path of personal enlightenment the artist is visioning the key characteristics of Scottish psychology described by MacDiarmid (1995 p5) as an intense consciousness of the great mysteries combined with matter of factness.

The pursuit of knowledge within The Islanders can also be understood in terms of matter of factness, or scientific endeavour and enquiry. The artist/protagonist is focusing on mystery and exoticism and is also logging, recording and displaying his finds in the manner of a cultural colonialist or a surreal Darwinian, Footnote 32, botanist/ethnographer [my italics] Image12, A Duck for Mr Darwin. In Altermodern: Tate Triennial (2009 p51) the artist talks about the role of the collector. He classifies and catalogues his finds/creations as both visual art installation and as anthropological ‘cabinet of curiosities’ or wunderkammer, Mythologies (2009 pp11, 170) Image 13. His stone-mice are not alive in the biological sense but signify the ‘animism’ inherent in anthropological discourse, Gell (1998 p121). His extra-terrestrial voyage is a journey to the very edges of knowledge and discovery. And, like Darwin, the artist needs maps. Nicholas Bourriaud (2009 p11) illustrates his preface to Altermodern: Tate Triennial with a 1665 map of the East Indian, Footnote 33, Archipelago Formation. He formulates a new concept, which relates the archipelago to multiculturalism and ‘nomadism’. Whilst agreeing that Avery’s Island is a multicultural project, his production more closely resembles the routes and rituals of empire. What the author sees as ‘nomadism’ in space and time is a re-enactment of colonization more readily understood by the discourse analysis of Bhabha or Spivak. Avery’s map is signifying the colonial activity of mapmaking, indicative of the action of controlling territory [my italics].

Footnote 32 Charles Darwin 1809-1882 was the official naturalist aboard HMS Beagle 1831-1836 and author of Origin of the Species (1859) www.aboutdarwin.com
Footnote 33 The East India Company, creator of the 17th Century map, was the forerunner of the Indian Empire. The first settlement in India allowed by the Moghul Emperor was founded by Scots and eventually became Calcutta. The artist’s grandfather was posted to Calcutta.

Avery’s Island very definitely references his boyhood home the Island of Mull Artist’s Talk (1st October 2009) and his drawing Untitled (World) (2009) is comparable with a map of Mull Image 9. By making Mull the centre of his Island world, the artist is signifying his childhood world. Interviewed for the Venice Biennale 2007, the artist revealed that his mother, also an artist, painted a map of their part of the island on the wall of their cottage with little scenes of ‘all the legends’ www.scotlandandvenicebiennale.com (04/02/10). Whilst, the artist Appendix 5 (Email 10th January 2010) affirmed a link to the Clearances, the artist is noticeably more comfortable discussing colonial violence elsewhere:

Yes, re: Clearances though not specifically, (he) was thinking more generally, and more violently, for example the aboriginals, Footnote 34, of Australia.

Is he denying a truth of colonial violence enacted in Scotland? MacDiarmid (1943 p365) affirms that the Clearances were violent and that colonial savagery was enacted upon the Scottish islands ‘more than anywhere else in Scotland’. During the Clearances on Mull the population fell from 10,000 to less than 4000 www.canmore.rcahms.gov.uk (06/02/10), Footnote 35. Surely the prevailing Island legend is this systematic and colonial expulsion and extermination of crofting people? It can be argued that the ‘extermination’ of the If’en The Islanders: An Introduction (2008 p47) is a ‘mimesis of (colonial) savagery,’ Ching-Liang Low (1996 p66). Although the artist left the island after age 5 Appendix 9 (Email 14th January 2010) there are traces everywhere on Mull of the roofless crofts typical of the area Image 6, Mull, Dail Mhor. In his second email, the artist 'believes that in many cases it (the Clearances) was a brutal expulsion'. However, he continues, ‘the landlord sustained the villagers for a long as possible before declaring that he had nothing left’ Appendix 9 (Email 14th January 2009). It would be easy to assert that the artist is supporting the landowning or colonizer class. Nevertheless, his text is passionate and tragic. Whilst he is intuitively emphasizing the narrative of the colonizer, he is also countermanding the construction of Scottish identity as colonized and victimized. His is the political opposition to the Scottish national mythology of victimhood. Nevertheless, the artist is describing a feudalistic experience of Scottish islanders recently challenged by the Scottish Land Reform Movement, Footnote 36. The Scottish debate about land issues is sensitive and emotional and riven with class fury. Revolution was sparked by the mainland Assynt crofters in 1993 Tom Dyckoff exclaims that:

Elsewhere in the world, indigenous people are seeking to gain their land that they have been dispossessed of, Saving Britain’s Past (19th September 2009)

However, the Avery (2009) injects humour into the class divide. The artist is dispassionate in his treatment of fictional Island caricatures and stereotypes. The artist signifies another gag:

A recent gag was the Kublai Khan perhaps the embodiment of the opposite of a tourist, with a camera slung around his neck, patiently waiting in line at a fast food shack, Appendix 5 (Email 10th January 2009).

He is poking fun at the colonizers and himself [my italics]. Following in the footsteps of Cruikshank (1792-1878), the artist is holding up to ridicule the characters of the oppressors, including the tourist the Kublai Khan or the Two dilettantes, Image 11. Cruikshank (1822) prefigured the Scottish stereotype with his depiction of George IV as ‘Bonnie Willie,’ Footnote 37, Image 14. Avery, Footnote 38, understands the feelings of oppression but his pastiche is not masochistic. It is sophisticated and irreverent and funny.

Footnote 34 Ironically, many forced Scottish emigrants introduced sheep to Australia, and forced out the indigenous Aboriginals to make way for even more sheep. Devine (2003 p282). The oppressed becomes the oppressor, the colonized colonizer.
Footnote 35 Between 1841 and 1881 the population of neighbouring Skye fell by 40,000.
Footnote 36 The Land Reform Movement began in the 1990s and became law in 2003, http://rural.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/ (12/12/09).
Footnote 37 A veiled reference to Bonnie Prince Charlie the failed Jacobite ‘Pretender’ Devine (1999)
Footnote 38 Avery’s aristocratic Weymss’ ancestors were on the side of the Jacobites www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/ (03/01/10)

When Bourriaud (2009) discloses the artist intention to write a multi volume work, an epic tale, he might be alluding to the works of Shakespeare (1564-1616). In Altermodern (3 February – 26 April 2009 p50) Charles Avery says that he has ‘the irresistible hunch that art is related to language.’ It can be argued that his narrative text is related to Shakespeare’s language and resonates specifically with The Tempest (1610/11). Riach (2005) deconstructs The Tempest as a postcolonial play and allegory about colonizing territory. It can be argued that The Islanders can also be ‘read’ postcolonially as allegory:

Surely Shakespeare wrote The Tempest a long time before the Union (1707?) You are right, it is very analogous Appendix 6 (Email 14th January 2010).

The artist’s fiction discloses textual parallels with Shakespeare’s (1610/11) The Tempest. Both conjure imaginary worlds and each has a protagonist, the artist/protagonist ‘The Hunter’ in The Islanders and the actor/protagonist ‘Prospero’ in The Tempest respectively. Each protagonist discovers an island that has already been inhabited, the ‘If’en’ twinned with ‘Caliban and Sycorax’. Both treat of the desire for a woman, ‘Miss Miss’ juxtaposed with ‘Miranda’ and a quest or pursuit of unknowable mysterious realms, the ‘Noumenon’ counter pointed by ‘Ariel’. Caliban falls asleep in the Isle full of noises:

Caliban Are thou afeard?
Stephano No monster, not I
Caliban Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. (Act II scene II, Lines 192-3)

The Hunter is afraid:

The rain had started to fall heavily now and horrible little noises were emanating from the darkness, the source of which appeared to be coming closer. True I had a gun…

Shakespeare was writing The Tempest (1610/11) at a time of enormous economic and cultural change, Footnote 39. It was an era comparable in significance to the era of Scottish Devolution (1999) and the renewed debate about Scottish Independence. Willy Maley (1995) cited by Riach (2005 p42) figures Caliban, Footnote 40, as a caricature corresponding to a colonized Scotland. Prospero represents English colonialism. It can be argued that Avery’s characters the ‘If’ en’ play Caliban to the ‘English’ landowning, empire building and aristocratic ‘Hunter’. The artist is reinterpreting Shakespeare to present a new Caliban legacy for Scotland.

Footnote 39 King James I and VI was the first king of Scotland and England in 1603, Devine (1999).
Footnote 40 Willy Maley’s (1995) cited by Riach (2005 p42) that Caliban is a caricature corresponding to Ireland and Scotland respectively is later conflated by Riach to portray Caliban and Ariel as one. Prospero is England.

Conclusion

Chapter 1 investigated whether Scotland could be considered to be postcolonial territory and if postcolonial theory could be used as a strategy for interrogating contemporary Scottish art practice. Although Scotland has not achieved independence, and was not therefore a specifically a decolonized state, Scotland was considered to be postcolonial because the forces of English imperialism had a proven historical impact upon its territory. A discussion ensued between the historians and the postcolonial theorists and Said (1993 p.8) supported the postcolonial interpretation when he claims that empire can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social or cultural dependence. Scotland was united with England in 1707 by political collaboration between the landowning classes (including clan chiefs) and Scotland still depends on England economically, socially and culturally. It was argued that English culture is the anglocentric norm, against which Scottish contemporary arts practice defines itself with acts of cultural resistance. It was through demonstrable acts of resistance that Scottish arts including literature and visual art could be postcolonial when postcolonialism is construed as an attitude McLeod Interview Appendix 1 (19th December 2009). This second definition of postcolonialism was applied to the Scottish contemporary visual arts practitioners Nathan Coley 1967- and Charles Avery 1973-. It was suggested that a softer, less strident but no less oppositional resistance was in evidence following the devolution of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. A strategy of postcolonial deconstruction of the visual art was proposed to determine whether traces of the cultural and institutional imperialism transacted upon Scotland by England could be found.

Chapters 2 and 3 argued that the visual art configured a uniquely Scottish post-Bhabha Hybrid Identity. A postcolonial deconstruction of the poignant, ambivalent BELOVED (2009) in Chapter 2 disclosed a symbolic representation of colonized Scots, dispossessed and subjected by the Clearances. The artist Nathan Coley (2009) transacted faith and land issues and emphasized the connection between a reconfigured 19th century romantic, Footnote 41, Scottish landscape and the voids and absences left by the disappeared. He signified Scottish enlightenment thinking by relating BELOVED (2009) to THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE (2007) situated in the grounds of the Dean Gallery. And he traversed the boundaries between different historical times and different nation states across the Atlantic archipelago. His minimal placement at child’s height of the text BELOVED signified missing children and funerary headstones. A darker and deeper reading unveiled a link to émigré Scots some of whom became enthusiastic builders of empire with a discernible subtext of child slavery and colonial violence. An association was made between the visual artwork and Toni Morrison’s (1987) book. In Chapter 3 Charles Avery’s (2008) altogether different treatment of émigré Scots was encountered as an empowered elite in his project The Islanders: An Introduction, both exhibition installation and artist book. He denotes a connection between landowning class and colonization and his caricatures of colonizers are reminiscent of Gillray’s parody of George IV in highland dress. It was demonstrable that his narrative shares certain analogies with Shakespeare’s (1610/11) The Tempest. He investigates time lag and crosses the borders of time zones and nation states Bourriaud (2009).

Footnote 41 The romantic Scottish landscape described by 19th century poets and painters including Ruskin as sublime Ferguson (1992)

Kate Hatton Appendix 7 (Email 9th December 2009) cautioned against generalizing about Scottish art and identity, which ‘is really easy to do with all the stereotypes about’.
Okri (1976) cited by Riach (2005 pp xiv, xv) depicts culture during a time of cultural impotence as kitsch. However, Riach asserts that kitsch can also function as continual declaration of resistance. With his truncated tree-trunks, Nathan Coley 2009) signifies the romantic sublime as kitsch, (Curator Engberg’s postmodern sublime) referencing a depopulated man-made landscape conquered for leisure. He conjugates stereotypes of jungle and inserts a truthful Scottish wilderness deep within the ‘civilized’ city of Edinburgh. Avery’s (2008) stereotypes bolster an oppositional Scottish identity differently to Coley. White colonial identity is what is at stake, Ching-Liang Low (1996 p919). The critics Williams (2009) and Bourriaud (2008) describe the visual artwork of Coley and Avery respectively as uncanny (unheimlich). Coley juxtaposes his installation BELOVED (2009) with visitors and ‘homecoming’ Scots and Avery signifies the colonized as the If’en. Rather each interrogates the psychological (or psycho-geographical) universal human nature against a bivalent, Footnote 42, and postcolonial structuring of identity as colonized and colonizer. Each artist is staging a dissident performance of identity unmasking the stereotypes to reveal the painful truth of Scottish identity as colonized and colonizing [my italics]. Whilst the emphasis within the visual artwork is different, Coley (2009) accentuating the colonized subject/s, and Avery the colonizer/s, each artist gives a voice/s to the other side of the binary equation. The bisection between colonized and colonizer is an unstable boundary. Whilst, neither would describe his contemporary art practice as national or nationalistic, each artist has his own independent Scottish perspective that is oppositional to Anglocentricism. The concept of the Scottish ‘cultural cringe’ may be useful here. Apparently devised by A. Phillips in Australia in 1950 and adopted into postcolonial studies, the cringe refers to reluctance even in decolonized territories, to esteem native culture http://www.ijsl.stir.ac.uk/issue5/kellyOP.htm (20/01/10). Each artist undermines the cringe factor by postcolonially reinterpreting Scottish stereotypes and kitsch and proposes new ways of seeing into Scottish identity. It can be argued that to be truly international art and artists have first to be national, Moffat and Riach, (2008). Avery (2008) and Coley (2009) traverse a liminal national borderland where ‘imperialism still casts a considerable shadow’ Said (1993 p4). The metaphysical boundary between colonizer and colonized is a semi permeable membrane: the colonized can become the colonizer; and vice versa. This Dissertation has demonstrated that Scottish contemporary art practice can be united with postcolonial theory and creates a new kind of post-Bhabha Scottish Hybridity, unlike anywhere else in the decolonized or settler world. By transacting with the truthfulness of Scottish identity each artist demonstrates a new aspiration towards self-determination, Riach (2005 p 52). In conclusion, Nathan Coley and Charles Avery are beginning the painful task of constructing an alternative future for Scottish identity.

