'The Annihilation of Time and Space': HNY 2024/25

All Images: Lincoln East Bypass, December 2024

In what is becoming something of a seasonal tradition, I found myself up on the Lincoln East Bypass, with bike and camera, on Boxing Day. Certainly, this indicates that, like so many of my creative endeavours, my 'The Annihilation of Time and Space' project has been 'ongoing' for much longer than originally envisaged. However, it also means that the scope of the project has expanded to encompass this slice of edgeland in a range of different conditions and moods.

Last year, the landscape was bathed in crystalline winter sunlight, but this time the conditions couldn't have been more different. The entire region was sunk in dank fog and, even in the early afternoon, light was fading fast. The defining characteristics shifted from deliciously blank to poetically bleak.

Given the state of world events, and the trepidation any of us might feel regarding the coming year, perhaps these conditions were glumly appropriate. As the somewhat reduced procession of vehicles beat on into the gloom, it was impossible to avoid the inevitable impressions of a lost civilisation careering headlong into an obscure and forbidding future.

Whatever the truth of that, we can only hope there are still some brighter days to come, whatever the general trend, and to seek the reasons to be creatively cheerful wherever they may be found. The conditions may have made my cycling a little arduous, but they also prompted me to see a familiar environment in fascinating new ways - and to capture some images with a darker romance not previously attached to this particular project. There's usually some uplift to be found if we remain open to the possibility, and - as Albert Camus pointed out, we should still find the time and energy to dance, even on the edge of the abyss.

Happy New Year.

'The Annihilation of Time And Space: Embankments

 

All Images: Lincoln Eastern Bypass (Upper Reaches), July 2023

Summer steadily trickles away, and (as so many times before) I'm faced with the prospect of far too many creative projects simultaneously in play, and relatively little actual 'product' to show for any single one of them. Nevertheless, I'm also aware that yet more naval-gazing over such perceived problems is merely another distraction. Nobody imposes any of this on me - it's all cheerfully embraced, after all. And ultimately, having too many ideas, or feeling creatively over-stimulated, is hardly the worst problem.

It is a little baffling how quickly/easily a little clutch of photos - taken spontaneously in a particular location, one day, can blow-up into an ever-expanding, multi-layered potential project, requiring multiple return visits (and extended photo-editing sessions). However, this has to be preferable to feeling disengaged or uninspired in the final analysis. Without getting too existential about things, it must be better to check-out with a list of things still to do, than to merely wait for the end in a state of inertia. The days may continue to dwindle down, but a healthy to-do list might just be the healthiest form of distraction of all. In the Deleuzian sense, perhaps all that really matters is that we continue the process of 'becoming' until (perhaps even after?) the passage of time intervenes definitively.

Crikey! - that got philosophical pretty quickly. The intended function of this post is really just to highlight how the work goes on, and to look eastwards again, to the Lincoln Eastern Bypass, after having mostly been staring down the M5 to Bristol's Floating Harbour in recent weeks. The images here document one aspect of my most recent research trip to the bypass. Actually, I'm wondering if this might be the last such for a while, given that they serve to fill-in the missing upper reaches.

Over a period of around a year, I have now managed to collect images from the entirety of the Eastern section of the overall bypass, completed in December 2020 (this is the section still new enough to retain some kind of slightly 'alien' resonance within the landscape, and the one with the most personal/subjective significance for me). Certainly, there is now more than enough raw material to keep me tied-up for quite a while. In the interests of progressing things, it would seem only sensible to ease-off on the collecting phase, and move into the actually-doing-something-about-it phase. By coincidence, my Bristol-focused project(s) are approaching a similar point, I think. It feels like the Autumn/Winter months may see things start to coalesce a little more noticeably.

One obvious way in to that process is to start sorting the visual raw material into various categories (subject, motif, formal elements, thematic potential, etc.). That's clearly one way to avoid becoming overwhelmed, and to break things into chewable pieces. However, the cross-referencing of, and interplay between, such groupings is also often how the unexpected connections and significant correspondences may begin to emerge. The real key is to  avoid rigid pigeonholing, or trite logics, and to maintain fluid or porous boundaries. One clumsy analogy might be a process of ring-fencing in which all gates are deliberately left open (and vigilance is maintained regarding any productively wandering black sheep).

