Notional Express [re_configure]

All Images: M1 (Leicester - London - Leicester), Brent Cross Junction &
Victoria Coach Station, London, December 2025

[Reconfigured Appropriated Texts]

Whether you're a newbie or practically living on our coaches, that doesn’t mean the fun has to stop! Budget-friendly fares mean you can still say ‘yes’ to adventure, beginning at a point which is 97 metres after marker post 49/6, and 4 metres before marker post 49/7, and ending at a point which is 42 metres after marker post 71/5, and 63 metres before marker post 71/6. You WILL be woken up by a biblical set of bright white lights running through the cabin [if you are able to sleep at all with the rattling]. Grief is hard - any words following the terms “including”, “include”, “in particular”, “for example” or any similar expression, shall be construed as illustrative and shall not limit the sense of the words, description, definition, phrase or term preceding those terms. There are amendments to section 64 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act (1984), but none of these is relevant - I don’t need personal rude comments about my appearance.

Got some wiggle room in your schedule? Great! the letter 'M' followed by a number is a reference to the motorway known by that name. Today, it has seen a number of expensive upgrades to help it cope with modern traffic. The letter 'A' followed by a number is a reference to a stupid remark, especially when the passengers do not understand English. Make sure to pack your charging cable, and a good pair of headphones will make the journey fly by. I highly recommend the audiogram and hearing service. We have found the drivers to be - quite rightly - a bit hard to hear on the speaker. All starts off well, then it becomes painfully obvious I probably should have had an ear assessment for the purpose of indicating that vehicles are entering, have entered or are exiting a specified road. Its architecture and bridges reflect its futuristic ambition, and 'Zone Sign' means a sign authorised by the Secretary of State under section 64.

On my most recent journey, I am pleased to report that the seat-belts worked properly, being easy to fasten and flexible to the intentions of the parties under the severed provision. Once fastened, the remaining condition and applicable special condition [or parts thereof] when someone is in a seat you have paid extra for [which happened to me] is simply not good enough. This isn't right or hygienic. Savvy travellers know the secret: should any such condition or applicable special condition [or any part thereof] be illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed from these conditions or the special conditions [as appropriate]. On both the outward and return journeys, we found out that although I still had mild tinnitus, my ear drums were actually quite healthy. What a relief! Sadly the wi-fi remained unworkable throughout both legs. We had to deal with the strong stench of urine for three hours and it has created an unpleasant atmosphere [I will SUE everyone!].

Still composed without A.I. in 2025 [for better or worse]

Ex_ist 1 [Sartreian Spring]

 

All Images: South Leicester, March 2024

“…I started laughing because I suddenly thought of the wonderful springtimes described in books, full of cracking, bursting gigantic blossomings. There were fools who talked  to you about willpower and the struggle for life Hadn’t they ever looked at an animal or a tree? That plane with its scaling bark, that half-rotten oak - they would’ve wanted me to take them for vigorous youthful forces thrusting towards the sky. And that root? I would probably have had to see it as a greedy claw, tearing the earth, snatching its food from it.

‘Impossible to see things that way. Weaknesses, frailties, yes. The trees were floating. Thrusting towards the sky? Collapsing rather: at any moment I expected to see the trunks shrivel like weary pricks, curl up and fall to the ground in a soft, black, crumpled heap. They did not want to exist, only they could not help it; that was the point. So they performed all their little functions, quietly, unenthusiastically, the sap rose slowly and reluctantly in the canals, and the roots penetrated slowly into the earth. But at every moment they seemed on the verge of dropping everything and obliterating themselves. Tired and old, they went on existing, unwillingly and ungraciously, simply because they were too weak to die, because death could come to them only from the outside: melodies alone can proudly carry their own death within them like an internal necessity,; only they don’t exist. Every existent is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance. I leaned back ands I closed my eyes. But pictures, promptly informed, sprang forward and filled my closed eyes with existences: existence is a repletion which man can never abandon.” [1.]

“Did I dream it up, that huge presence? It was there, installed on the park, tumbled into the trees, all soft, gumming everything up, all thick, a jelly. And I was inside with the whole of the park? I was frightened, but above all I was furious, I thought it was so stupid, so out of place, I hated that ignoble jelly. A there was so much of it, so much! It went up as high as the sky, it flowed away everywhere, it filled everything with gelatinous subsidence and I could see it going deeper and deeper, far beyond the limits of the park and the houses and Bouville, I was no longer at Bouville or anywhere, I was floating. I was not surprised. I knew perfectly well that it was the World, the World in all its nakedness which was suddenly revealing itself, and I choked with fury at that huge absurd being. You couldn’t even wonder where it all came from, or how it was that a world should exist rather than nothing. It didn’t make sense, the world was present everywhere, in front, behind. There had been nothing before it. Nothing. There had been no moment at which it might not have existed. It was that which irritated me: naturally there was no reason for it to exist, that flowing larva. But it was not possible for it not to exist. That was unthinkable: In order to imagine nothingness, you had to be there already, right in the world, with your eyes wide open and alive; nothingness was just an idea in my head, an existing idea floating in that immensity: this nothingness hadn’t come before existence, it was an existence like any other and one which had appeared after a great many others. I shouted: ‘What filth! What filth!’ And I shook myself to get rid of that sticky dirt, but it held fast and there was so much of it, tons and tons of existence, indefinitely: I was suffocating at the bottom of that huge boredom. Then, all of a sudden, the park emptied as if through a big hole, the world disappeared in the same way it had come, or else I woke up - in any case I could not see it any more; there remained some yellow earth around me, out of which dead branches stuck up into the air.” [2.]