Footnote 42 Valency is used metaphorically to mean capacity of something to unite, react, or interact with something else. In chemistry valency is about the

Images

Image 1 Heroic Dosser (1987) by Peter Howson (Flowers East Gallery)

Image 2 BELOVED (2009) by Nathan Coley (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The Dean Gallery) (photo by F Dobson)

Image 3 THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE (2007) by Nathan Coley (Dean Gallery) (photo bty F Dobson)

Image 4 BELOVED (2009) by Nathan Coley showing text set at child's height (photo by F Dobson)

Image 5 Crofters by their ruined croft (Richards , 2000)

Image 6 Mull, Dail Mhor: ruins of old crofts

Image 7 BELOVED (1987) by Toni Morrison frontispiece

Image 8 Weymss Estate Cottages by architect Alexander Tod (photo by F Dobson)

Image 9 Island of Mull http://canmore.rchms.gov.uk

Image 10 Untitled (World) (2008) by Charles Avery (Parasol Unit)

Image 11 The Hunter (2008) by Charles Avery (Parasol Unit)

Image 12 Two Dilettantes (2008) by Charles Avery (Parasol Unit)

Image 13 Untitled (Tree) (2009) A Duck for Mr Darwin (Baltic Gallery)

Image 13 Avatars (2008) by Charles Avery (Parasol Unit) (a cabinet of curiosities)
href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7vRpd6uRWIw/S46AalqzpTI/AAAAAAAAADA/Sqpx8dMGRVU/s1600-h/bonniewillie.jpg">
Image 14 Bonnie Willie (George IV) (1882) ) by George Cruikshank

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Exhibitions/Catalogues

Altermodern: Tate Triennial (3rd February – 26th April 2009) London, Tate Britain
The Enlightenments: Nathan Coley; Tacita Dean; Joshua Moseley; Lee Mingwei; Greg Creek, Joseph Kosuth; Juan Cruz; Susan Norrie, (7 August- 27 September 2009), Edinburgh International Festival Homecoming Scotland 2009

Mythologies (12th March – 25th April 2009) London, Haunch of Venison Exhibition at the former British Museum, Museum of Mankind

The Islanders: An Introduction Charles Avery (29th November 2008 – 15th February 2009) Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Television Programmes
A History of Scotland (8/15/22/29 September, 6 October 2009), BBC. Five episodes

The Andrew Marr Show (17/10/09)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_show/8313110.stm
(20/01/10)
A Portrait of Scotland (18/11/2009) BBC

Jonathan Meades: Off-Kilter (10/17/24/09/2009) BBC Three episodes
http://channelography.rattlecentral.com/series/b00mrbdt (07/01/09) Full text

Saving Britain’s Past: The Crofters (19/09/2009) BBC Tom Dyckoff presents the community of Assynt and the Scottish land reform movement

Talks
Charles Avery: Artist Talk (1st October 2009) Leeds College of Art and Design

Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland: Alexander Moffat and Alan Riach in conversation, Edinburgh International Festival Book Festival, (24 August 2009)

Artists Talk: Curator Juliana Engberg in conversation with artists Gabrielle de Vietri, Nathan Coley and Greg Creek (15 August 2009) The Enlightenments: Edinburgh International Festival 2009 Exhibition also available online in
http://2009.eif.co.uk/conversations-enlightenments-edinburgh-international-festival-2009-exhibition?audio=%2Ffiles%2Faudio%2FConversations+-+15aug+-+Curator%2C+Gabrielle+part1.mp3Scotland (07/01/10)

Diaspora and Empire: Exploring the impact (19 August 2009)
Edinburgh Festival of Politics

Theatre/Film/Video

Munro, R. (2009) The Last Witch Traverse Theatre Production, Edinburgh International Festival Premiere. Set in Dornoch, Northern Scotland 1727 at the time of the Scottish Enlightenment and based on the historical account of Janet Horne, the last woman to be executed for witchcraft in Scotland (22nd August 2009)

Kidnapped (1938) Directed by Otto Preminger and Alfred L. Werker US, Hollywood. Filmed on location in Scotland.

Shakespeare, W. (1610/11) The Tempest Royal Shakespeare Company production, with the Baxter Theatre Centre from South Africa. Directed by Alison Honeyman. With Anthony Sher and John Kani and Atandwa Kani, Grand Theatre Leeds (4th April 2009)

Trainspotting (1996) Directed by Danny Boyle US, Miramax Films Shot on location in Edinburgh and environs.

Web Sites
Artists Talk: Curator Juliana Engberg in conversation with artists Gabrielle de Vietri, Nathan Coley and Greg Creek (15 August 2009) The Enlightenments: Edinburgh International Festival 2009 online in
http://2009.eif.co.uk/conversations-enlightenments-edinburgh-international-festival-2009-exhibition?audio=%2Ffiles%2Faudio%2FConversations+-+15aug+-+Curator%2C+Gabrielle+part1.mp3Scotland (07/01/10)

http://2009.eif.co.uk/nathan-coley (31/08/09)

The Andrew Marr Show (17/10/09)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_show/8313110.stm
(20/01/10)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/modern_scotland/the_scottish_parliament/ (01/09/09)

www.britishmuseum.org (02/02/10)

Meades, J. (2009) Off Kilter Episodes 1-3 (Full text) in
http://channelography.rattlecentral.com/series/b00mrbdt (07/01/09)

http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/21979/details/dail+mhor+mull/ (06/02/10) Dail Mhor: Ruins of old dwellings.  Name Book 1878   A depopulated settlement consisting of about ten roofless buildings and other enclosures.  Visited by OS 4 June 1972 between 1821 and 1881 4998 people cleared.

Jonathan Meades: Off-Kilter (10/17/24/09/2009) BBC Three episodes
http://channelography.rattlecentral.com/series/b00mrbdt (07/01/09) (full text)

Russell, B ‘Why I am not a Christian’ essay available online at
http://www.classicreader.com/book/1736/1/ (07/11/09)

‘The Clannada na Gadelica: a Gaelic culture education facility’ in www.clannada.org/highland6.php (06/02/10)

http://www.doggerfisher.com/artists/artistdetail.php?id=47 (04/02/10)

http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/article/19448-nashashibi-skaer-our-magnolia/http://www.list.co.uk/article/14587-charles-avery/ (19/11/09)

http://www.eif.co.uk/files/editor/documents/24%20August%202009%20Changes%20and%20Additions.pdf (31/08/09) eif Edinburgh International Festival

http://2009.eif.co.uk/nathan-coley (31/08/09)

Gilchrist, J. (2008) ‘Orphans, cheap labour and a brave new world’ in
http://heritage.scotsman.com/genealogy/Orphans-cheap-labour-and-a.3344336.jp (04/02/10)

‘The Knight’s Move: Charles Avery talking to Carolyn Steel’ in http://www.stroom.nl/paginas/pagina.php (26/02/09)

http://www.haunchofvenison.com/en/index.php#page=london.artists.nathan_coley (04/02/10)

http://www.ijsl.stir.ac.uk/issue1/jones.htm (04/02/10)

Gilchrist, J Orphans, cheap labour and a brave new world in
http://heritage.scotsman.com/genealogy/Orphans-cheap-labour-and-a.3344336.jp (06/02/10)

http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/gd/largetext/gardens_search_results.htm/gardenssearchmoreinfo.htm?s=&r=Kingdom+of+Fife&bool=0&PageID=2132&more_info=Site (03/01/10)

‘The caste system as class based discrimination’ in
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/12374/section/5 (Human Rights Watch) (03/01/10)

Kelly, S. (2005) ‘Occasional Paper: How Tartan is your Text,’ International Journal of Scottish Literature Autumn/Winter Issue 5 in http://www.ijsl.stir.ac.uk/issue5/kellyOP.htm (PDF) (20/01/10)

www.jstor.com (07/01/10)

www.land2.uwe.ac.uk/ (04/02/10).

http://www.list.co.uk/article/2275-venice-biennale-2007/ (04/02/10).

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ (04/02/10)

www.nationalgalleries.com (07/01/10)

http://www.oed.com (04/02/10) (Online Oxford English Dictionary)

http://www.theproclaimersofficial.co.uk/ (11/11/09)

‘The Iona and Mull Trust Buyout Feasibility Study’ (2005) in http://rural.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/the_commission/case_studies/the_scottish_land_fund
(12/12/09)

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/history/pathtodevolution/index.htm (20/01/10)

http://www.snp.org/search/node/thatcher+no+mandate+in+scotland (20/01/10)

http://www.scran.ac.uk (11/11/09)

‘Charles Avery Interview’ (2007) in www.scotlandandvenicebiennale.com (04/02/10).

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/Another-country-Artist-Charles-Avery.4735804.jp (04/02/10).

Stennudd, S ‘Psychoanalysis of Myth: Freud and Jung’s theories on myth and its origin’ in http://www.stenudd.com/myth/freudjung/ (08/01/10)

http://www.talkjesus.com/church-sermons/26536-seven-pillars-wisdom.html (01/11/09).

Meet the artist: Nathan Coley’ in
http://www.tate.org.uk/tateshots/episode.jsp?item=13042 (09/09/09)

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/mull/torosaycastle/index.html (09/09/09)

Appendices

Appendix 1 Interview
Interview with Dr John McLeod, Reader in Postcolonial and Diaspora Literatures, School of English, University of Leeds (17th December 2009) (Abridged).

Postcolonialism and Identity in Contemporary Scottish Art Practice
Questions
1. In your book Beginning postcolonialism you say that Scotland has suffered the institutional and cultural authority of England McLeod (2000) p 242. Is there any scope for discussing whether postcolonialism as a discipline can be applied to Scotland?

Dr John McLeod elucidated two interpretations of postcolonialism theory. The first and prevailing view is that postcolonialism is associated with particular places. He referred to the concept of decolonization which he explains in his book as comprising the ‘lost’ American colonies in the eighteenth century, through the creation of ‘dominions’ at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries; Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, to the decades following the second world war and the decolonized lands of South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean McLeod (2000 pp6-10). He described the alternative interpretation of postcolonialism could be described as an attitude. He was interested in the position of Riach and Moffat (2009) that the arts, both visual and written, could become arts of resistance to the institutional and cultural authority of England. McLeod emphasized the views of Edward W. Said 1935 - postcolonial theorist. Said (1993 p.8) claims that empire can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social or cultural dependence. However, it was pointed out that Said (1993 p76) appears to be unaware that Scotland is a separate country. He asked whether Walter Scott 1771-1831 could be regarded as a postcolonial writer. Said (1993 p 92) states that Scott (Walter Scott) places his narrative in, or as part of, a public history making history accessible to everyone, not just to kings and aristocrats. Said’s (1993 p76) view about Scott was considered debatable (by the interviewer) because Said appeared not to know Scotland was a separate country to England, and that Scott’s role in romanticizing Scottish identity and supporting King George IV. Scott managed the controversial George IV visit to Scotland in 1822- the first time a reigning monarch had visited Scotland since the Union in 1707. It was the view of the interviewer that Scott was not oppositional to English authority. The Clearances were described by the interviewer as colonial ‘reterritorization’ Bhabha (1994). She considered it ironical that Scott was reconfiguring the Scottish landscape as Romantic at the same time that the land was being cleared of people to make way for sheep and shooting estates for grouse and deer. And could be argued was on the side of the colonizers. McLeod asserted that if postcolonialism could be an attitude, and then anywhere could be portrayed as postcolonial. However, McCleod accuses Scottish Literature critics such as Berthold Schoene of jumping on a kind of postcolonial bandwagon. He reiterated that ‘the declaration that ‘this or that’ nation was colonized and its literature as postcolonial is often a disingenuous way of legitimizing the work of the critic as ‘radical’ and oppositional’ McLeod (2000 p243). He accepted that James Kelman 1946- and Irvine Welsh 1958 could be considered to be postcolonial writers because they write in a vernacular Scots language, a different language to literary English, and their writing can be understood as confrontational. He referenced Ashcroft B. (et al) (1989) The empire writes back as the classic example of postcolonial theory and practice applied to literature. McLeod advised adopting the second interpretation of postcolonialism and to use postcolonial theory as a set of tools to start an enquiry into contemporary Scottish art practice.

