Tag: found art

The Fifty-Fourth Station of the Tōkaidō (in Kirkcaldy)

Post author By Murdo Eason - From Hill to Sea
Post date 17/10/2018
4 Comments on The Fifty-Fourth Station of the Tōkaidō (in Kirkcaldy)

Perhaps there was a fifty-fourth station of the Tōkaidō.

What if Hiroshige transcended time and geography, sailed into Kirkcaldy harbour and placed a stone block in the outer walls of the library. A nod to an alternative Eastern Sea Road. A found poem of the East Fife coast:

Forth (Rail) Bridge –> North Queensferry –> Carlingnose Point –> West Ness –> Inverkeithing –> East Ness –> St David’s Bay –> Donibristle Bay –> Dalgety Bay –> Braefoot Point –> Port Haven –> Aberdour –> Burntisland –> Pettycur –> Kinghorn –> Kirkcaldy –> Pathhead –> Dysart –> West Wemyss –> East Wemyss –> Buckhaven –> Methil –> Leven –> Lundin Links –> Lower Largo –> Largo Bay –> Ruddon’s Point –> Shell Bay –> Kincraig Point –> Chapel Point –> Earlsferry –> Elie –> St Monans –> Pans Goat –> Pittenweem –> Anstruther –> Cellardyke –> Caiplie Coves –> Crail –> Fife Ness –> Balcomie –> Cambo Sands –> Airbrow Point –> Babbet Ness –> Buddo Rock –> Kinkell Ness –> St Andrews –> Guardbridge –> Leuchars –> Tentsmuir Forest –> Lundin Bridge –> Tayport –> Tay Road Bridge.

Fifty-three stations. The Kirkcaldy pivot stone.

Looking out:

White spume of sea roar, deluge of slanted rain. Across the Forth, landform apparitions. The fate of unseen ships seeking safe harbour. Waves break upon the shore.

≈≈≈

Image found on a stone on the outer wall of Kirkcaldy Galleries and Library.

After The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō a series of ukiyo-e woodcut prints created by Utagawa Hiroshige after his first travel along the Tōkaidō in 1832.

Now playing: Toru Takemitsu – Toward the Sea / Rain Tree / Rain Spell

Tags Fife, Fife Psychogeographical Collective, Fife Psychogeography, found art, Found Object, Found Poetry, From Hill to Sea, Hiroshige, Kirkcaldy, Mudo Eason, The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō

Happenstance Observation Poetry Psychogeography rag-pickings Signs and Signifiers

Reflector / \ Conductor

Post author By Murdo Eason - From Hill to Sea
Post date 24/08/2016
No Comments on Reflector / \ Conductor

Light Lit

Reflector / \ Conductor

of Car Park

Transmutation

In / \ at the car parks of Rosyth Halt and Inverkeithing railway stations, Fife.

Now playing: Ulrich Krieger – /RAW: ReSpace/

Tags Car Park, Conductor, Fife, Fife Psychogeographical Collective, Fife Psychogeography, found art, Inverkeithing, Language of the Walls, Murdo Eason, Reflector, Rosyth Halt, transmutation

Encounters Field Trip Found Art Happenstance Observation Poetry Psychogeography rag-pickings Signs and Signifiers

Cartographies of Chance – Underneath the M90 (II)

Post author By Murdo Eason - From Hill to Sea
Post date 25/05/2016
10 Comments on Cartographies of Chance – Underneath the M90 (II)

These images were ‘found’ beneath a section of the M90 Motorway; an elevated brutalist behemoth straddling ancient agricultural land, north-east of Rosyth. The sheer mass of concrete overhead creates an almost cave like sensation when standing directly underneath. Folded into artificial darkness, violent white light spills around the concrete edifice, flooding the hinterland of perception. Looking out from the cocoon of the dark belly, steel giants stalk the landscape. Above, the dull thud-thud of unseen vehicles passing.

Imaginary maps of this hidden microclimate are revealed in the concrete structures and the very land itself.

Compared to the verdant vegetation in the surrounding fields, the dry earth fractures into mesmerising worlds of ambiguous scale.

Concrete surfaces leach vivid patinas of oxidising colour.

Time, heat, moisture and the elements create an ongoing cartography of chance.

River deltas, mountain ranges, lagoons, beaches, sandbanks.

Topographies of texture and shade, revealed in light.

Encounter with the red-billed shaman.

A gull-like creature invites us to contemplate

the white void of falling water.

Head bowed, long neck. Wise knowing eye.

When looking up, feels like looking down.

For an instant, on the roof, a city underneath the gaze of a drone.

Aura of the walls.

Frescoes painted by gravity.

The staining sound of concrete stigmata:

drip

This is not an easy place to access on foot, although it is visible from the trains that pass along the Fife Circle railway line. The concrete supports are usually covered with graffiti but some recent activity has painted over all of this with white geometric shapes. It is unclear whether this is some clean up intervention by the authorities, or a Year Zero initiative from the graffiti community themselves.

Strangely, from across the tracks, tags still shout out for attention.

Emerging from the darkness, maps and imaginary worlds dissolve in sunlight as we head back west.

Across the fields, the lumbering concrete, traverses north and south.

The giant steel stilt-walkers are heading east.

≈≈≈

The original intention was to incorporate this material into another post that is presently being written on quite a different theme. As this particular encounter was the result of a serendipitous detour we have chosen to post it separately.

An earlier post, underneath a different section of the M90, can be found here.

Now playing: Kayo Dot – Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue.

Tags Brutalist, cartography, chance, Concrete, Fife, Fife Psychogeographical Collective, Fife Psychogeography, found art, graffiti, M90 Motorway, pareidolia, pylons, Rosyth, stained concrete, tags, topography, worlds

Encounters Field Trip Found Art Observation Psychogeography rag-pickings Signs and Signifiers Symbol

Underneath the M90

Post author By Murdo Eason - From Hill to Sea
Post date 03/09/2015
3 Comments on 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