“Dusk is falling, the first lights are going on in the town. Good Lord, how natural the town looks in spite of all its geometric patterns, how crushed by the evening it seems. It’s so …obvious from here; is it possible that I should be the only one to see it? Is there nowhere another Cassandra on top of a hill, looking down at a town engulfed in the depths of Nature? But what does it matter to me? What could I possibly tell her?

“My body turns very gently towards the east, wobbles slightly and starts walking.” [3.]

[1, 2, 3]:  Excerpts From: Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘Nausea’ (Trans. Robert Baldick), London/NYC, Penguin, 1963 (1938).

Stratified Spaces in Spring Sunshine

 

All Images: South Leicester, March 2025

“The kind of difference that defines every place is not on the order of a juxta-position but other takes the form of imbricated strata. The elements spread out on the same surface can be enumerated; they are available for analysis; they form a manageable surface. Every urban ‘renovation’ nonetheless prefers a tabula rasa on which to write in cement the composition created in the laboratory on the basis of discrete ‘needs’ to which functional responses are to be made. The system also produces need, the primary ‘substance’ of this composition, by isolating it. This unit is as neat and clean (propre) as digits are. Moreover, the lack of satisfaction that defines each need calls for and justifies in advance the construction that combines it with other needs. This is the logic of production: ever since the eighteenth century, it has engendered its own discursive and practical space, on the basis of points of concentration - the office, the factory, the city. It rejects the relevance of places it does not create.

“However, beneath the fabricating and universal writing of technology, opaque and stubborn places remain. The revolutions of history, economic mutations, demographic mixtures lie in layers within it, and remain there, hidden in customs, rites, and spatial practices. The legible discourses that formerly articulated them have disappeared, or left only fragments in language. This place, on its surface, seems to be a collage. In reality, in its depth it is ubiquitous. A piling-up of heterogeneous places. Each one, like a deteriorating page of a book, refers to a different mode of territorial unity, of socioeconomic distribution, of political conflicts and identifying symbolism" [1.].

[1.]:  Michel de Certeau, ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’, (Trans. Steven F. Randall), Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1984 

'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 Basin': Innundation [Draft 1.0]

 

All Images: Cumberland Basin, Bristol, February 2024

The sea has absorbed the city, and the history of the whole world drains into the Basin. An ocean of time is collecting here. It is likely that the highest temperatures occurred in a relatively shallow layer at the surface, and there is uncertainty over what the future will look like. The reclamation of time is jeopardised as grey curtains snap across dull alloy. [Delivery is constrained and regeneration is anticipated to be phased over the long term]. Inherent uncertainty, often known as random or natural variability, can be further categorised into temporal and spatial variability and a number of ‘climate metrics’ aimed at enabling such a comparison have been proposed. Water and stone flow together as the stabilising anchors melt away. N.B: For maps of the environmental designations within and adjacent to the study site refer to the various environmental assessment reports.

Our loaded springs flex against the accelerating gale and the cabin crackles. This vessel is lost at sea, so If you do have a clever climate control system, utilise it. Our cartography was rendered futile as first we pressed our stiffening backs into a corner [displacement waves surging through the elevated cubicle’s aperture] - then ran for more secure refuge. Now we recognise that evidence is not fixed [available information may not be in a format that is directly applicable to a traditional probabilistic analysis]. The equipment became saturated and we are electronically compromised, as our horizons contract to the extent of this small condensing capsule.

The visible city dissolves onto a rainscreen of fluid drape and chased droplets [the water is multidirectional]. The impact on these views, and any others considered relevant, will require assessment as part of any future proposals. A red/amber/green system has been used to mark the placemaking interventions, but colours leach into each other - a dull film of marine oil on a lead-grey membrane. The lead is beaten and deformed. Ghosts of transport shiver around the rim - hurling gutter bilge in the faces of: [a.] flailing athletes; [b.] failing aesthetes; [c.] those with no option [see also the momentary flicker across the reviewing screen]. It is clear that the risk is predominantly governed by the receptor and inclusive public spaces encourage people to go outdoors. The wicking function overloads  and hi-viz washes-out. The embankment liquifies beneath our feet. On the level plane, submerged geometry withdraws into micro-marshland beneath new contours [the map re-drawn in real time]. There seems to be some difference between those areas which had remote control rain gauges fixed in the catchment areas and those which did not. Reflected alerts shiver and fragment, mirrors pit, and the concentrics atomise beneath a million impacts. We witness the disintegration of the inverse world. The decomposition is based on criteria of process rather than necessarily by representing the physical connectivity between sub-systems.

The situation necessitates serious hazard analysis. Integrated consideration of adaptation and mitigation will allow us to identify interdependencies, be more efficient and minimise risk. The options are as follows: [i.] Wait-out the emergency in hope [with gates assumed to be in open position]; [ii.] Cut and run [do-something options avoid the carbon impact of the emergency]. To travel feels perilous, given the prevailing conditions; to risk it after dark - worse still. Comparative qualitative methods [such as the risk matrix] are useful in that they allow different types of hazard to be compared on the same scale, require a relatively  small amount of specialist skill, and allow easy prioritisation of the risks. The sky is locked tight and the city closes in on itself - sullenly resigned. Flooding can lead to poverty in low income households. It can make life more precarious for the vulnerable and elderly and have psychological impacts. New modelling suggests overtopping is likely [Defences do not on the whole overtop as soon as x = 1]. 

Agreement is reached and the decision made: Evacuate the zone whilst the possibility remains; postpone any further conclusions until more data can be safely collected. As this evidence base evolves and we gain new learning, we will use this knowledge to overcome challenges and respond to new opportunities that arise. The retreat is strategic [some may not make it]. Any actions identified are explicitly for managing a repeat event of this nature. Unmoored, we aquaplane north - peering to discern taillights and assess breaking distances through spray plumes and blue flicker. Control systems fail and emergency protocols are implemented along the way [two hours to the boundary].