2. In your book Beginning Postcolonialism you describe the process of decolonization as when colonized nations win the right to govern their own affairs McLeod (2000) p 8-9. Has Scotland not yet reached decolonization? Can Scotland be regarded as still a colony? Are there any instances in history where Scotland could be described as a colony?

A discussion took place about Scottish emigration and immigration and about diaspora and empire. Dr McLeod explained his position as the child of Scottish émigrés brought up in Canada. His view of Scottish history was necessarily externalized. He didn’t necessarily agree with the view that the ‘Scots who stayed were different from the ones who left. He accepted that emigration was often opportunity for Scots. He was not taught Scottish history in Canada. He agreed that the view of Devine Diaspora and Empire: Exploring the impact (19 August 2009) was pertinent that Scots history is not taught in Scottish schools either. He recognized that there was a difference between Scots who were forced to leave and Scots who chose to leave. However, he countered that there the issues of emigration (and immigration) were complex. He suggested the interviewer read No great mischief by Alistair McLeod 1936- North Battleford, Saskatchewan about uranium mining and the experience of ex-patriots in Canada. The life of émigrés was often as harsh in the new countries. He expressed the view that work migrates and talked about the ways money structures societies and class (and clan) in patriarchal cultures. McLeod suggested looking at how Marxist theorists such as Paul Gilroy (Soweto, Johannesburg 1982- ) and Victor Gordon Kiernan (Lancashire, England 1913-) would construe Scottish society and culture. The key texts referred to are The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993) and Marxism and Imperialism (1974). The independence debate and the impact of devolution were explored and whether nationalism in Scotland was anti-colonial nationalism. It was argued that contemporary Scottish visual arts were anti-colonial and that the work of Nathan Coley, (Glasgow 1967-) and Charles Avery, (Oban 1973-) could be read this way. McLeod affirmed that his knowledge of postcolonial theory was related to world literatures primarily black British and Caribbean writers. His expertise related to Englishness rather that Scottish-ness. He advised the interviewer to use postcolonial theory as a starting point or ‘way into’ the contemporary Scottish visual artwork. The key question to ask about the visual art was whether the visual artwork was oppositional to received wisdom.

3. In your book Beginning Postcolonialism you say that (Irish and) Scots may appear, as colonized people but were also agents of colonization McLeod (2000) p243. Are Scots both colonized and colonizers. Can Scotland as colonized and colonizer be united with postcolonial theory? Does Scottish culture, both literature and art, create a new kind of Hybridity? Do Scottish artists express a particular kind of Hybridity?

McLeod counseled postcolonialism as a ‘place’ to start from and postcolonial theory as a set of tools to begin an enquiry. He was interested in the question about Hybridity. He advocated asking how the artist’s articulated their vision of the world and whether their vision was an oppositional or resistant view of the world. Was there a critical challenge to the status quo? He exemplified Joseph Conrad 1957- 1924 Heart of Darkness (originally published 1902) as a colonial or a postcolonial text. He said that it could be read as racist and colonial but that the novel could also be read as anti-racist and postcolonial. The novel was contradictory. It could be argued that Conrad was holding up the racist colonial views of the character Marlow so that the racism could be seen operating [my italics]. McLeod asked how the interviewer was going to proceed. His own expertise did not extend to postcolonialism in the visual arts. The interviewer held that she would deconstruct the visual artwork of Coley (2009) and Avery (2008) using postcolonial theory. She held that she hoped to demonstrate that the visual artwork was also contradictory and ambiguous and allows different ‘readings’. She countered that the visual artwork could reveal an ambivalent Scottish identity constructed from the ambiguous position of Scots as both colonized (by the English primarily) and colonizers. She argued that the visual artwork was peculiarly hybrid as a result, a post-Bhabha Hybridity that was uniquely Scottish. She felt that the visual artwork of Nathan Coley identified more with the position of the colonized Scots and intuited that Charles Avery was negotiating the very different territory of the colonizers. She spoke of their use of text, Coley’s minimal texts Barthes (2000) like advertising slogans and Avery’s narrative as artist’s book. McLeod suggested she look at the ways the artists use text to counterpoint the visual art. He said to consider which text the artist’s were choosing to use and what they were choosing to counterpoint. She said that both artists raise questions about Scottish identity without necessarily answering them. She spoke about Coley’s use of text as political statement, for example I don’t have another land (2002) relating text from Palestine with a model of the building attacked by the IRA in Manchester. McLeod accepted that this work as could be read anti-capitalist and anti-nationalist and also possibly anti-colonialist. He said that the artist might be saying something about globalization and was possibly making global statements centered upon an argument about nationality and nationhood. A discussion followed about the women artists that the interviewer was originally hoping to include within her dissertation. McLeod was intrigued by the Scottish artist Jenny Saville 1970- and her painting Plan (1993) drawing contour lines as a means of exteriorizing women’s bodies and refiguring Scottish landscape. It was agreed that women’s art would make a suitable programme of further and possibly postgraduate study. Mention was made of Gayatri Spivak In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987) and the questions around motherhood and the treatment of ‘The Breast Giver’. McLeod talked about Scotland as the ‘mother country’. The interview concluded and the interviewer thanked Dr McLeod for his time and critical perspectives.

Appendix 2
Definitions
Colonialism
The settlement of territory, the exploitation or development of resources, and the attempt to govern the indigenous inhabitants of occupied lands’. Boehmer, E (1995) Colonial and Postcolonial Literature Oxford University Press p 2

‘Colonialism’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘imperialism’, but in truth the terms mean different things. As Peter Childs and Patrick Williams argue, imperialism is an ideological concept, which upholds the legitimacy of the economic and military control of one nation over another. Colonialism however is only one form of practice, which results from the ideology of imperialism, and specifically concerns the settlement of one group of people in a new location. McLeod, J (2000) Beginning Postcolonialism p7-8

Decolonization
As regards the imperial venture of the British Empire there were three distinct periods of decolonization when the colonized nations won the right to govern their own affairs.
McLeod, J (2000) Beginning Postcolonialism p9

McCleod describes the ‘loss’ of the American colonies in the eighteenth century, through the creation of ‘dominions’ at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries; Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, what McCleod refers to as ‘settler’ nations, to the decades following the second world war and the decolonized lands of South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
McLeod, J (2000) Beginning Postcolonialism p9-10

Imperialism

Childs and Williams define imperialism as ‘the extension and expansion of trade and commerce under the protection of political, legal and military control’
Childs, P and Williams, P (1997) An introduction to Post-Colonial Theory, p 227

Modern imperialism has been an accretion of elements, not all of equal weight that can be traced back through every epoch of history. Perhaps its ultimate causes, along with war, are to be found in less tangible material wants than in the uneasy tensions of society distorted by class divisions, with their reflection in distorted ideas in men’s minds.
Kiernan (1974) Marxism and Imperialism p111 and quoted by Said 1993 p 10

‘Imperialism’ is not strictly concerned with the issue of settlement; it does not demand the settlement of different places in order to work. It could be argued that while colonialism is virtually over today, imperialism continues apace as western nations such as America are still engaged in imperial acts, securing wealth and power through continuing exploitation of other nations (the author’s italics).
McLeod, J (2000) Beginning Postcolonialism p7-8

As I shall be using the term, ‘imperialism’ means the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory; ‘colonialism’, which is almost always the result of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on distant territory. As Michael Doyle puts it: ‘Empire is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society. It can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, by economic, social or cultural dependence. Imperialism is simply the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire. In our time, direct colonialism has largely ended; imperialism, as we shall see, lingers where it has always been, in a kind of general cultural sphere as well as in specific political, ideological, economic and social practices.
Said, E.W., (1993) Culture and Imperialism p4

Imperialism linked to Globalization
… The extraordinary global reach of nineteenth- and early twentieth century European imperialism still casts a considerable shadow
This pattern of dominions or possessions laid the groundwork for what is in effect now a global world.
Said, E.W., (1993) Culture and Imperialism p4

Appendix 3 After-word
The Scotland of my 1970s childhood was populated by fiercely independent, and contradictory thinkers. My primary school headmaster Donald Macdonald was from the Isle of Lewis. His first language was an illegal Gaelic and he picked on anyone with the surname Campbell, Footnote 43. Mr McLeod a Scottish Free Church Presbyterian Minister of the Kirk, breathed fire and brimstone and promised damnation for singing and dancing. My father’s family descended from a renegade Catholic priest from the Isle of Skye who became a Methodist minister (and married) on the mainland. My mother was the daughter of a ‘Gypsy’. Her mother’s family (my grandmother) 'kept horses at the side of the road'. Orphaned at 11 or 12, she was farmed out to relatives as an unpaid 'skivvy,' a tale reminiscent of the Scottish publishing house, D.C. Thompson's 'Wee Slavey' www.dcthomson.co.uk/ (06/02/10). Neither woman was able to demonstrate affection, yet my mother took me to my first art gallery and thus introduced me to a host of memorable and recent Scottish women artists. Her favourites were Elizabeth Blackadder and Joan Eardley. My council estate comprehensive education was terrifying and erratic with bursts of lucidity provided by two inspiring teachers, Dick Lovell, a sculptor and Mr Rankin, my English teacher who taught me a heady mix of modern Scottish poetry and prose, entirely off syllabus. Studying ‘English’ at University in the 1980s, I was entirely unprepared for studying Shakespeare and Chaucer. I had never heard of Spencer’s ‘Faerie Queene’. I felt outside the whole canon of English Literature. I felt bereft for my own language. I was, in effect, disenfranchised. The questions I can ask now (and couldn’t ask then) concern the construction of Identity: my dissertation my assertion of resistant ‘rememorizing’ independence.

Footnote 43 The Macdonalds were massacred by the Campbells at Glencoe during the rebellion of 1692. Prebble, J Culloden (1961) London, Secker & Warburg
Appendix 4
Email from Nathan Coley to the author of this Dissertation (7th January 2009)
Lives and works in GLASGOW.
I don't believe in the supernatural world, my parents were non-religious,
Both grand-parents's were Church of Scotland, mother's maiden name Stewart.

Appendix 5
Email from Charles Avery to the author of this Dissertation (10th January 2010)
Dear Filippa,
Find some brief answers below next to your questions. Hope this helps.
Best, Charles.

I understand that he is creating an imaginary world & that
colonizing is 'metaphorical' in his work.

There is only one world, in my mind, and it is the real one. I am creating a fiction which is part of this world.
Pedantic, but important distinction.

However, his father was born in India & he talks about using old
family photographs as source material for his drawing.

I have an old album, from my Fathers family, circa 1920-1930. I
occasionally use pictures as inspiration.

What was the Avery family doing in India? Is there a link to Scots
colonial activity in India. Does Avery see colonialism and colonizing
as a reference in his artwork?

My grandmother, who was a Weymss, was married to St John Avery. He was in the army, and had a posting in Calcutta.

The colonial model is for me a good analogy of the carve up and ownership of the world of ideas. It implies a spatial conception of thought, and raises interesting issues about precedence/originality. I would say this is a metaphor rather than a reference, which I would deem more specific, although there are particular references contained within the work. A recent gag was the Kublai Khan, perhaps the embodiment of the opposite of a tourist, with a camera slung around his neck, patiently waiting in line at a fast food shack.

He has referred to Borges- whose favourite writer was RL Stevensons
Is there a reference to Stevenson in his artwork- Treasure Island, or
Even Jekyll & Hyde? He has referenced Defoe too- Robinson Crusoe?
Defoe was an English spy at the time of the Union- of England &
Scotland. Shakespeare writing just after the Union wrote The Tempest
which also makes a good analogy with The Islanders. The Tempest can
be read as colonial with Prospero as England & Ariel as Scotland or
Ariel and Caliban both as Scotland (Alan Riach) etc.

Just read Treasure Island for the first time since we did it as school when I was about 12. Got much more of out of it this time - It really is a ripping good yarn.
I'm not referencing it though, it’s another book about an Island, and there are comparisons on that basis. Surely Shakespeare wrote The Tempest a long time before the Union (1707?) You are right, it is very analogous.

Is there something of Scottish history in the work- the islands were
depopulated in the Clearances and after. Are the If' en the original
inhabitants perhaps.

Absolutely the If'en are the indigenous population. The Islanders the people are a Creole race.

Yes, re: Clearances although not specifically. I was thinking more generally, and more violently, for example the aboriginals of Australia.

