'The Basin': Speed Of Light [Draft 1.0]

 

All Images: Brunel Way, Southwest Bristol, April - August 2023

Above the Basin, the flow rate intensifies into a rapid pulse. When electric and magnetic fields change in time, they interact to produce a travelling electromagnetic wave, measured in the blip of auto-glass. The speed of light is, of course, just one of several ‘fundamental’ or ‘universal’ physical constants. These are believed to apply to the entire universe and to remain fixed over time. The switch-gear remains visible, despite an overall film of degradation. Multi-axles hammer and the deck shivers through our soles. The spectrum shifts and shuddering loads are subjected to competing forces - augmented by an attendant menu of sound-events. In the description there is a link to create that inevitable trance sound. How busy can it get?

Light, noise and emissions dictate the micro-climate on this level. It is an arena in which quantum fluctuations produce evanescent energies and elementary particles - ‘deteriorating at a significant rate’. Sediment and hydrocarbons are driven into the observer’s face. Rubber granulates. Sheets of hiss shift over the clattered repeat and sirens dopple through the roar. Backlit clouds fray, releasing dazzling shards to slice off inclined glass and sculpted contours. Light from different directions must have different speeds, which should be detected by measuring the return speed. Standing water is atomised and the vehicles diffuse into a sprayed miasma. As redshift moves toward the observer, then a blue shift will be observed. Filthy waves and occasional small components are hurled to the margins. If the wave source moves toward the observer then the person will feel the frequency of the water wave is increasing. In the afternoon, traffic levels two and a half times higher re-emerge from a barrage of heat, onto desiccating tarmac.

The filters employ opportunism and no little jeopardy. You need to imagine a car driving on a huge flat surface. You need to imagine that the car can only move at one speed - say, 60 miles per hour or so. Such moments are seized without forgiveness, and coupled with ongoing road-water and gritting salt ingress. Tolerances are severely tested. The bridge consists of a considerable number of inherent high-risk construction design features, which include post-tensioning or half-joints, and tendons in box-beam bottoms. The car lobby, of course, shudder at the idea. The comments fill up with metrics, snobbery or hate mail (some days it will easily reach six figures). Why do they have those particular values? What do they really tell us about the physical reality around us?

Supply chains are clearly indicated. These short-lived phenomena might seem to be a ghostly form of reality but they do have measurable effects, including electromagnetic ones. The imperative is headlong and adjusting time (beating the barriers and the occasional swing). It had to be included to prompt the behaviour change necessary for the entire project to work. The orange gates stand retracted as logistical solutions serve your sheet material needs. Events are catered and parcels forced. Prime packaging is serviced by an outsourced procession, causing an accelerated depreciation of the network. Elevated commerce cuts across the tidal trades. The wave speed change is actually caused by the absolute movements in the global reference frame. If we put another wave source below the observer - and let them move together at the same speed perspective, the two waves coming from two different directions should have the same frequency. Buses shuttle to marginal estates (in different directions at various different times), and while that happens there will be a ‘reference group’ which will bring in local people. We stand at an organ of admittance. The city consumes and evacuates, upscales and downsizes, deploys and discharges.

Different centuries were stripped into the map here, but the plan already accelerates towards ‘catastrophic failure’. Urban colleagues had to make some unsupported assumptions. Concerns included issues with elastomeric and roller structural bearings and expansion joints between all elevated structural deck areas, ineffective waterproof membranes throughout all bridge deck areas, and a sub-standard parapet system. Alternate futures falter - and are now deteriorating at a significant rate, as exorbitant remedies are threatened. These possibilities are entertaining to think about, and they might well be real in adjacent universes - but still the central issue remains. Time drains into the Basin and the universe is an infinite test. Everything is quite paradoxical and therefore impossible. Attachments to the crescent and the garden-centre remain strong (anthropic reasoning might well suffice to explain why). On both the Eastern Approach option and the Western Approach, the largest number of answers to the questions were that the plans would be ‘worse’.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled (From The New School) 16'

