Viral Communication 1

 

All Images: Rushey Mead Academy, Northeast Leicester, September 2020

Summer turns the corner into Autumn, and it seems we're sliding deeper once more into the Covid-19 emergency - both at home and abroad.  A couple of months of comparative relaxation (which somewhat passed us by - here in Leicester) are now forgotten, as we all enter a second phase of localised lock-downs and increasingly draconian regulations.

It's also possible to detect a greater sense of unease, and possibly even unrest, brewing around the official responses to what was surely an inevitable result of Summer's ease (this is still a disinterested, impartial virus we're dealing with - after all).  Anger, disillusionment, despair and denial increasingly replace that favourite old British delusion, 'The Spirit of The Blitz', as chosen responses - and a clutching onto increasingly preposterous conspiracy theories takes over from communality or shared responsibility, in many quarters.  Stoicism or reasoned responses begin to fray - giving way to finger-pointing and blame-seeking instead.  Essentially, the novelty has worn off.  The deeper implications of what may yet represent a major paradigm-shift for humanity, feel harder to escape - as shadows lengthen and temperatures drop.  The all-too-familiar fight-or-flight aspects of human behaviour kick-in accordingly.

Thankfully, here in what remains the comparatively insulated and supine (albeit - spectacularly misgoverned) UK, something passing for 'normal', everyday existence still persists on many fronts (for now).  Widespread societal collapse is held in reserve for another day.  And that's not least the case in schools - where I continue to earn my daily bread.  In a new world of 'Bubbles', hand gel dispensers, segregated premises, novel-length Risk Assessments, and online video-lessons, the struggle to provide something resembling a viable educational 'offer' continues, despite numerous obstacles (and not always unsuccessfully - if we are to be even-handed).

One of the inescapable visual clues to all this, is the rash of new signs, graphics, hazard markings and temporary barriers which now adorn our school environment.  As a long-time collector of such deliciously petty H&S-related signifiers, it would be remiss of me to leave this specialised new sub-category undocumented.  In reality, I've been speculating (without much inspiration) about what might constitute an adequate artistic response to our current pickle, for some time.  Maybe this stuff offers some kind of pleasingly emblematic way in - and one that also aligns pretty well with certain pre-existing enthusiasms.  If nothing else, it has the advantage of being right under my nose - whilst also ticking that all-important 'Everyday' box.

Hence - what may well become the first in yet another mini-series of Urban Text-related posts, on a highly topical theme.

Spaces Available

Both Images: Central Leicester, August 2020

Car Parks have been a bit scarce on here in recent months, but they still represent a category of everyday urban space - worthy of consideration, in my view.  Indeed, they might be regarded as one of those varieties of 'non-space' that exude a strange poetry, specific only to themselves.

That might suggest I've donned my internal anorak, yet again.  However, I do think both of these examples (in rather different ways) exude an unmistakable visual poetry - which elevates the resulting images way above the merely documentary.

Of course, the glorious weather conditions in which they were captured don't exactly hurt either - triggering a formal elegy to stillness and interlocking shapes, and a meditation on sun flares and veiled, layered meaning, respectively.

'Constructed City' 18: Ground Works

All Images: West Leicester, September 2020

In the last month - or so, several of the major construction sites in Leicester, that I've been visiting regularly, have either reached near-completion, or else appeared relatively unchanged for a time, as work progresses inside.  Whilst continuing to monitor them for any significant visual alterations, my lens has been instead drawn to a pair of new plots - close to the River Soar, where yet more work is now commencing.

These latest sites are relatively adjacent, and represent a next phase of the program of multi-phased redevelopment, extending away from the inner ring road - and effectively following the course of the old Great Central Railway towards Bede Island.  The buildings constructed here will be much smaller in scale than those already in progress nearby - forming the low-level residential element of what will eventually constitute a major slice of Leicester's urban landscape.

The clues to that are already appearing, as complexes of concrete footings, low walls, and plot divisions - standing proud of the newly-levelled earth.  These are far from the grand steel girder  cages and skyline-defying grids, nearby.  Or, indeed - of the Christo-like wrappings, and layered skins of insulation, render or shimmering glass, which soon clad them.  Instead, the emphasis here is of horizontal encroachment into the landscape, and an incremental partition of territory on a more domestic scale.  I'm also struck by the anticipatory menhirs of building materials, strategically placed around these sites.  If the concrete footings and emergent first few brick courses recall the incursions into desert landscapes of 1960s and 70s Land Artists, those modest columns of stacked slabs might evoke a more ancient archaeology too - of some long-abandoned temple complex, perhaps.

But by far the most striking features of these new sites are doubtless the entangled frameworks of vividly-painted fencing, along with a stack of equally arresting (and totally unsoiled) steel skips, and an apparent hand-washing cubicle - all rejoicing in the late Summer sunlight.  The interlocking geometry of steel barriers, punctuated by miniature and directional signage, speak of a notional system of zoning and secured thoroughfares, plotted on some surveyor's plan - but yet to make sense in actual time or space.  The artificiality is only emphasised by those saturated, synthetic colours.  Indeed, the alternating sections or red and white might easily be interpreted as actualised dotted lines, plotted onto physical topography.

Anyway, we're clearly at a much earlier stage of the overall process here, than previous photographic forays have recorded.  Nevertheless, the fascinating relationship between planning, process, and emergent structure - expressed through the intersection of formal geometries, remains inescapable.