Appendix 6
Email from Charles Avery to the author of this Dissertation (14th January 2010)
Hi Charles - again- Shakespeare wrote The Tempest in 1610/11 just after 1603 when James VI succeeded Elizabeth I and became James I of England and James VI of Scotland, in effect he was King of the two separate countries but he debunked to London and effectively ruled from there. The Tempest is different from his other plays, more political, and treats of the populations coming together under one ruler. People would have understood the allusions to Scotland & Ireland. Elizabeth I probably wouldn't have allowed such a questioning of nationhood and nationality.
Weren’t the Clearances sometimes a violent expulsion especially from the islands with burning of people in their crofts etc I referred to John Prebble The Clearances and Tom M Devine Scotland's Empire 1600- 1815 and The Scottish Nation 1700-2007?
Did you go to school on the island or were you sent to the mainland? Where did you go to school?
Thankyou so much. You have been an enormous help.
Filippa
On our school curriculum we had a text book called 'Living in Scotland 1760 -1820'. Personally I can't think of anything worse!
I believe that in many cases it was a brutal expulsion.

But let me relate to you the case of an eviction which happened later perhaps around 1900, from a hamlet called Goulahoulish, which is now a ruin lost in the hills a few miles from my house on Mull. In that case the landlord sustained the villagers for a long as possible before declaring that he had nothing left, and regretting that they had to move on. The villagers were scattered around the Island - one of the subjects of this diaspera, who I knew personally when I was a young boy and he was an old man was called Alec, and he lived in a cottage at then end of our village. We would walk past his house, my mother and I and she would ask him what was reported in the news, and he was able aged 90, to repeat the whole 30 minute program practically ad verbatim. I guess he didn't have much else on his mind, he couldn't read or write.

I went to School in Edinburgh from the age of 6-16, to Daniel Stewart's and Melville College. I went to School on the Island for only a year when I was 5, after which point we left the Island to live in Edinburgh.
Appendix 7

Email from Kate Hatton to the author of this Dissertation (7th December 2009)

I think you might initially need to define what you mean by post-colonialism and maybe McLeod’s approach is very much connected to literary forms whereas yours will be fine art based? I’d be very careful about over-generalising post-colonialism as it’s a much used term and its application requires careful analysis. In terms of a Scottish context you might want to begin by looking at the Scottish Enlightenment, emigration and the associated economic and social factors which may have later constructed a form of post-colonialism, although be clear with what both the colonial and post-colonial is in your terms.

Try not to generalise about Scottish art and identity (which is really easy to do with all the stereotypes about) and see what artists themselves have said –do they see themselves as post-colonial artists or not? Find some artists to interview. You have a very large subject which could be narrowed down a lot. Also many avant-garde Scottish artists may see themselves as more part of a European avant-garde, rather than a Scottish one. Joseph Beuys went to speak in Edinburgh and inspired a number of writers/artists in the early 70’s I think. (A book called Justified Sinners, Birrell & Finlay, 2001explores this approach).

I wonder whether looking at it in a contemporary fine art context you might find the following sources useful: Transcript – a journal produced by Duncan of Jordanstone University (an excellent publication with articles on and by contemporary Scottish artists/writers) Archives and contacts at: the Grays School of Art; the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; the Museum of Scotland Centres where Scottish studies are developed -not necessarily in Scotland such as the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University – ( Leith Davies) may discuss the post-colonial and from this you may get some well researched information and ideas.

Hope some of this may have helped and good luck with the rest of the project.

Thanks

Kate

2009-07-26T11:09:00.000+01:00

Leeds City Art Gallery Artist Open Show 2009 private view 12 mid day to 1pm Sunday 26th July
One of my films from my Industrial Heresy, 'circles and lines' Series has been selected. Show on until 31st August.

2009-05-11T21:31:00.000+01:00

this is my last post- for now. I intend to continue blogging. cheers filippa

2009-05-08T14:17:00.000+01:00

I had my acting debut last friday May Day- labour Day. I was the leading light in 'Touble at'Mill' by Rob Martin at Lister Mill - Manningham Mill Community Association. Following a strike at Lister's in the 1880s Bradford Labour Union was formed & subsequently led to the founding conference of the Independent Labour Party in January 1893. The event was part of the socialist movement 'Raise your Banners'.

I was surprised how nervous I was & I had the least lines. As 'Grandma Swag' I had to say

"EEE they knew how to make roofs in them days, did,'t hang back with the lead. There's some brass here, although it's much easier just taking the stone'

John was 'the man from the council'.

Roy Bailey 'headlined' with political song.

All very worthy.

BUT the audience was all white, 'social workers & community development workers'. No one said anything or sang anything about what is happening in Manningham now where the local community is amongst the lowest 10% most deprived people in the country. Nothing in our play addressed the fact of immigration & its impact on Bradford and its contribution to the history of t'mill.

Rob couldn't get anyone of Pakistani origin to take part. There are huge and complex issues that need to be addressed in Manningham and old Labour looks increasingly out of touch and anachronistic.. As a life long socialist I was disturbed by the cosy self congratulatory moral tone. I supported Red Wedge in its day, nearly lost my job/went to prison for refusing to pay poll tax in Scotland & collected money for striking miners but I am fed up regretting the demise of John Smith..
Is it any wonder we ended up with Tory Blair?

And did you see Simon Gawthorpe of Urban Splash on 'Look North' talking about the penthouse 'pods' on the top of t'mill? John said you could tell he was lying through his teeth when he said that the building work was 'on schedule' Urban Splash had £4M regional development money to replace the roof of Lister Mill which was stripped by the 'Security' people & others .The recession recession means that the apartments are for rental now. Urban Splash isn't trying to sell them..

2009-05-08T13:10:00.000+01:00

last thoughts?
/Users/philippa/Desktop/lewis carroll oyster.tif

while I think about rationale/s

I suddenly remembered that when I was very young I thought this Tenniel's illustration for 'Alice in Wonderland' depicted 'souls'. I thought that the oysters with little feet were souls which is very strange when I was writing about the liquid notes of the oyster catcher as supposedly being the sound of souls...I also remember my disappointment when aged 7 I won a prize I was told I could choose two books. I chose 'Alice in Wonderland' & 'Alice through the looking glass'. Imagine my disappointment when I was given two children's books with the wrong illustrations...

Stephen comment about the brooms- my quest for the two halves of the broom to signify a half open shell- that the work is about the hinge. I spent a sunday in meanwood & headingley obsessively photographing hinges. I wanted my two brooms to be joined by a hinge. In conclusion I decided not to have a hinge as such but to weld the two halves of the brpoom at the bottom and suspend the brooms on hooks in a 'V' shape. The brooms are too fragile. The neck and handle are particularly fragile- delaminating.However, my plan is to continue casting, perhaps one more short handled broom and weld a seam. The point is that the material has its own say. I can't control the material.

I also thought that the handle of the broom casts looks like a spine. That was why I threaded the broom for the hospital with red ribbon - to represent the spinal cord & blood supply. What was very odd- & Stephen picked up on - was the bringing in of my broom on a board. I called the board my spinal board. Stephen said it was a ritual. Perhaps it was a re-creation. Something created, something performed, something ritualised.

When I was taken to hospital when I broke my back I was put on a spinal board when I arrived in A&E. (The ambulance men had asked me if I could walk to the ambulance (!)) I didn't know it then but I could only be moved by two people on a spinal board for the next three months. I didn't go to St James (where Jimmy Saville was a porter in the spinal unit) I was too poorly...

Something else about the hinge. Where my back bone meets my pelvis is a hinge. The hinge allows us to bend forwards. Because my back is pulling out of its socket my back gets stuck- at the hinge. Am going to the muscular/skeletal service on monday for an overhaul..

When I do my dissertation I am going to look at ritual, post colonialism and ritual, scottish artist Nathan Coley. Following GB recommendation I am reading 'Art and Agency: An anthropological theory'. Thinking back to my first piece for the Materiality brief, the willow bound newel post with nails, I was stunned to find a reference to the practise of what Gell calls 'volt sorcery'. The ancient Greeks would 'sorcerise' each other by taking small pieces of lead on which they would scratch the name of their victim and the words 'I bind, I bind' before burying them in the ground p102. The action of making a representational image of any kind involves a kind of binding....

I think I will also look at Jung and 'Co-incidence' theory. I am also fascinated by history's propensity to repeat itsef. Gell referenced J Frazer. When I did my first dissertation- a linguistic deconstruction of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland I was fascinated by J Frazer, 'The Golden Bough'. I think I might re-read (an abridged edition)...

I also though of Thomas Stearn line 1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

This was in the period when I wouldn't read anything written by a man. I made an exception for T.S.E. because I loved his language. But he was a misogynistic Catholic convert who locked up his wife for having a physical illness that made her 'mad'...I love the second & third lines & the 'oyster shells'...He is describing a London sky.

I have some photos from our sojourn at St James Atrium but I have misplaced the USB cable...

2009-05-05T07:42:00.001+01:00

2009-05-04T22:53:00.000+01:00

rain moon shine storm
safe

Upload keeps failing even tho' it is saved as one of the recommended file types and is less than 100MB..
I have amended this vid. slightly. it is really a series of sequences each of which can stand alone. I took out some of the wibbly wobbly bits because I imagine some St James patients might feel a bit sea sick... I have cut down the tree sequence and the final scene of the trees reflected in the windows. other than that each section is a window on rain, moon (light) ? actually pool light, shine - my favourite piece with vibrating telegraph wires lit up sporadically, storm - the ubitiquous trees and finally safe? another question mark 'out of the swing of the sea' to misquote the poet priest gerard manley hopkins- a poem called 'a nun takes the veil' about a kind of death, a death in life
I like the way the words combine 'rain and shine', 'moon shine' 'moonshine' 'rain storm' 'storm safe' and new combinations
'rain safe' 'moon storm' 'rain moon'
I wish we had had video this year- what happened?
Can we do elctives next year? Is there any reason why we can't do 'extra' electives?

2009-05-04T19:48:00.000+01:00

2009-05-04T19:46:00.001+01:00

2009-05-04T15:18:00.000+01:00

this is 'broomstick flying broomstick penitent' saved as a quicktime .mov file - the bog standard Web standard .mov format in IMovie 'share' movie as quicktime movie. The quality is much reduced but it is showable. I tried saving as .MP4 file format with quicktime 'expert settings but the time it would take to compress would be upwards of 120 minutes. I saved this version in six minutes. It is 60+ MB.It is supposed to be possible to save a movie at less that 10MB and to keep (some of) the quality. Presumably there is a way to do this in 'expert settings' ... but the expert settings files are bigger still

2009-05-04T13:55:00.000+01:00

St James Hospital Show Reel
I said that I would try to create a Show reel for the Hospital this weekend.