All Images: 'Untitled (From The New School) 16', Card, Texture Paste, Sand, Concrete Effect Paint,
Acrylics, Ink Spray Enamel & Digital Print on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm x 106 mm, 2023

It's quite a while since I made one of these 'From The New School' paintings, but I still regard the series, and indeed - the overall project to which they relate, as being active. It's certainly one of my more extended endeavours at this stage. However, I remain dependant on employment in the education sector for my daily bread, and so still find myself ruminating on different aspects of that world on a regular basis. The overall rational behind the series can be found elsewhere, so I'll simply direct anyone requiring the back-story here.

Fairly obviously, this particular iteration of an oft-repeated (and originally appropriated) motif relates to the crisis over defective/hazardous concrete construction techniques in British schools, which gained news traction over this summer. Appropriately enough, the media used in this one are the most substantial and textural of the whole series. Collage and mixed-media techniques do  feature in many of it's predecessors - to be sure, but this one is essentially a painted relief as much as it is anything else. 

Having reached No.16 in the run, I'm starting to wonder about the possibility of drawing a line under things at 20. It ought to be possible to come up with four more versions without becoming totally repetitious - I'd have thought. At that point, maybe I could even make some attempt to go properly public with them. It could be genuinely instructive to see the entire series together in one place, after all this time - I suspect. 

An achievable aspiration for 2024, perhaps?

'The Basin': Are Space & Time An Illusion? [trans_scribe/trans_late]

All Images: Cumberland Basin, Bristol Floating Harbour, August 2023

[Translated Video Transcription]:

What exactly is space-time? So that I can reply, you need to do something for me. First, share your intuition about how time and space work. Your brain may initially resist these intuitions and then hold on to them for life. Don't worry, this is normal - a challenge for everyone (including Einstein). Okay, space-time refers to the external reality based on our collective experiences of the space between things and the time between events. Why add space-time here as an additional concept relative to each other, and count particles as observed time that passes between events? In fact, we don't entirely agree on how far apart things are at any given time. We don't even agree on the chronological order of all the events, and it is completely consistent - meaning none of it is wrong. There are also many other sources that we refer to in the description. We discuss these discrepancies and the experimental evidence for them. Today we'll take it at face value and focus on what it says about the nature of reality, because when you think about it, some of the implications are so surprising (e.g. this disagreement about the order of events). It is serious when two observers cannot rely on the sequence of some events. This means that one person's present death is in another person's future. For nearby events the impact is small, but a disagreement means there is no universal division of events into past, present and future.

This opens up big philosophical cans of worms for things like free will and our belief that we can change the future or subjective words (when they are not part of objective reality). A good starting point for objective reality is a universal agreement, and all observers, so to speak, agree to call it a space-time interval or space-time separation between two events - even if two observers are at different distances in relative motion, and the differences measure the time elapsed between the same two events. They always coincide in the spatio-temporal interval between these events. Now they mean something. You will find that sensitivity comes with abstraction. A space-time interval can be positive, zero, or negative (if it is positive). There are always observers who have different opinions. The first thing that happens when there are no or negative secret signals, where things can move from one event to the next and everyone agrees on their own - is that the space-time interval between events A and B appears to be revealing about whether we can influence something. In other words, even though we can - we disagree about past, present, future, times or distances. So far we all seem to agree on causality, which may seem counterintuitive. We usually think that time is responsible for causality, but in fact it is the other way around, as long as we agree on temporal things to which it is exclusively attributable. As it turns out, causality is what is real.

Einstein's former mathematics teacher noticed that spacetime looks like a strange version of some kind of distance in a so-called non-Euclidean space, and therefore proposed the following radical idea that it may not be a space of three-dimensional reality, not one that has evolved over time - but rather a four-dimensional non-Euclidean mathematical space that simply shows no development. Its points correspond to events everywhere and always, and in this respect only things that correspond to geometric relationships in this space are our objective reality. Just as the measures of time and space do not correspond to anything in themselves, they rather resemble what they do. It doesn't matter whether we place trucks on the dashboard or not. So what if you are the sequence of all the events in which you are present? You are a geometric object in the online part of space-time that connects the dots that represent the events of your birth and death. Are you in the specialist department? There is no movement through space-time. It is not space, it is without tension, and your future is not only predetermined - it already exists. 

