Observation – Page 8 – Murdo Eason

Underneath the M90

Up above, the sound is like a collision of thunder arriving from north and south. Traffic heading to unknown destinations, running up and down the asphalt spine of the M90 motorway. Here, underneath the flyover, the concrete walls have become vast, abstract-expressionist assemblages. Layer upon layer of weather effects, pollution spray, pigment and human mark-making. It is only the walker who will notice these. Why, would you dwell, to look, if travelling in a car?

Has any disorientated walker followed the arrow east TO DIVIT, or west TO THE RO?

Unusual names – DIVIT, THE RO.

Consulting any official map will be of little help. There will be no record of these places. Perhaps we are standing on a territorial boundary line. DIVIT being a local name for Inverkeithing to the east. THE RO is Rosyth to the west. That human compulsion to establish borders and territories. Points of entry or exit. Lines pronouncing otherness, even when invisible and local.

Not far away, a universally recognised symbol. How many times has a heart shape been inscribed on a surface across time and space? From Cro-Magnon cave walls, via the ancient Greeks – a symbol of life and morality and possibly an association with Dionysus and love – to the more familiar symbol of romantic love emerging in the 1200s. Anyone using social media will recognise ❤ ❤ <3.

Under this motorway flyover, a black heart in brush stroke, partly over-painted in white. The shape immediately recognisable, a symbol we can all ‘understand’. But does the nuance of its meaning remain with the mark maker? We connect through common language but subtleties of difference always escape, to be either celebrated or repressed.

Is that a human figure we see enclosed within the heart? Possibly kneeling? Who can say?This small detail, on the patina of concrete canvas, remains a daub of mystery. A symbol as elusive and remote from the casual observer as the Pictish symbols, found further up the Fife coast, carved in the Wemyss Caves around 600 – 700 AD.

The difference between the who and the what at the heart of love, separates the heart. It is often said that love is the movement of the heart. Does my heart move because I love someone who is an absolute singularity, or because I love the way that someone is?

Jacques Derrida

Now playing: Julian Priester Pepo Mtoto – Love, Love

The Brutalist Butterfly

Walking up Lady Lawson Street in Edinburgh, I stopped for a closer look at Argyle House, an office block dating from 1968, designed by the architectural practice of Michael Laird & Partners. The building has many critics and is often described as an ‘eyesore’ and one of Edinburgh’s ‘ugliest buildings’. It appears to exist under a constant threat of erasure from property developers, and the City of Edinburgh Council, proposing new (re)development schemes.

The façade which borders the north side of West Port and the junction of Lady Lawson Street is very much of the brutalist box style. All right angles, rectangular windows and the material heft of concrete and harling.

Today, walking in behind the building, I see it from a different angle. The hidden curves, the windows as light reflecting scales. It takes on the appearance of some brutalist insect, flexing its wings, as if about to fly.

Now playing: Asva – Futurists Against the Ocean.

The Moon Whispers

Almost fully formed, a singing light filling the sky. The temptation to climb up a ladder, over the chimneys and walk through the clouds. Like a moth, drawn towards the light.

On nights such as this, we all stop to gaze at the moon.

But the moon returns our gaze. Whispers softly to us:

In the dark, I see

a small blue planet.

Care for her well.*

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The moon photographed over Fife on 27th August, 2015.

*a contribution to Ai Weiwei & Olafur Eliasson’s interactive Moon project.

Now playing: Terry Riley and Don Cherry – ‘Descending Moonshine Dervishes’ from Live Köln 1975

To dwell means to leave traces

Very small ghost sign on doorway entrance, St Leonard’s Street, Southside, Edinburgh.

“To dwell means to leave traces”.

Walter Benjamin

On the front elevation of the same building. Traces of the old bell pulls.

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Now playing: Polwechsel & John Tilbury – ‘Place/Replace/Represent’ from Field.

View from the Bridge

View from the bridge

Always different,

always the same

Now playing: Ralph Towner – Blue Sun

The Desire Line of Water

from source to sea:

the desire line

of water

rarely follows

a straight path

Flux -> Flow -> Gravity -> Time:

all combine

with light, to reveal

the sounds and colours

of falling water

All of the utterances.

From a babble of words,

a line of desire

occasionally emerges

Images from a walk between Kincardine and Culross and from St Fillans Churchyard Aberdour.

Now playing: Philip Jeck and Jacob Kirkegaard – Soaked

Weathered Walls (I – VII)

The stones hold and keep, the memory of every raindrop

III

VII

From the North facing walls of Dunfermline Abbey Church.

A church has probably existed on this site since 1070.

Now playing: David Sylvian – ‘Weathered Wall’ from Brilliant Trees

Following the Falling Water

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Images taken from a short walk on the Water of Leith, between the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and Stockbridge on 27th June 2015.

Now playing: Kevin Drumm – Reverse Osmosis

Memories of Water: Glen Bridge Car Park, Dunfermline

1772

arriving at a fall

it becomes useful

in turning five mills

Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, 1772, Volume 2 (London: B.White, 1776).

Now playing: This Heat – ‘A New Kind of Water’ from Deceit

Found Art: Andre / Mondrian / Scully

How many times have we walked up Free School Close, a narrow pedestrian thoroughfare that connects Canmore Street to Dunfermline High Street?

Perhaps it was the way the sun reflected off the pinks and greys.

Possibly we were more attuned to notice this

chance framing of brickwork, stone and harling.

Found a Tate Modern mash-up:

Carl Andre Piet Mondrian Sean Scully …

Now playing: Louis Andriessen – De Stijl

Thanks to @stphn