Consequently, in the interests of preliminary organisation, this little batch of images all fit into the category of  Embankments. Such artificially elevated earthworks are a major feature throughout this heavily engineered landscape, and they serve to delineate the new road's imposition upon the map. In some cases they represent a grand topographical statement, in others - a more modest barrier. Whatever the scale of any particular section, the embankments are muscular in their geometry overall - and also inject a range of dynamic perspectives into what is, at first glance, a supremely bland region. The more I become embedded within it, the more i realise I am often looking either up or down, and that this is as much a function of the embankments as the more general contours of the general  landscape. Passing vehicles are often raised above my eye line, or else I am looking down upon their roofs. It only serves to underline the separation between the time-perception of the motorist or delivery driver, and that of the runner, cyclist, dog walker, itinerant artist/photographer, or any individual  whose workplace might reside in the surrounding landscape itself.

The other features which particularly capture my attention amongst the embankments, are those endless serried ranks of desultory saplings, dutifully plugged into the earth within their plastic sheathes. I have no idea whether, in decades to come, these will be transformed into majestic stands of trees (the long-term goal is, I suppose - to provide some further degree of screening, or else some simulacra of organic woodland). However, in their current state , they simply seem to punctuate the sense of a profound disconnect between the agendas and demands of modern life, and any symbiotically meaningful relationship with the 'natural' world. One is even tempted to speculate whether they were simply programmed into the road scheme in fulfilment of some quota or other (is each one accounted for - I wonder?). Mostly, they just serve to remind me that, whilst green may be the dominant colour in these images, we are still inescapably in the Edgelands here. Indeed, the city is just out of shot in each case. The very disconnect mentioned above is, of course, the defining feature of such liminal zones.

'The Annihilation Of Time And Space' 2' (Sign Language)

 

All Original Images: Lincoln Eastern Bypass, July 2022 - April 2023

In my previous post I explained how repeat recreational cycle rides along the eastern section of Lincoln's Road Bypass have turned into something with far more artistic intent. It shouldn't really be any surprise - that's essentially how much of my work has been triggered in recent times.

All Photo-Manipulations: April 2023

I also outlined the role that found texts are already playing in my response to this typically 'Edgeland' environment. The layers of text may be less concentrated here than in the centre of town, but it is a labelled landscape nonetheless.  In fact, the informational and directive nature of most of the texts here underline the essential functionality of this place, and are therefore integral to its purpose.

However, beyond the bald, infrastructural imperatives at work in these legends, it's impossible not to also find an obliquely allusive poetry in them when tuning into the strange, detached resonances of the bypass and its surroundings. Fresh thoughts are triggered, unexpected connections begin to form - and new narratives start to coalesce as a result. Some may be more deeply personal than I could ever have predicted.

'The Annihilation Of Time And Space'* 1. (Starting Somewhere)

 

All Images: River Witham Walk, Washingborough, Lincolnshire, April 2023

It's fair to say that all the art I've produced in recent years has shared a clear urban focus. My entire life has been spent dwelling in cities of various sizes, and that has clearly shaped my consciousness (and tastes) in numerous ways. As has become customary, the pieces I have shown here in recent months (and which are still very much ongoing) all found their genesis in a fairly tight sector of densely urban terrain close to my Leicester home. 

However, as I have also periodically acknowledged, the less concentrated territories at the fringes of any conurbation, or those somewhat eerie interstitial sectors which may coalesce between closely-adjacent cities, can be as fascinating in their own way as any urban centre. These are commonly referred to as 'The Edgelands', and artists, writers, musicians, photographers, film makers, and the rest, have increasingly come to appreciate them for their particular (and sometimes paradoxical) qualities. J.G. Ballard noted long ago that such zones may well be where true futurity dwells. As our post-industrial economies mutate - and our grasp on a physical (built) reality dissolves ever further into the digital hive-consciousness, I find little reason to argue with his prophetic observations. In the twenty-first century, residing in a state of  transition, seepage or becoming, often appears to have replaced any idea of lasting connection to a single, identifiable location. That seems to be the case, both physically and psychically. Perhaps the real dilemma is whether one is bourn along with urgency, or instead chooses to drift.