Time will not deceive you, but I think the following sums it up: Imagine we all read a Gap People flip-book, but we disagree about where on the page events take place, how many pages there are between events, or even the order of some of those events - and yet we also disagree that everyone agrees that I was reading the same book (except the newspaper had no graphics). There are no pages and there is no book. All of this is just a mutation our brain makes to perceive the good. The question that no one really knows is far from it. All of this only happened once with the introduction of so-called flat space-time. General relativity comes into play. We will find that there are many possible space-times with different geometries - making it difficult to determine which is which. I will do my best to answer your questions at the closest causally related point in space-time.

'"I'm Not In Love": Selected Collected Redactions, Paintings By Andrew Smith', At Malvern Library, September 2023 [trans_late/trans_scribe/con_verse/ex_tract]

 

All Images: Andrew Smith, 'Collected Redactions' Paintings, Malvern Library Gallery,
September 2023

[Reconfigured/Translated Audio Transcript of Exhibition Conversation Extract]:

[It’s The First Shot]: 

I'm starting to show now. It depends on where it is and how strong someone's accent is, yeah? - and if I have a base… or what I'm doing at home. Now, friends - I have a laptop because I don't have TV - so I'm at home watching YouTube on my laptop connected to my stereo. Timmy's little speakers on the laptop are dead, so I plug them into my amp, yeah? - and it runs and runs…

 

[I’m Halfway There]: 

However, because of the good results, I have less control over the bass and treble of the system. You know, it's an old-school hi-fi system… but I have the option to decide how to set it up near and far - this pathetic microphone here, or the speaker… then of course there are all these uncontrollable things - the dialect or accent of the person in the video - the quality of the YouTube video… and the sound and controls on the laptop itself. 

[I End Up With Some Kind Of Subtitle]:

'"I'm Not In Love": Selected Collected Redactions, Paintings By Andrew Smith', continues at: Malvern Library Gallery, Graham Road, Malvern, WR14 2HU, until 28 September 2023

Multi-Story

 

All Images: Central Leicester, August 2023

In a return to the dense heart of the city, here's a brief meditation on one of my current favourite Leicester buildings. For many years, this ugly little charmer was a working motor garage (specialising in Italian marques - I believe). I was always impressed by it's ingenious use of space - making excellent use of a compact site tucked just inside the inner ring road. That tight, ramp/canopy arrangement is both a clever means to open-up the roof space to cars, and a geometric assembly of considerable aesthetic appeal. It's a building which seems to give a full account of both internal and external spaces simultaneously, whilst representing exactly the kind of unglamorous, functional Modernism to which my lens is often drawn.

It's no secret that I harbour a perverse fascination with urban car parking provision, and the ways in which it reveals the tense relationship between motor vehicles and the urban environment. Here we can certainly see that shifting economic conditions, along with changes in the ways that space is monetised within cities, have seen the site transformed from one in which vehicles might be maintained - to one in which they are simply left dormant. The building was clearly ideally suited to just such a change of use, but it is still one of the most compact 'multi-storeys' in a city that boasts several much grander (if distinctly dilapidated) period examples. 

Of course, the other reason for this building's visual appeal is there for all to see, in its multiple textual elements. The functional signage certainly tells a clear story about the financial  exploitation of territory, but it's the polychromatic graffiti which tells the real story about urban  opportunism. In the city, it seems, no space/edifice is sacred enough to escape the attentions of the aerosol enthusiasts. But this kind of 'unofficial' calligraphy is surely just another way in which space can be annexed. Such wild-style legends are simply another (less enfranchised) means to stake a claim on the urban organism in the name of a parallel culture, after all.

