Sounds of Spaces and Places – Murdo Eason

Spaces of Silence

1876

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Out of the silence of centuries, discrete words will, one day, surface for us …

Edmond Jabès

text without words

unheard conversation

solitaire

(listening to the light)

setting sun reflects from a neighbour’s window

fading white wall whisper

shadow play, apple tree, evening breeze

spaces of silence

allow new possibilities

beyond the edgeless shape

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Now playing: Steve Roden & Stephen Vitiello – The Spaces Contained in Each

Lost Coordinates II

Lost coordinates:

Where untold stories bleed

into images beyond words

Where unheard sounds

of the spectral field become

entangled

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Now playing: Jim O’Rourke – Disengage

The City Speaks

Aerated Waters

Marchmont, Edinburgh

P e r s e v e r e

Marchmont, Edinburgh

Not so Chic

West End, Edinburgh

‘Zona AntiFascista’

Patrick Geddes Steps, Old Town, Edinburgh

‘Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio’

Newington, Edinburgh

ARE

JELLI

Cowgate, Edinburgh

When the inside becomes the outside

New Town, Edinburgh*

(*Intrigued by this one. You can still see plenty of bricked up window spaces in Edinburgh New Town, often attributed to window taxes imposed in the 1700s, although see comment from Calum Storie below. This one looks like a cast has been taken, delineating the fan light and window frames. The inside reversed to the outside. Shades of Rachel Whiteread?)

Now playing: Jon Hassell – City: Works of Fiction

Score of Silence

score of silence

with grace notes

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Now playing: Eva-Maria Houben – Piano Music (performed by R. Andrew Lee).

When a wall whispers: Not I

Caesura || Sentry

Island

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Now playing: Morton Feldman (Ensemble Modern) – For Samuel Beckett

Sound of the Moon

sound of the moon

silent water

Firth of Forth 31.08.17.

Now playing: Christina Vantzou – ‘Moon Drone’ from No. 3

From Hill to Sea – Book Update

From Hill to Sea: Dispatches from the Fife Psychogeographical Collective, 2010 – 2014 is published by Bread and Circuses Publishing.

After a successful launch at the Edinburgh Independent & Radical Book Fair, copies of the book are now available from Word Power bookshop in Edinburgh and by mail order. See the Publications page here.

Under a full sky

At the end of a walk
.
a congregation cry
under a full sky
.
Anticipating
the snow arriving
.
(Now drifting down)

Somewhere close to Aberdour, Fife, late afternoon, 16th January 2016.

Now playing: Hans Joachim Roedelius & Leon Muraglia – ‘Gently Falling Snow’ from Ubi Bene.

Ancient elemental alchemy

.
deep time
encoded
black
diamonds
murmur
fire music.

energies
of wind
and wood
weave
lambent tongues
of ancient
elemental
alchemy

Echoes of the Pioneers: Three Beehives in Leven

Recently, we have been visiting the area around the coastal town of Leven. A fairly long piece is slowly coming to fruition. Until then, here is a short post.

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Walk up Durie Street in Leven and listen out for the bees singing. Perhaps, the sound of the skep is more of a muted murmur now, but raise your eyes from street level and you may hear them.

The first hive is above what is now the town library. Our industrious and co-operative little bees swarm around their skep as they have done since 1887.

This symbolic image on a former building of the Leven Reform Co-operative Society reminds us of the Rochdale Pioneers. In 1844, with an economy in decline, wage reductions and strikes, a group of unemployed weavers met at the Socialist Institute to debate the philosophies of Robert Owen and Chartism. Whilst there are many examples of co-operative societies existing before 1844, The Rochdale Pioneers formulated a set of guiding principles, upon which, an expansive version of co-operation was founded. Looking at these principles today, it is notable how well these stand up as a set of co-operative ideals:

1. Democratic control, one member one vote and equality of the sexes.

2. Open membership.

3. A fixed rate of interest payable on investment.

4. Pure, unadulterated goods with full weights and measures given.

5. No credit.

6. Profits to be divided pro-rata on the amount of purchase made (the dividend or divi).

7. A fixed percentage of profits to be devoted to educational purposes.

8. Political and religious neutrality.

The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers raised money from 28 original subscribers to establish a shop at 31 Toad Lane, Rochdale which was equipped and stocked with basic goods and produce. The Pioneers chose the beehive as a symbol of co-operation and unity and the original stone skep stood on top of the, now demolished, central store at 45-51 Toad Lane, Rochdale. The skep now sits preserved and incorporated into the outside wall of the Rochdale Pioneers museum.

Rochdale Pioneeers museum4 — (c) The Rochdale Pioneers Museum

Within ten years of the Pioneers founding efforts the co-operative movement in Britain had grown to nearly 1,000 co-operatives with many adopting the symbol of the beehive.

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We are back in Leven. Follow the echoes and walk further up Durie Street. On the clock of the former Co-operative department store, a golden skep, clotting the fingers of weak, ebbing sunlight:

Stand. Raise your head and look to the sky. Follow the thread of sibilant hum to the very top of the building. A change of tone – to low dissonant drone. A sign that the bees are, once again, getting ready to swarm:

Underneath the skep

intimations of new life

still sounding – echoes

of the Pioneers.

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Now Playing: Earth – The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull

References:

The Rochdale Pioneers Museum

Manchester History