I asked Claire Tom to give me MP4 files of their movies. IMovie instructions say that importing other imovie projects or compatible movie files from other sources is relatively straightforward. MP4 files are recommended. And MP4 files recommended for youtube.
Matt (video man at college) said it is quite complicated.
Stephen said it should be possible but remember to create 'black clips' or spaces between the different files/movies and export/import to IDVD as one chapter so that it is possible to play the Reel as one continuous loop.
I cannot believe the time it has taken me to attempt to group video from three people for a show reel for the hospital. I have Claire's elective movie which is a dvd for dvd player. As the files are not present I can play the movie but I can't do any thing with it. I can't import to IMovie or IDVD.
I have two .mpg files for Tom.
I have created two movies for the hospital 'broomstcik flying broomstick penitent' and 'rain moon shine storm' in IMovie. I re-cut and edited both movies from existing footage. I learnt how to make black spaces. I made six second gaps at the beginning and end of each movie and between the two different sections in 'rain moon shine storm'. In IMoviw open the clips in the timeline viewer and press control and move the clip which moves the space a second at a time. Holding shift down moves the space 10 frames at a time.
So far, so good.
I needed to experiment with the audio channels in each movie. In the first the noise of the traffic on the Holy Island causeway drowned out the sound of the curlew. As a curlew cry is supposed to be the sound of a soul, I wanted to emphasise the sound and repeat the sound at intervals. I had to learn how to extract the audio that was already present and operate in the two channels of audio that open in the timeline viewer. In effect, this enables three audio channels. I had some success cutting and pasting the curlew cry. It was difficult because the audio had to be locked to the video clips and the original audio turned down.
The 'rain moon shine storm' is a meditative piece and should be quite suitable for the hospital. There is a middle section where the movie swings about which I thought might make the veiwer feel a bit storm tossed. I cut out a lot of the motion but kept some in for clarity. The movie makes sense as a strom piece because it moves around. In fact I was being blown off my feet whilst I was filming. Most of the move is seqences of one locked off shot. The entire movie is handheld so some movement is inevitable.
I thought about my broomstick movie. This is also meditative. I didn't include the location in the title because 'Holy Island' (Lindisfarne) is a Christian site and I want the spirituality to be more universal. I remade the earlier broomstick film and included a sequence of myself carrying the broomstick pole as a pennant, a sign or symbol. It was a kind of pennance because it was heavy but also because of the historical references to the pilgrims who made their way to Holy Island guided by the poles across the quicksands. I deliberately made the two sequences look otherworldly by experimenting with settings and effects. I used a kind of soft focus and gave the scenes a kind of glow. I don't normally use effects in IMovie. most of them are naff. But in this case there is a sense of timelessness and a feeling of almost limbo land. Whether or not it is a piece about Death I don't know. I'm not saying that it is. I can't see that there is any direct reference. I am hopeful Paul, the curator at the Hospital will approve. Whether there will be an objection to witchcraft in the title I don't know. It is a semi humorous reference in any event. It is not meant to signify any occult practices nor is it supposed to be about some knd of Christian, or other afterlife. It is about connecting to the land and being inside the tidal zone- something anyone can relate to & particularly in times of illness or other life crisis.
In the 'rain moon shine storm' video I wanted to cut out the commentary except for a snatch of spoken greek describing the rain and the thunder. I also wanted to repeat the sound of the thunder on the three video clips that describe the rain. Again I had some success in cutting and pasting the segment of audio that encapsulated the thunder claps. Positioning the pasted sound was difficult because the existing audio didn't necessarily move out of the way.
I was already fairly familiar with IMovie. I didn'y use Final Cut which I would have preferred to do but I am untutored in Final Cut & have to rely on what I can teach myself in IMovie.
I finished editing both movies then tried to import one movie into the other to make one file for export to IDVD. I imported 'broomstick' into 'rain'. Unfortunately, the video clips arrived but not the audio, or at least some audio but not the three channel audio I had spent hours creating. I tried importing 'rain' into 'broomstick' with the same result. The video clips arrived without the carefully constructed audio.
I then tried to import Tom's.mpg movies into 'broomstick'. The menu indicated that it had been imported because I was able to 'unimport'- go back a step. Tom's movies were nowhere to be seen.
I have been sitting at my computer screen for five hours today, eleven yesterday. I have IMovie HD and IDVD5 The Missing Manual open on my knees as well as online IMovie Help.
IMovie is supposed to be able to import from a number of different formats including .mpg. It is supposed to automatically convert the files imported to IMovie format but it doesn't. There were no new clips in the clips pane.
When I imported from another IMovie file the clips appeared but without the necessary audio.
This is a very shorthand way of describing the steps I have taken.
It should be possible to import .mpg files and other Imovie files and then space them with black clips and finally export the whole package as one IDVD chapter. The IDVD can then be looped so that the resulting DVD plays automatically on insertion.
However, this has not been possible.
The Manual talks about importing video files to IPhoto and importing the movies from Iphoto into IMovie. I have not tried this as I have run out of time to spend/waste on this seemingly futile investigation.
The maual also talks about importing audio files separately as e.g. AIFF files which might make it possible to import one IMovie file into another. But I would need to unlink the audio from the video, import separately and then hope that I could then lock them back together in the right place/s.
I also investigated compressing the IMovie files as .mpg or MP$ files. There are 'expert settings' which enable the user to set the number of frames per second, the frame size in pixels (I have learnt that 1025 x 720 pixels is the frame size for HD movie (High Definition). Expert settings enables the type of Internet connection to be specified too, The point of compressing IMovie files is so that the movies can be played on the Web in for example, 'Facebook',' youtube' and as a component part of this blog. Imovie can be compressed for cd-rom as well as for DVD.
Tom saved his two movie files on a CD.
I am going to email Stephen.
For tomorrow, I have saved my two mobvies as IDVD files on two separate DVDs which can be played using DVD Player. This is the same as Claire.
I shall alsoo try compressing the two movies as MPG4 files and saving both on CD-ROM. Then someone else can tie themselves in knots trying to make a Show Reel. I shall upload the MP$ files to my Blog and to youtube and Facebook.
Compressing the movies inevitably reduces the quality of the films.
It would be best if the files could be saved somehow in their original format, imported to IDVD and burned as one single DVD.
In any even 'Paul' at the Hospital needs to see our videos to OK them for public view in the Atrium.
Therefore I shall take my two DVDs, Tom's Cd and Claire's DVD to the Hospital tomorrow and let Paul see them with the proviso that he gives us them back. Once he has seen the vids and passed them we can get some help in constructing the Show Reel.
After battling for 16 hours solid I do not like to give in, However, nevertheless that is what I shall have to do.
I still have a sketchbook/critical diary to do for the Materials Brief. And I haven't even looked at what we have to submit for the 'Showing Up' brief

I am reminded of the year I worked with public information systems and techies. I was convinced then and I am convinced now that computed technology is designed by men for men. What I mean is that computer technology is designed to be convoluted and needlessly complicated because the people who design the technology want to keep the technology for the initiated. It is not intuitive and therefore feminine. It is counter intuitive.
Like my 'broomstick' video it is a secret society. Computer geeks are the new necromancers..

Yours tormentedly F

2009-04-01T11:12:00.000+01:00

Title: Death: The Final Frontier;
INS (International Necronautical Society) Declaration on Inauthenticity
by Filippa Jane Dobson

Source/s of Text

McCarthy, T and Critchley, S (2009) INS (International Necronautical Society) Declaration on Inauthenticity (Transcript)

I use the INS (International Necronautical Society) Declaration on Inauthenticity (Transcript) as the text for the CS205 Critical Studies Oral Presentation. I attended the live event, Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 4 Borders: Tate Declaration on Inauthenticity 17/01/09, watched the Webcast http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/webcasts/tate_triennial_symposium2009/ and read the Full Text of the Declaration at www.canopycanopycanopy.com

I attended the Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 4 Borders as part of my investigations into borders and boundaries as treatments of space. I had written my OUFA 201 Essay about what Scottish artist Nathan Coley treatment of space tells us about identity, migration, history and colonized culture.

I was intrigued by the description of the two speakers, Tom McCarthy and Simon Critchley as General Secretary and Chief Philosopher of the INS or International Necronautical Society. Tom McCarty is an artist and academic, and the published author of Remainder and a critical study of Tintin. Simon Critchley is an artist, philosopher, academic and author. www.necronauts.org

I understood ‘necro’ to refer to dead bodies, corpses and death and ‘nautical’ to refer to ships, sailing and navigation. Encarta (1999) I anticipated a performance, or performative reading, about navigating the territories of Death. I was unsure what ‘Inauthenticity’ meant in this context. I checked out the Tate website, the INS website and other sources for information about the speakers and the INS. www.necronauts.org www.tate.org.uk

The Tate website had a photograph purporting to be the speakers. This photograph also appeared on the INS website and the Triple Canopy website which also gave a text for a similar reading that was supposed to have taken place in New York prior to the Tate Declaration. www.necronauts.org www.tate.org.uk www.canopycanopycanopy

The Event took place at Tate Britain. I went with my sister a Psychology trained Executive Coach. The venue and the audience were very different from the Voice and Nothing More Event we attended the previous evening at the Slade Research Centre. There were drinks and nibbles and everyone was smartly dressed including Speakers and Curators. It reminded me of my Curatorial days with the British Library- a similar Institution? www.thevoiceandnothingmore.com

Nicholas Bourriaud, the Curator for the Tate Modern exhibition, Altermodern, introduced them. Bourriaud has written an Altermodern Manifesto subtitled Post Modernism is dead. He is the author of Relational Aesthetics and co-founded the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. www.tate.org.uk

When the Speakers took the podium, McCarthy and Critchley each had a lectern and microphone. They introduced their talk as the INS (International Necronautical Society) Declaration on Inauthenticity and proceeded to read from a manuscript that was numbered as a Manifesto. McCarthy and Critchley (2009)
I realised that they looked different from the photographs. I was sure that they were not the same people. I began to think their performance was some kind of simulation. The delivery was quick fire, the language was dense and of a ‘high cultural register’. I recognised references to Philosophers such as Heidegger I had researched as part of my Essay. I understood the connections to Artists such as Warhol, whose oeuvre was Mortality and Death.

At the end, they took questions but gave answers by repeating some element of the text. There was some nervous laughter. My sister said ‘They are not answering the questions’. My answer ‘It’s Art?’ There was a strange dynamic going on. We agreed that the relationship between Artist and Audience was one of deliberate confounding and audience control.

I did some research into Manifestos. Tom McCarthy wrote the INS First Manifesto, five paragraphs long. The First Manifesto begins ‘Death is the type of space we intend to map, enter, colonise, and eventually inhabit’. www.necronauts.org

There are three different types of space referred to here, real Death, (Death itself), imaginary or conceptual space, and representation of Death as artwork. The Declaration as a performance is an artwork representing, or simulating, a navigation of Death.

McCarthy talks about the ultimate aim of the INS being the “construction of a craft that will convey us into death in such a way that, if we may not live, then we will at least persist”. He also describes Death as “a cipher for the outer limit of description” which reminds me of outer space and going “where no man has gone before”.

I am reminded of the film Star Wars V: The Final Frontier: a treatment of the same kinds of spaces; real Space; conceptual/imaginary space; and representational space. The film itself is conceptual representational space. There is also craft for navigating Space: the Star Ship Enterprise. Star Wars V: The Final Frontier (1989)

The tradition, and history, of the Manifesto is both political and artistic. Marinetti wrote and delivered The Foundation of Futurism Manifesto in 1909. This Manifesto has unfortunate connotations of Fascism and the rise of Fascism in Italy before the First World War. When Nicholas Bourriaud (2009) wrote the Atermodern Manifesto to accompany the Tate Triennial, he states that Postmodernism is dead. I’m not sure. The Manifesto is a Modernist tradition. Bourriaud, and Critchley and McCarthy, are continuing a Modernist tradition. www.english.upenn.edu www.tate.org.uk

Bourriaud, Critchley and McCarthy were participants at the Manifesto Marathon: Manifestos for the 21st century at the Serpentine Gallery. I checked out the website. There is a photograph of Gilbert and George delivering their Manifesto. The photograph looks like McCarthy and Critchley (or McCarthy and Critchley look like G&G). The photographs purporting to be McCarthy and Critchley on the Tate and INS websites look like Gilbert and George and McCarthy and Critchley. www.serpentinegallery.org

This is conscious parody, part of what Miller (2009) refers to as an ‘intellectual art environment’.
Baudrillard (c.1994) describes theories of Simulcra and Simulation. Is the Declaration a simulation of the Gilbert and George Manifesto? Is the Declaration a simulcrum for Death? Baudrillard talks about Art and games playing; “Think of it all as a magnificent game, where certain things come to represent more and more other things”. (p)

Baudrillard describes simulators as imperialists, ‘the allegory of Empire remains’. McCarty and Critchley are colonists seeking to chart a territory for which no maps exist. Baudrillard describes simulation as the generation of ‘models’ of the real, a hyperreality for which the territory ‘no longer precedes the map’. Baudrillard (C.1994) pp1-2
Critchley and McCarthy deliberately choose the great American novel Moby Dick or The Whale as the territory for their Declaration. Moby Dick is a novel about American imperialism and new world Empire. Critchley and McCarthy expect the audience to know the book. They remind us that Queequeg, the Polynesian harpoonist, expecting to die of a fever, has a coffin made, and then unexpectedly recovers. Melville (reissue 1996) (original 1841) http://www.online-literature.com/melville/mobydick/

Critchley and McCarthy interpret the passage where Queequeg copies his tattoos onto the coffin as ‘projecting space in the manner of a cartographer’’. They ascribe the surface he projects onto as ‘that of death’. They recognize that this is simulated death, or a model of death, describing the coffin as a ‘synecdoche’ of death. They infer that Queequeg, a traveler in the realm of death, is a necronaut. www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/
Critchley and McCarthy (2009) p1

Whilst Queequeg may be a character the author’s would like us to emulate, they are more critical of the ship’s captain, Captain Ahab. He ‘projects himself narcissistically’ – with self-admiration. The authors refer to the skin of the white whale as a ‘white screen’ deliberately evoking the projected images on television and cinema screens. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 1.

Moby Dick has been made into a film, notably in black and white in the 1956 version directed by John Huston. In a game echoing charades (the work referred to is a book and a film) the author’s subvert notions of heroism; Ahab ‘embodies a certain Western fantasy of subjectivity as authenticity’. Moby Dick (1956) Critchley and McCarthy (2009) p1

McCarthy and Critchley orchestrate Moby Dick as a parable. They re-play Moby Dick as a book about the materiality of what lurks on the horizon and beneath the surface. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 1.They make the whale’s materiality its fat, sperm, bones, bile and liver, rather than the whale itself, ‘the winner’ (of the contest between man and whale). McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 1.

For the authors, ‘brute materiality’ is reality, rather than form or God They refers to the matter/form distinction, a philosophical debate since Aristotle. McCarthy and Critchley reject the postmodern cult of the self and refuse to comfort themselves with thoughts of an after-life that they describe as authenticity. They argue strongly about ‘the failure of metaphysical transcendence’ and are polemical about religious ‘cults of authenticity’. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 1 http://faculty.washington.edu/

For them the core to the self is ‘Inauthenticity’ which is a process of division and splitting. They abandon the idea of the individual subject and talk about the necronaut as ‘dividual’. The authors advance the concept of Inauthenticity, adapted from Heidegger, in relation to ‘the brute material facticity that cannot be mastered’ McCarthy and Critchley (2009) pp 1- 2.