In the event, my own relationship with such peripheral places is often tied-up with social or family visits, and that's certainly true of the landscape referenced here. Family commitments regularly take me to the dormitory village of Washingborough, just beyond the southeast boundary of Lincoln, where I grew up. The connecting road is punctuated by a crematorium, a bowling centre and a sewerage treatment plant - which certainly feel like classic edgeland features to me. Certainly, at little or no point does the traveller feel themselves to be properly 'out in the country' here. The River Witham Walk foot/cycle route, which follows a disused railway parallel to both the road and the river, also binds the village to the city. That way in particular, has come to symbolise a potential doubling-back to a much earlier chapter in my autobiography - one that can be comfortably pedalled in under 30 minutes.

However, in recent times, another, significantly more emphatic, intervention has been made across this landscape. This is the (decades-in-the-planning) Lincoln Eastern Bypass. Cutting across footpaths, waterways, rail lines (both current and disused) and intersecting with various pre-existing roads - the bypass represents a major feat of civil engineering, punctuated by bridges, roundabouts, embankments, and all the other accoutrements of modern road construction. More notably, and perhaps because of the very raison d'etre of any bypass, it has created its very own zone of highly palpable Edgeland terrain, with all that may (or may not) imply. 

In accordance with its avoidant function, the new(ish) road aims to process traffic through the landscape with high efficiency. Admittedly, a fully dual carriageway might have fulfilled that purpose even more effectively. Nevertheless, it is still a byway even more on its way to somewhere else than most roads - and one designed to negate any need to enter the city or surrounding villages, unless as a deliberate visitor.  Setting aside the routine necessities of commerce and industry, 'visiting' has become a clearly defined and marketable leisure-time activity these days - and one served by its own highly regulated infrastructure. As such, it represents just another option on a menu of approved activities - rather than something that might occur organically or on a whim. Naturally enough, the bypass signposts the designated access points to some heritage-based brand of alternative reality (as well as more workaday targets) for those determined to travel inward. However, it was clearly never intended to become a destination in its own right. The area surrounding it has consequently become one of those non-places, as a result of its superimposition on the map. What more reason could I need to loiter amongst its footbridges, verges and signage - and perhaps to travel 'inward' in a very different sense? 

There are no lay-bys - and very few feasible places to park within easy reach of the Eastern Bypass. However a network of adjacent bridle and footpaths, both new and old, do accompany it across the heavily remodelled landscape. Consequently, my bike has become the logical way to explore. For the time being, the River Witham Walk is currently less of a conduit to personalised urban memory - and more the gateway to a fascinating, alienated land that is simultaneously somewhere and nowhere. Just as one thing always leads to another, repeated visits over the last few months have revealed an ever-expanding range of possible subject matter - along with the attendant rhizome of potential associations and connecting ideas. And so, (without wishing to depart from the work I already have in hand - which does seem to be flowing quite nicely right now), it appears that another little sub-project is born. Honestly, I really should know better by now! However, rather than ring-fencing it as a competing distraction - perhaps I can simply regard it as just another, slightly removed tract of the same extended rhizomatic system. Ultimately, there really is only one map, after all.

I've yet to determine how this little phase of new activity might ultimately resolve itself. What began as a few speculative photos - opportunistically grabbed on a summer's afternoon in 2022, has now expanded into a significant archive of still images and associated video footage. I have already returned several times - documenting a new section of the route between its various bridges and junctions on each occasion. I'm wondering about the possibility of an artist book/photo essay-type thing at present, but we'll see what begins to solidify as I move beyond this current exploratory phase.

For now, there's no harm in presenting a little introductory pictorial evidence. Appropriately enough, these images were recently captured en-route to the bypass and without actually revealing anything of the main event. What they do indicate however, is that found texts, as usual, play an important part in my relationship with any environment I might fetch up in. Equally serendipitously, the signed information shown here relates to the replacement of one form of historical transport infrastructure with another. Clearly, the way we move through the physical environment, and how that interfaces with our perception of time, were as much of an issue in the nineteenth century as they are today. The archaeology of what once felt like the future, now decays serenely within earshot of the speeding traffic, just a few hundred metres away.

Perhaps most importantly of all - I seem to have found my title...

* The Stamford Mercury. Author & Date Unknown.