Symbol – Murdo Eason – From Hill to Sea

The Osmotic Ocean

osmosis: A gradual, often unconscious process of assimilation or absorption;

the spontaneous passage or diffusion of water or other solvents through a semipermeable membrane.

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The walker on the city street stops to gaze at the ocean. Tracing a finger over dark, frozen seas, scattered archipelagos, tropical lagoons. On a rusting lamppost, ocean dissolves into city.

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The walker walks on.

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Off scene/obscene* – sheets of cracking ice, flows of meltwater, shifting landforms. The slow dissolve of city into ocean.

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* “obscene” from classical Greek theatre meaning “off scene” or “off stage.” Ancient Greek theatre did not show violence on stage; instead, this action took place off stage, out of sight of the audience.

Now playing – Lumen Drones – ‘Dark Sea’ from Lumen Drones.

How it Begins

how it begins

(or ends)

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Now playing: Morton Feldman – For Samuel Beckett

We Can Only Be Onlookers

The call precedes

the chorus of arrival

A delphian chant

from an ancient score

We can only be onlookers

Line

of the long

low

swoop

Ascending

over the Forth

Carried

on song

– Fading – – faint

– – – far – – – – beyond

Our horizon

We can only be onlookers

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Limekilns, 4th February 2018

Requiem for an Unknown Event

Found object, St Stephen Street, Edinburgh.

Now Playing: Lawrence English/Thor Harris Requiem for a Reaper / Pillar of Cloud’ from Cruel Optimism.

Call and Response

the mist

the call

the fall

the mist …

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Later

(with headphones)

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The missed call

The Fall

the mist …

(Blindness, Peel Session)

Twa Ools / Trees

Call of the rain-smeared cobbles

(Rose Lane)

Nocturne

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St Andrews, March 2017

Lost coordinates

Time adrift

Land, sea and sky under caul of ice fog

Lost coordinates.

Trace of an island? spectral ship?

Ah – foreshore shaman at the prow.

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Now playing: Kevin Drumm – Middle of Nothing (Part 1)

A short history of …

A short history of breathing

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A short history of writing

(scratch wall)

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A short history of building

…

stone

brick

mortar (concrete)

iron

glass

plastic

…

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Now playing: Claire M Singer – Solas

Perhaps just another graffiti strewn doorway but the phrase “Good Times = 2016 =” called out. I doubt that there are many people I know who would readily conflate 2016 and ‘good times’. So just a throwaway action with a spray can? irony? a small act of resistance?

Possibly it was just a coincidence but passed this doorway during the Edinburgh Festival. A time when the city opens its arms to the world in a celebration of all the performing arts, bringing together audiences and artists. Just walking the streets, soaking up the creative energy can bring sustenance. Good Times indeed.

And what about that figure on the bottom right?

Now playing: King Champion Sounds – To Awake in That Heaven of Freedom (Thanks to Teesside Psychogeography for altering me to this. Check out their excellent blog Smell of Water).

The All Seeing Eye

How many time have I walked down Dunfermline High Street and never noticed this all-seeing eye? (Thanks to my daughter for spotting it).

It’s located at the top of the current Clydesdale Bank building.

Another set of Masonic symbols can be found over the entrance to the abandoned Masonic Lodge in the New Row, Dunfermline.

MASONIC LODGE

The eyes are even seeping out into the streets.

A piece of graffiti found in Inverkeithing:

Now playing: Kayo Dot – Choirs of the Eye.

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.