In other words, the authors cite inauthencity as a response to the age-old truth, or reality of death. When they ask the question, ‘How do we navigate’, they are really asking the question how do we deal with Death- the ultimate reality.

McCarthy and Critchley borrow the concept of inauthenticity from Heidegger, but thereafter Part Company. They dismiss Heidegger as melodramatic, and by elision as authentic and heroic. They argue that Hiedegger cannot make a/n (authentic) decision about existence. He cannot decide to be by romantically ‘shattering (himself) against death’. The necronaut responds to death by ‘comic acknowledgement rather than tragic affirmation’. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 2. Heidegger (c.1993).

The authors proselytize comedy over tragedy: that is repetition, incompleteness, rupture, mess over neatness, uniqueness and transcendence. They believe that we are living under the sign of a disaster and that trauma ‘clefts the self in twain’. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 2.

The complexity of the text, the Declaration, yields momentarily to produce one simple statement: that trauma confers a feeling of inauthenticity; and that subsequent life can feel unreal. The authors quote Warhol, ‘ Before I was shot, I suspected that instead of living I’m just watching TV. Since being shot, I’m certain of it’. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 2. Warhol (2004).

Like Queequeg, Warhol survives trauma, and is a Necronaut. In contrast to Heidegger, Warhol is a divided self or Dividual: he can see himself in a photograph, or watch himself on TV. Warhol is humorous: he is playing a game with reality. He is Inauthentic.

McCarthy and Critchley opine, ‘almost all of art… can be interrogated along the lines of trauma’. They reference works of art from Aeschylus (c. 525-456 BC) -Greek Dramatist and Author of Oresteia- to the Twentieth Century images of Warhol. (It is important to note that McCarthy and Critchley consider that writing and text can be works of art). They reference Jean Cocteau’s, and Shakespeare King Lear. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p. 2. Oresteia (1981) www.theatrehistory.com www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/lear Warhol (2004) Warhol (2006)

Each artwork referenced delineates trauma and each artwork is a depiction of Death, and the Navigation of Death. In Orpheé, the poet Orpheé falls in love with Death, characterised by the Princess. On seeing his wife Eurydice on her deathbed, Cocteau scripted the lines, “It is one of her faces, as the princess is one of death’s faces. It is all false. She is in another world.” He is experiences a kind of double death; his love for the Princess who is Death; and the death of his wife. Orpheé is a necronaut who navigates Death via mirrors that are the doors through which Death comes and goes. Cocteau (1947).

Warhol understood the power of the media. He understood that treatment of Death evidenced by newspapers is different from the treatment of Death in works of art. Reportage is supposed to be factual. The different treatments of the deaths of Jade Goody and Natasha Richardson expose the myth. Both young women died tragically but one ‘courted’ the media, and was pilloried for it, and one did not. Damian Thomson, Leader Writer and Blogger for the Telegraph describe Jade Goody “ death as entertainment”. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk and http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com

McCarthy and Critchley (2009) see the comic inscribed in the tragic. They are writing about Shakespeare’s Cordelia. Could they not equally be writing about Jade Goody? Death is Entertainment. Goody is a postmodern anti-heroine and Necronaut. She could see the comedy in her situation. Cordelia, alas, could not.

Warhol, like Goody, exploited the Media. He ruthlessly plundered the Media for images of himself and other famous people. He was a Celebrity before Celebrity Culture existed (and decades before Jade). Warhol’s lifelong obsession with self-portraiture and mortality was intensified by three dangerous encounters in the 1960s: Dorothy Podber shot at a stack of Marilyn Monroe portraits; in 1967, a man threatened Warhol with a gun; in 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol himself, who was gravely injured and lucky to survive. Warhol (2004) www.warholstars.org/

The close encounter with death subsequently inspired the artist to create numerous self-portraits as well as to several series, including Skulls in 1976, and Guns in 1982, screenprints of the type of the revolver Valerie Solanas used on her attack on Warhol. Warhol (2004)

McCarthy and Critchley bequeath trauma a propensity to repeat. Warhol physically repeats images by screenprinting. The Singer/Songwriter Mark E. Smith writes, and sings, the words, ‘Repetition, Repetition, Repetition’. McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p 2. http://jcruelty.livejournal.com.

McCarthy and Critchley conclude that Art is a repetitive mechanism that functions through theft, forgery, copying, embedding. Art is Repetition. They challenge “Art’s dirty secret is Inauthenticity all the way down, a series of repetitions and re-enactments that attempt to cover over the traumatic event of materiality” McCarthy and Critchley (2009) p2.

If materiality is reality, and Death the ultimate reality, then Death too is Repetition. However, no amount of repetition or re-enactment can defeat the brute materiality of Death. Death, like the Whale, is the ultimate Winner.

Full Bibliography and Sources Used

Andy Warhol (Retrospective) (2007) Edinburgh, National Galleries Complex (Exhibition Visit) (Catalogue)

Andy Warhol Self-Portraits (2004) Edinburgh, Scottish Gallery of Modern Art (Exhibition Visit) (Catalogue)

Baudrillard, J Simulacra and Simulation (c. 1994) The University of Michigan

Dobson, F (2009) What does Scottish Artist Nathan Coley treatment of space tell us about identity, migration, history and colonized culture

Encarta World English Dictionary, (1999) London, Bloomsbury

Cocteau, Jean (1947) Orpheé London, BFI (With subtitles)

Heidegger, M (c.1993) Basic Writings New York Harper Collins
Include passages from (1927) Being and Time and (1971) Building, Dwelling, Thought

McCarthy, T and Critchley, S (2009) INS (International Necronautical Society) Declaration on Inauthenticity (Transcript)

Melville, H (1996) Moby Dick or The Whale Re-issue MacMillan (original 1841)

Miller, D (2009) Now let us interview famous men Art Monthly No. 324, 3/09. Pp7-9

Moby Dick (1956) Directed by John Huston

Oresteia (1981) National Theatre, Directed by Peter Hall (Theatre attendance) (Website)

Shakespeare (c. 1603-1606) King Lear

Star Wars V: The Final frontier (1989) Directed by William Shatner

Tate Triennial 2009 Prologue 4 Borders: Tate Declaration on Inauthenticity Saturday January 17 4.30 – 6pm Tom McCarthy and Simon Critchley (Live Event)

Verhagen, M (2004) Deathly Pursuits International Necronautical Society Profile Art Monthly 18/ 277

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/03/22/jade_goody_death_as_entertainment

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=natasha+richardson&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/static/images/1/ins/sfinsnydeclaration.pdf (Text)

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/material.htm

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/zeta17.htm (Matter/form)

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Dividual

http://jcruelty.livejournal.com/338841.html (“Repetition’ by the Fall)

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/English104/marinetti.html

http://www.necronauts.org/

http://www.online-literature.com/melville/mobydick/

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion/Natasha-Richardson-The-dimming-of.5096546.jp

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsASynecdoche.htm

www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/lear/terms/char_2.html

http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/webcasts/tate_triennial_symposium2009/critchley_mccarthy/default.jsp 24/3/09 (Webcast)

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/altermodern/manifesto.shtm

http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/aeschylus001.html

www.thevoiceandnothingmore.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkOmMVpz1tM (Orpheé Le Dernière)(Image)

http://www.warholstars.org/chron/andydies68n33.html (Newspaper image)

The Text

http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/static/images/1/ins/sfinsnydeclaration.pdf (Text)

Excerpt: INS (International Necronautical Society) Declaration on Inauthenticity

Drawing is at the centre of what we do.

Melville’s Queequeg represents himself by drawing himself out across his coffin. Readers of Moby Dick will recall that the Polynesian harpoonist, fully expecting to die after contracting a fever has the Pequod’s carpenter knock him up a coffin. When he unexpectedly recovers, he adorns the redundant coffin with the tattoos covering his body, copying them from the living surface to the dead one. His tattoos represent the earth and the heavens according to the Queequeg’s people’s belief. As Queequeg cannot see them, he needs to copy them - that is himself - onto another surface, projecting space in the manner of a cartographer. The surface he projects onto is that of death, or at least its synecdoche, the coffin: marker of death imperfectly, experienced, deferred.

That Captain Ahab, too is projecting himself narcissistically towards the whale, hoping to etch himself out across its skin, to behold himself on that white screen as whole, complete, an avenging hero- and thus embodies a certain Western fantasy of subjectivity as authenticity. For the INS, space will not lie flat and form a passive surface for our narcissism, our self-projections. A book that devotes so many of its pages to the sheer materiality of what lurks on the horizon and beneath the surface - their fat, sperm, bones, bile and liver can have only one winner. The whale’s materiality, its excessive weight, shatters the Pequod, rendering all self-projections void - the screen becomes blubber.

For us necronauts, what is most real to us is not form, or God, but matter, the brute materiality of the external world. We celebrate the imperfection of matter and somatise that imperfection. How do we let matter matter? How is the mattering of matter to be muttered and uttered? How is matter to be formed? Question: how do we navigate? How do we deal with matter? Answer: inauthentically. This brings us to a further central element in INS doctrine. In relation to the form/matter distinction, the dominant modern response to this dilemma is to believe that one can form oneself as a unified, autarkic, autonomous subject. This is the modern dream of authenticity: that after the failure of metaphysical transcendence the self can rise up, complete, godlike even, as a heroic subject. We choose to abandon the idea of the individual subject. On the contrary the necronaut is dividual.

For us, inauthenticity is the core to the self, to what it means to be human, which means that the self has no core, but is an experience of division, of splitting. As such all cults of authenticity, whether traditionally religious, political, new age or neo-Buddhistic that attempt to recuperate some notion of authenticity should be abandoned. We want to advance the ordinary concept of inauthenticity, which we freely adapt from Heidegger. The thought is that human existence is formed in relation to a brute material facticity that cannot be mastered. Any attempt at authenticity slips back into inauthenticity from which it cannot escape, but which it would like to evade. It is in this moment of evasion, of the self’s turning away from itself, that out fatal embeddedness in materiality is revealed.

However from this point we part company with Heidegger. For us the nature of this response cannot be the authentic decision of existence that comes into the simplicity of its fate (Schicksal) by ‘shattering itself against death’ as Heidegger melodramatically puts it. On the contrary, for us, the response is a more passive and less heroic decision. This calls for comic acknowledgement rather than tragic affirmation. Comedy over tragedy: that is repetition, incompleteness, rupture, mess over neatness, uniqueness and transcendence. Indeed on closer scrutiny we see the comic already inscribed within the tragic. Next to the body of Cordelia, the Fool, hanged with a rope.

Disaster (itself) has no writing: it has no accurate transcription- rather it de-scribes, un-draws. And yet, make no mistake we are living under the sign of a disaster. Whether you take the disaster to be the Pequod’s wreck, the death of God, the fall of communism, the ‘terrorist’ attack on the twin towers and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, or the exorbitant prize of fish is your affair, but you’d be hard pressed not to see that there is wreckage one must navigate through- or like Ishmael- on. Thinking begins with disaster-or, more precisely, with the forgotten origin of the trauma that clefts the self in twain and in whose subsequent thinking must find its contours. That is thinking awakes in the wake of something unthinkable. Trauma confers on those who experience it a feeling of inauthenticity: subsequent life doesn’t feel real. This thinking clouds the trauma-victim’s entire world view. To quote Warhol: “Before I was shot I suspected that instead of living I’m just watching TV. Since being shot, I’m certain of it”.

Trauma bequeaths a propensity to repeat. The trauma-moment, expelled from memory, plays itself out in a chain of repetitions that I instigate, modulating them even as I repeat them. We submit that almost all of art, from Aeschylus Oresteia to Shakespeare’s King Lear, from Cocteau’s Orpheé to the images of Warhol, can be interrogated along the lines of trauma. Art is governed by what Mark E. Smith of the mighty Fall calls the three R’s of repetition: repetition, repetition and repetition. As a consequence, we think that what artists should do is steal. Art is a repetitive mechanism that functions through theft, forgery, copying, embedding. Art’s dirty secret is inauthenticity all the way down, a series of repetitions and re-enactments that attempt to cover over the traumatic event of materiality.

Definitions

Autarkic: Economic self-sufficiency; self-sufficient country or nation From Greek autos ‘self’ arkein ‘to be sufficient’

Authenticity: not false or copied, genuine and original as opposed to something that is reproduction or fake. The genuineness or truth of something From Greek auhentikos ‘genuine’ autos ‘self’ authentes ‘master’.
Inauthenticity: not authentic or genuine

Dividual: Divided, shared, or participated in, in common with others

Individual: 1. Particular person distinct from others in a group 2. Separate entity or thing 3. Separate organism from Latin individualis ‘not divisible’ ultimately from dividare ‘to divide’

INS: International Necronautical Society

Facticity: the reality, truth or truthfulness of something mid 20th cent from Fact

Material/ Materiality 1: Something used in making items; the substance used to make something; Physical; Philosophical; of content, not form; relating to the substance of reasoning rather than the form.

Material/Materiality 2: The words material and materiality carry ambivalent meanings in vernacular English. On the one hand, material is defined as "things that are material," which emphasizes the physical aspect of things; on the other hand, it means "(in various non-physical applications) something which can be worked up or elaborated, or of which anything is composed."