In formal terms, I'm delighted by the way many of the stylised characters adapt themselves to the geometries of the available surfaces - but even more so, by the way that the largest example simply refuses to be confined 'inside the lines'. Beyond the purely visible dimension (and with space inevitably at a premium in the inner city), it seems only fitting that the building should serve a dual purpose - as both parking garage and unofficial bulletin board.

Multi-storied indeed...

'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.

Transport Update

 

Both Images: Bracebridge Heath, Lincolnshire, July 2023

Summer continues to dribble by in a somewhat underwhelming manner, and the supposedly productive school holiday interlude is already halfway done. Creatively speaking, work continues - but we're definitely in another of those 'not-too-much-to-show-right-now' phases. As was ever the case, too many projects vie for my attention simultaneously - but that is, of course, so much better than having no ideas or inspiration at all. 

That might also explain why my social media communications have definitely thinned-out a bit of late. Perhaps I'm just experimenting with the idea of not chattering away so much, unless there's actually something interesting to report (you know - like how we used to behave in previous, more analogue times). It may put me slightly at odds with twenty-first century habits, but it does at least free-up a little more time to prioritise more important stuff.

I'm not sure if this update on my personal transport options counts as exactly 'interesting', but it does at least have a bearing on my artistic endeavours in a fairly obvious logistical sense. Pretty much everything I make has its origins in the urban (or sub-urban) landscapes. That necessitates either putting myself into specific locations, and/or deliberately losing myself within a variety of cities, on a regular basis. Realistically, public transport and my slightly dodgy knees can only facilitate so much. Cars and bicycles therefore remain the most efficient means of accessing those moments of urban revelation on which I depend. This is the year I decided to update my existing options in both respects.

Like any un-garaged fourteen year-old vehicle, my previous car was starting to show its age a bit. Overall it had given excellent, economical (and mostly reliable) service, for what was once at the very bottom of Skoda's product range. Nevertheless, it was inevitably starting to cost more to keep on the road than the meagre resale value could really justify. Hence, bye-bye, old red Skoda Fabia - hello, much newer red (and black) Skoda Fabia. Ultimately, I'm not interested enough in the complexities of modern motoring to shop around different makes and models -  'stick with what you know', is my motto. The fact this is my third red Skoda hatchback in a row is purely coincidental, but it might suggest something was meant to be (if I was superstitious). Mostly, I'm just hoping this new one proves as dependable as the previous two.

Much as a car is valuable for covering the big miles, I maintain that a bike is really the most involving way to experience the urban landscape, once one is actually immersed within it. My existing mountain bike has proved a much-valued tool in that respect, and will even (at a squeeze) fit into the back of a Fabia. Nevertheless, a certain amount of scuffing (of both vehicles) as well as repetitive seat-folding, is inevitable in the process. What better excuse for a new  folding bike, to preserve the new car's interior? It's a bit of an indulgence, I'll admit - but I've coveted one of these funky little Bromptons for quite a while, and this one will just fold-up and fit on the back seat (or in the boot) far more easily. Theoretically, that should encourage me to drive to one city or another, then explore it more immersively on two wheels, on an even more regular and spontaneous basis than I can now. The resulting health/fitness benefits can only be a bonus too.

In reality, the mountain bike will always remain the preferable (and more comfortable) option over longer distances or uneven terrain, but these 'Brommies' are had to beat when it comes to compact portability. Either way, I'm choosing to regard it as an essential artistic tool, and thus -  far more than just an urban hipster's plaything. The fact that I am seemingly now also the bloke who only rides white bikes is also purely coincidental. It's the cheapest one they do - and they only come in white this year.

Finally, if you're wondering about the incongruously leafy venue for this photo-shoot (after all this talk of accessing urban terrain) - one terminal of Lincoln's Eastern Bypass is literally just round the corner. The Brompton had just carried me on another little expedition to document its upper reaches, before being folded back up and whisked-off home to Leicester.