The second definition can be better understood through its relationship to the first definition that, again, can be differentiated into two major meanings: A) something material is that which "pertains to a matter as opposed to form"; B) that which "pertains to matter or body; formed or consisting of matter; corporeal." Thus, although material designates physical matter, it also assumes potential from its association with non-physical matter.

Matter/form distinction: Philosophical debate since Aristotle
Aristotle on substance, matter and form
Aristotle states that matter underlies and persists through substantial changes. A substance is generated, or destroyed, when matter takes on, or loses, form. A house is created when bricks etc are arranged in a certain form. It is destroyed when bricks etc lose that form. Substance must be separable and individual (my italics) and capable of independent existence.

Narcissism: self admiration and self- centeredness; In Psychiatry, a personality disorder.

Nautical: relating to sailors, ships and sea-faring. Via Latin from Greek nautes ‘sailor’ and naus ‘ship’ Source of English ‘astronaut’.

Necro: Dead body; corpse; Death. From Greek nekros ‘corpse’

Somatise: 1.Affecting the body as distinct from the mind 2. Relating to the outer walls of the body, not the inner organs 3. Of somatic cell from somatikos Greek bodily

Synecdoche: A rhetorical figure of speech; where a part stands for a whole; an individual stands for a class; a material stands for a thing e.g. fifty head of cattle Via Latin from Greek senekdokhe ‘to take a share of’

Characters, Books, Plays, Authors, Artists

Aeschylus (c. 525-456BC) Greek Dramatist and Author of Oresteia

Cocteau, Jean (1889-1963) Author, Poet, Surrealist, Film Maker of Orpheé

Cordelia: The daughter of Shakespeare’s King Lear

Ishmael: The narrator (and arguably the protagonist) of Moby Dick.

Mark E. Smith: Lead singer/ Songwriter with the band The Fall

Moby Dick: The white whale in Moby Dick

Pequod: The whaling vessel in Moby Dick

Queequeg: The first principal character encountered by the narrator of Moby Dick. He is the chief harpoonist on board the Pequod and is a ‘savage’

Heidegger, Martin 1889-1976 Twentieth Century Philosopher and Author.

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition:

"Repetition":
We dig repetition 
We dig repetition 
We dig repetition in the music 
And we're never going to lose it.  
All you daughters and sons who are sick of fancy music 
We dig repetition Repetition in the drums and we're never going to lose it.  
This is the three R's 
The three R's:   Repetition, Repetition, Repetition by the Fall (A play on Tony Blair Education, Education, Education)

Warhol, Andy: (1928- 1987) Twentieth Century Artist

Sources Used (see also Full Bibliography in Summary)

Encarta World English Dictionary, (1999) London, Bloomsbury

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/material.htm

http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/zeta17.htm (Matter/form)

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Dividual

http://jcruelty.livejournal.com/338841.html (“Repetition’ by the Fall)

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsASynecdoche.htm

www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/lear/terms/char_2.html

Filippa Jane Dobson 26/03/09

A synecdoche is a figure of speech in which the one of the following (or its reverse) is expressed:
A part stands for a whole
An individual stands for a class
A material stands for a thing

Filippa Jane Dobson 26/03/09 and 31/03/09

Broomstick Casting Performance and Video

2009-03-26T15:47:00.000Z

BROOMSTICK CASTING PERFORMANCE & VIDEO
(Audience Brief)

I am casting my broomstick this afternoon- second half with interval
1.15pm-4.15pm approx Friday 27th March 26, 2009
Outside 3D Glass Workshop in Courtyard

All welcome to come looksee- from a distance

I am casting with lead so normal health and safety rules apply. Lead is very poisonous. If you touch even lead you need to wash your hands. Also, I am using a propane burner & the lead is molten when it's cast. It's very hot and will burn.

John Weller is assisting me. And, Don is around tomorrow afternoon & can help answer any technical queries.

I am going to post the resultant video on my blog and on Youtube. There are several videos of casting already. None is casting a broomstick.

I have organised an 'Event' on Facebook and have invited fellow students & Louisa.

& I'll put a poster up on the second year noticeboard tomorrow for non facebookers, followers of this blog

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=64302396090&ref=nf

broomstick casting III- a Happening???

2009-03-23T13:13:00.000Z

Looking at the book, 'Essays on the blurring of art and life', I am thinking of staging a 'happening'
I am thinking of doing another casting either this thursday or next, the 26th march or thursday the second april. I can't do friday as I have a crit.

I am unsure at the moment whether I want to cast the other side of the broomstick, weld the two 'halves' together, or cast the broomstick handle and then weld the first casting to the second to the third.

in any event, I want a broomstick that can be viewed by the audience from all sides.

I might present the casting as a 'happening' for the audience brief & invite all the other audience students & staff. if I have another pair of arms I can film the 'happening'

I am also planning a 'happenng' during easter, weather permitting (or not). my plan is to take the cast lead broomstick to Whitby with my sister Hils & John. it may be too heavy...the plan is to visit the abbey & combine with a sit down fish & chips at the rick stein rated 'Magpie'.(with tea & white slice)

I don't know (yet) whether the broom takes tea...

Brooms, broomsticks & shells

2009-03-23T10:42:00.000Z

Thinking of signs, signification & semiotics. I am alert to references and images. on friday 13th march, the day I cast my first broom, I watched Moving Wallpaper ITV1 9pm and heard a character referring to another character as 'adding more twigs to her broom. Can someone be an active audience to tv? Think tv is like holograms in the living room. remember quote from schooldays about tv being 'opium of the masses'. I watch tv when too tired to do anything else.

Watched 'In search of Wabi Sabi' with Marcel Theroux travelling in Japan. In sequence in Zen Buddhist monastery there is a shaker style broom. I don't know if Japan has invented its own version, whether the Buddhists make the brooms, or do they buy them?
Struck by Buddhist Abbot highlighting Buddhist quest 'not' to value success, 'celebrity', profit, other worldly concerns, but Abbot surely a hierarchical position, with power aand influence. However, I like theBuddhist value placed on the 'imperfection' of things...

At Fountains Abbey last wednesday, 18th March, description of Abbots at Fountains describes as like a 'chief executive' of a large conglomeration. And the Monastery, like the Abbey is property. The Abbey, 12th Century Cistertian, became fabulously wealthy from land ownership and wollen trade. Henry VIII was cash poor after wars in france & partly explains the reformation and sacking of the Abbeys...

Thinking about my interest in matters spiritual and connection to place. Watched first & third episodes of 'Baroque'! BBC4 Wednesday 18th March, Waldemar Januszzak. He talking about the 'Counter Reformation' - the resurgance of the Catholic faith in Italy & Spain & impact of Art. Last night Waldemar wearing scollop shell around his neck with crucifix painted on as symbol of Christianity on pilgrimage north of Andalusia in Spain.

Had discussed making my broom piece like a partially open shell with Stephen at last tutorial. Had noticed similarity in form and shape between shaker broom and scollop shell. 'What material would you like to make it in?' 'Gold'- possibly Dutch gold or 'fool's gold' iron pyrites.

Since the second casting of the broom and handle on friday 20th March have changed direction a bit. I might cast the other side/half of the broom and weld together. I plan to make an installation piece with the lead broom and some sort of gold scollop shell- cast plaster with gold acrylic paint, gold plate, gold leaf...

I think this dialogue will create the kind of rhetoric, GB calls 'Anacoluthon' 'when you want to draw attention to a change in concept' by a change of material and colour, from lead to gold. The connotations of the broom as a sign or signifier is for domesticity, witchcraft and Quakers or Shakers- and also Buddhism & the simplicity of design of the Bauhaus.

The scollop shell is more simply a sign, and symbol, for Christianity. However, for myself, the scollop is also a memory trigger. I first studied marine ecology at Stirling University. I spent a summer at the University marine station on the isle of Cumbrae in the Clyde estuary. I was studying bi-valves of which the scollop is one. I was amazed & fascinated by the scollop movement, a form of jet propulsion, opening & closing a valve that liiterally pumps the scollop along, opening & closing the two halves of the shell.

I am beginning to write a poem about the then & now juxtaposition, which has a provsional title of 'double helix'- with the reference to the title of our dNA exhibition about materiality.

The broom/shell dichotomy also exemplifies 'Anastophe' because of the unexpected juxtaposition of a broom with a shell.

None of these references need matter (sic) to the audience.

I was sorry to miss the Etchells talk at the Henry Moore as I am interested in the themes of presence and absence in performance, and the use of the voice & silence- with reference to my performance piece at Holy Island as a meditation.

I looked at Derrida in my essay for 201 Practice and Communication(on Nathan Coley and whether his work can be 'read' as Postcolonial- his interest in borders, boundaries and other interventions in space and place etc.) and the 'two fold absence'- where is your quote taken from Gary??

My Essay Title: Thinking beyond limits. What does Scottish artist Nathan Coley treatment of space tell us about identity, migration, history, and colonised culture? Explore the body of artwork/s There will be no miracles here using discourse and textual analysis.

I am continuing my investigation into Borders and Boundaries. I attended the 'Borders' Prologue preceding the Tate Modern 'AlterModern' exhibition. I am using the text of the Manifesto, 'A Declaration on Inauthenticity', presented by Tom McCarthy and Tom Critchley, as members of the International Necronautical Society. Theirs was a performance piece which referenced Heidigger and others interested in the spaces beyond the boundary, in their words the spaces beyond equate Death.

“A boundary is not that at which something stops, but, as the Greeks recognised, the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing.’

Martin Heidegger in ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’
Cited in Hebdige (1988) Hiding in the Light
And in Bhaba (1994) The Location of Culture

I am going to see if the library has the book on Crossing Borders Gary mentions. I am also interested in the 'Death of the Author' scenario. I am beginning to do my Presentation for Critical Studies.

I am ordering the books by Jean Baudrillard, The Conspiracy of Art, Manifestos, Texts, Interviews (Foreign Agents) and Simulacra and Simulation (The Body in Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) from Amazon

McCarty and Critchley are interested in the concept of a 'good death', even a comical death. They reference WILE E COYOTE, the comic strip & cartoon character. They also reference a man awaiting execution and commenting that 'it is a lovely day' They cite his comment as an example of a good death.

I am interested in Gary reference to Jade Goody. I am also going to refer to Jade in my presentation. Hers, a Celebrity death (None the less real) is an example of an 'Inauthentic' death.

Mother Ann Lee, the 'prophetess' of the Shakers lost all eight of her children. She experienced four stillbirths and had four surviving children who didn't live beyond the age of six.

The Prologue can be viewed at http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/webcasts/tate_triennial_symposium2009/critchley_mccarthy/default.jsp

my second broomstick casting can be viewed at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70814&id=561441515

2009-03-18T10:30:00.000Z

the broom ballet I went to was called 'Angels in the Architecture & was staged by Northern Ballet.

Dance or ballet: Angels in the Architecture - Premiered in 1992 by Winnepeg Ballet in Canada, Angels in the Architecture is set to Aaron Copeland’s famous music, Appalachian Spring and is inspired by the life and beliefs of the Shaker people. The choreography is a beautiful and moving tribute to the simple yet spiritually motivated lives they led. The movement complements the American landscape conjured within Copeland’s magnificent score.

What astounded me is the connection to my current practice. I am using shaker style corn broom to cast from. I did email the stage manager at Norther Ballet to ask questions about the staging of the piece & the props but he hasn't replied.

Shaker brooms are an incredible minimal design that utilises natural fibres, corn stalks to make a broom that stands up by itself & also features a loop by which it can be hung on a simple shaker 'peg boards'. the peg boards were also used to hang up furniture such as shaker chairs. shaker brooms were made with corn stalks for the brush and had willow handles. The willow connection links me back to my original 16 foot willow broom & beaqch sweeping.

the set was amazing and the first scene features six brooms standing on the stage. from the images can be seen the resemblance of the female dancers figures to the shape of the broom. their dresses were huge circles of stretch fabric which they could uplift over their heads and make extraordinary shapes on the stage.

the Shakers were a sect of Quakers (hence shaking, quaking which is what they do when they are moved 'by the spirit') who emigrated to the new world to escape persecution. shaker style and shaker architecture influenced the Bauhaus and more recent Scandanavian design.

he Shakers are said to have invented the flat broom, and many people regard it as a symbol of the sect. When Mother Ann Lee told her followers, "Sweep clean," she was referring not only to the floor of the home, but also the floor of the heart. Our brooms are grown and handmade in the USA.

there is a Shaker Workshop still operating in America- see link below/Users/philippa/Desktop/Picture 4.png

http://shakerworkshops.com/resources/who-are-the-shakers/the-shakers-another-america-by-karl-mang/

more information on the 'Angels in the Architecture' original ballet

http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/Angels.html

2009-03-18T10:22:00.000Z

hurray hurray I can now publish web links. It has taken me several hours, & Claire & Faizah & myself a couple of hours at college on monday to work out how to do.

if you have a Mac & use Safari for web access, Blogger & Blogspot do not support cutting and pasting web links directly into the text of a post. Blogger does have plans to enable this in the future. here's how to do. copy and paste the link into the post or type in manually. highlight the text. (this is key!) click on the chain symbol and copy or type in the link address into the window that opens up.

Macs and Safari have fewer 'buttons' than other programmes, only seven in all

2009-03-18T10:06:00.000Z

Mind the Gap is a professional acting company for people with learning difficulties

This is the first touring production in three years for Mind the Gap, it is a very dark piece that makes the audience really think. The play makes lots of use of AV and projection equipment and all the way through Tony Evans is projected doing his BSL interpretation behind the actors.

Using projections of Boo's living room really added to it and made you feel as though you were in Benny and Boo's house. The set was just projection screens and a sofa and i think this worked better than a built-set as the scenes could switch very quickly.

I felt pleased for all the cast and everybody involved - their hard work has paid off. It is impressive that in such a short rehearsal time they have put together such a polished piece. Mike Kenny's story is well written, it makes you think and asks questions about misunderstanding and stereotypes.

I felt uncomfortable initially because the first & lead actor playing Bo spoke very slowly and hesitantly and in a dead pan unemotional fashion. I was uncertain whether he was a person with a learning difficulty & it was his learning difficulty affecting his speech & delivery. There was a tension because I/we the audience worried whether he would remember his lines.

I was not sure whether he had learning difficlties or whether this was good writing and a deliberate method of delivery. In the end, it didn't matter. I learnt to 'hear' him & his dry delivery was very funny and was evidence of fine acting.

The final scene is split between Girl and Boy, and Benny. They all address the audience and tell us about the story that replaced Kelly Spanner in the local paper...
If you want to know what that story is book a ticket for this groundbreaking performance at your nearest venue.

John was very interested in the Mind the Gap studios because their new home is in Lister Mill & is architect designed. My friends both work with people with learning difficulties & they were well impressed with the disabled loos because the loo had an adult sized changing mat.

Read the Mind the Gap blog at

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=60335318536&h=0nRFc&u=6cQcn

2009-03-16T13:30:00.000Z

www.google.com

2009-03-15T18:31:00.000Z

aha you have to click on the link the chain symbol
I shall try this. This is the link to my facebook page to view the images of my making a plaster mould for my broom & casting with lead into 'red sand'. click on link below
my photo album

I still can't paste urls directly in the text but I have managed to make a link to a url. there must be an easier way

I use a mac- the blogger help says use mozilla firefox browser- I use safari. this may explain why I can't easily make hyperlinks. normally hyperlinks appear in the posts?

anyway this has taken me an hour & I'm still not able to type in blue hyperlinks...

audience work & play

2009-03-15T17:55:00.000Z

for the first time I have managed to paste a url into my post. you have to use the 'edit html' button to paste in a web address
below is the link to my photographs of mould making and broomstick casting
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69863&id=561441515&l=70224dee91
I haven't yet got my head round publishing the same photographs within the blog itself
I shall post this and see if the url appears

2009-03-11T16:26:00.000Z

thinking about space now

thinking how artsist use space and how I used space at holy island. I think there is also a struggle between the film maker and the performer. the film maker reluctant because of the physical discomfort and the performer not sure what she wanted to do/acheive. I was trying to respond to the place. I was visiting the 'unknown' or unknowable. I set out to 'sweep the beach' & ended up doing something different.

after group crit with sheila & stephen changed direction. was casting in wax from my willow wound and nailed 'fetish object' which sheila referred to as 'petrified' & life - green willow' trying to break free (?). my object much more powerful than the casts

but am drawn back to my broom

have acquired a corn broom which is made from living 'grass' & some form of wild grass that andy in 3D & I recognise but haven't named yet

am thinking of wrapping 3 brroms & 'planting' in a line like upturned brooms- poles at lindisfarne

and am casting from the broom- making a huge mould- the plaster ran underneath & trapped some corn stalks & looks like fan tail worms- marine creatures or fossils

am going to experiment with casting with cement & chalk- fossilised sea creatures- petrified sea forms

had a brain wave about casting two part broom head as partially open shell- am referring to my earlier life as marine ecology student & changing the materiality of the broom into a shell

had a tutorial with stephen

was also thinking of casting in sand- discussed with don in 3D because of sand's materiality and connection to place. would impress another broom into oil sand or 'green sand' as for jewellery making

talked about aluminium because I could do this in college- stephen asked why aluminium? what would I like to cast in- gold I said. am thinking about witches, menopausal women & spells- necromancy and alchemy changing base metal into gold.

I got really excited when Stephen mentioned lead...I now want to cast my broom in lead and Stephen suggestion make a small shell with 'fool's gold' or dutch gold as used by artist who gave talk about her paintings

I'm even more excited as don keen to help this friday- friday 13th v. suitable date for necromancing- and discussed with Liz- her concern of course rightly health & safety. made box with roger for my green sand and have even located some lead piping that Liz was going to send for scrap. fingers crossed we can do

have been to Olsen at Hyde Park which I enjoyed but wasn;t overly engrossed. enjoyed the very first film - set in north east. black & white reminiscent of 50s/60s eastern european films- featured the sea & a cement works. saw the hungarian film 'the man from london' at the media museum- similar long shots slow moving each shot a work of art & featured my favourite actress Tilda Swinton- as harrassed housewife speaking french- dubbed french

both films have the sea as a character- perhaps the sea as author?

went to the 12th international book fair. had thought of having a stall but £60. the college had two stalls. art & design students & vis. comm. some interesting work- I like the dreams books & the facebook page which I can't now find- students advertising to make an artist's book about your dreams

went to performance by 'Mind the Gap' called 'Bo'- a theatre group of mixed abilities including people with learning difficulties

& I went to a broom ballet called 'Angels in the Architecture' by Northern Ballet

& tonight I am going to Leeds City Museum to see BalletLorent perform Designer Body http://www.balletlorent.com/index.php?designerbody

with friend who worked with Northern Ballet (as the fund raiser)

will write about what I think about what I've seen next time

2009-02-28T12:32:00.000Z

just a thought about relationships

gary b blog about audience - about relationship between audience and art and also audience and artist and the original relationship between artist and art

my relationship between myself and the land or my relationship with the sea- lindsay said something about my art work always being about place- my art about communicating with the land- something spiritual- spiritual being something human rather than divine

just now read gary comment- hurray I have one comment- about having a non human audience. he uses the term 'phenomenological reductionism' and kind of meditation- exactly- will have to look up phenomenological reductionism- when ever I think I have got my head around a term - like semiotics- gary comes up with something else I've never heard of - verrry interesting

am going to try to paste some internet sites into my blog as before now put them in some kind of notes field- really annoying whatever i try to paste into my blog goes into a line at the bottom & doesn't appear in the text

had excellent time gallery visiting in edinburgh last weekend

saw claire barclay at the fruitmarket- see above - really enjoyed doing art with my sister Liz , partner peter came & went- he wasn't impressed. john loved it - good architectural spaces, clean lines, no clutter- Liz liked very the 'calm' and said she got more out of exhibition going around with me. Liz & I partner swop, Peter & I 'clutter people'- Peter with book business- first editions- except he never sells any...

I liked the craftpersonship- beautifully crafted and clean & she had placed some turned wood objects in her installation spaces that reminded me of my willow wound newel post.

barclay used to use 'found objects' but now uses crafts people to make items for her, and sometimes learns a specific craft in order to make something. I like this idea. she also re-uses objects from previous exhibitions in new arrangements and juxtapositions. Sometimes her work decays and becomes unusable.

I was interested in her hay bales with plaster as I have been contemplating doing something with 'wattle and daub' because of reference to building work- or mixtures plaster with hair, bone or fish meal - for the smell. my kitchen smells because I have two fish bones decaying on my worktop...

my newel post- with nails-reference to my year long agony with the builders. am planning to wrap some part of my broken down fence with willow & nails- some kind of -in situ art- and am sourcing brooms to make some kind of installation- ideally would like twig brooms or heather brooms but needs to be cheap (better get on with it)

http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/exhibitions/current

went to doggerfisher www.doggerfisher.com/content.php jonathan owen- obsessive recreation of 'wrought ironwork' in (laser cut?) plastic- not emotional, or a calm emotion like barclay? didn't rock my boat but had long chat with 'charlotte' in the office- said how pleased I was that fruitmarket replied to my email about nathan coley- good networking & met woman from sstirling gallery 'the changing room' who gave coley his first exhibition

went to ingleby gallery www.inglebygallery.com- refurb by helen lucas architects- friend of Liz via the 'woodcraft folk' - leftish non militaristic children's org... wife of malcolm fraser- john once interviewed by, could have worked in edinburgh... scotland is a small world, edinburgh nicely democratic but cliquey...

my broomstick flying video- need to edit video from last semester & view at college on large screen- have an ever lengthening 'to do' list, need to stop thinking

last night an absolutely amazing occurence- was uploading video - which looks better slowed down still further- to 'best of british'/princes tv site when phone rang, 'it's chris' he said, 'you're having trouble uploading video' blimey! I hadn't even reached the end of the form where it says send form- he was seeing what I was writing as I was doing it - a real live person from princes tv- my new 'best friend' . but what does this say about surveillance??

the upshot was that the video never did upload, hung up my computer, my internet froze & I lost everything I had written. Chris sent it back to me as a pdf. now I'm not sure whether or not I have to re-do it. my application was number 11, 853 so am not too hopeful!

2009-02-25T17:13:00.000Z

went to edinburgh on friday. thinking about location for beach sweeping. wanted to do something at burnmouth, eyemouth or st. abbs but diverted to holy island- lindisfarne. checked tides on john's mobile hooray for technology, tide out and causeway open at 1.30pm. arrived at 2pm ish & had a recce. freezing cold and beginning to rain. lots of cars- relatively speaking quite busy. there are two 'islands' on the causeway & one rescue point. decided to head for one of the 'islands' where there were no cars. my initial audience were two people with cameras and passing cars. could hear curlews and see waders and dippers in the puddles of sea water left by the receding tide. felt totally ridiculous until I donned my 'octopus' cloak. john couldn't see on the video screen if any of the shots were in focus, rain dripped down the lens and by the end he was shaking with cold. It is difficult to convey how physically uncomfortable the experience was. The location and the tide times were a gift. the tree boles , like planted upside down broomsticks, guided pilgrims across the quick sands. the tide is so strong & powerful that people were regularly swept away & air sea rescue still regularly air lifts stranded car passengers who ignore the warnings. sometimes I feel the pull of the sea & I like the danger, the 'peril of the sea'. the broom held together for some sweeping, then came apart. I liked the marks made in the sand & the patterns the individual willow 'twigs' criss crossing. there is some link to materiality, something ephemeral and something exploring my relationship with place. I tried to climb up the rescue platform. my cloak got trapped on the nails on the ladder. I didn't get to the top. my struggle reminded me of an image I have (in my mind) of a butterfly pinned in a naturalist's cabinet. sheila said something about my willow wrapped balustrade, something about life, petrified life, life 'in aspic'? I think the video piece is something the same. On Saturday I saw Francis Alys film 'Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing' at the relocated Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh, nicely existential about the pointlessness of human endevour and the equally heroic struggle to overcome. As I peeled myself off the nails, three young men came to see what we were doing. They were architecture students from manchester.

Holy Island

2009-02-23T20:34:00.000Z

I created a video of my broomstick flying on .Holy Island, Northumberland. I created video stills and uploaded the images to facebook. I don't know how to link from the blog back to facebook or whether I can upload video and photographs/video stills to the blog itself.

2009-02-19T19:30:00.000Z

took my cat domble to the vet today

plan to see some art in edinburgh- see links below, and plan to do some art en route. have packed my 'wet suit'- wellies, thermals & some towels.

collected my broom stick from 3D.

must inject some humour. I forget sometimes that I have a highly developed sense of the absurd (should that be theatre of the absurd?)

saw a programme about the 'tempest' melvyn bragg. am thinking sycorax, powerful witch and mother of caliban. saw alison, third year PT FA, (& audiences student last semester) and said I might sweep a beach...

am also thinking of mahler & 'songs for dead children' Kindertotenlieder' which is not cheerful but redeptive??

2009-02-18T18:27:00.000Z

I am going to the Grand next wednesday 28th & am going to the Howard Assembley Rooms to see the chorus light installation at the same time. chorus is on every day from 1pm until 7.30pm

first blog

2009-02-17T14:19:00.000Z

I am thinking of taking my willow broom to Scotland. I am imagining going back to the northumberland and/or east lothian coast to do a performance piece. I like the connotation of willow and weeping willow. I am planning on sweeping the beach at yellow sands or bamburgh/dunstanburgh. I might resurrect my octopus cloak.

I am also imagining a naked piece, carrying the broom over my shoulder, or carrying a willow bundle over my shoulder. I had this idea then saw the advert for ? with the couple parking their car on a beach, taking their clothes off and running into the sea. I think it might be too cold.

I also have an idea related to sand dunes, mounds of sand, time running out, sand of time, tide going out?

Just thoughts and ideas at this stage?

I on't want to repeat performances?