Tag: man

Change, or Progress?

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Consider at first, that a place exists, and it is simply a crossing of roads, a meeting point – almost everywhere started as a sort of trading point. So cities were built around human movement and activity, not around buildings. I know that sounds obvious, but maybe it isn’t.

Almost every western city has experienced some degree of ‘slum clearance’, clearance for roads or infrastructure, demolition for new ‘better’ development. I find it fascinating looking at old maps and trying to understand the story of a settlement’s or city’s morphological development.

Looking at older, medieval developments, there was often a high density of development centred around an open square or series of squares, with the major civic functions located there. Buildings were built to suit the topography and local climate, made from locally available materials. Of course they were different times and defence also features heavily in the plans; city walls, towers and the like. I’m not trying to be nostalgic about this, but I think maybe we have lost this art of developing cities, of shaping them for what we actually need.

I do worry about how, now more than ever with fuel and technology, we can enable change upon the world. From an architect’s perspective, I think about all the, for want of better words, ‘social experiments’ imposed on people, particularly in the 60s/70s, where large areas were cleared for ‘better, modern housing’ and motorways. Of course the ideas for change have always been about to some extent, but the rate of change of our urban, suburban, and even rural areas is accelerating. Hence, rightly so, we have a planning and building control system, though it doesn’t always stop poor development decisions slipping through the net.

I think this also has parallels in other areas of life, and the world we shape around us. We are too ready to make change without identifying first whether it is actually progress.

This post suggests the formation of a city; initially around a river and natural meeting point; trading posts develop, then people settle nearby to support (and benefit from) the activity; sufficient development occurs to justify fortification; expansion occurs with development becoming denser. The finished map might place us in medieval times. The next stage might be Enlightenment clearance, or perhaps an invasion from the south…

Inevitability

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This grim (or trying to be grim) image is attempting to depict the ‘Wigtown Martyrs’. I’ll not pretend to know my history, because although I am fascinated by the human story, I struggle to remember the huge complexity of it. The martyrs were two women, both called Margaret, prosecuted as Covenanters in the late 17th Century. Their sentence was to be drowned at stake on the incoming tide, with the older, 63 year old, Margaret staked deeper so as to give the other Margaret, a teenager, a chance to renounce in time. This ploy was to no avail. It’s a very gruesome prospect, and makes me think how sometimes the suspense or expectation can be much, much worse than the actual event. To prolong a death sentence in such a way is such cruelty, it is hard to comprehend. I’m aware of far more gory practices having taken place, but this might be the worse sentence psychologically.

So, I have been thinking about inevitability. It’s a difficult one because, we all know, everything passes. And yet, there is nothing we can do about it. It is utterly beyond our control, and yet that suspense looms and we do whatever in our power to stop it. Whatever it is, the tide will come. The only way to find peace with this is to learn acceptance.

Evolution

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After yesterday’s entry I kept feeling hopeless about the dystopia I had travelled to in my mind…even if I did say, acquire all this knowledge to understand the world, I would somehow also have to take all the power to make the right changes. Wouldn’t educating myself otherwise just be to my benefit?

When I was a child I didn’t question adults. I just assumed they had all the answers and that those answers were it, end of story. Growing up, I realised that in almost every field we are just trying to develop upon what knowledge and experience we already have. We often cannot be sure, but we have to make a decision on the best information available. Sometimes the outcome isn’t good, which is why we are often so resistant to change tried and tested methods.

When we try something new, it should be small, incremental changes to test things out, without potential massive consequences. Maybe a lot of tests can be carried out simultaneously, revealing what can be further advanced. This idea led me to think about evolution, and how over time this is how we have acquired experience and knowledge. Through accidents, purposeful tests – in evolutionary terms, ‘mutations’ – we have the capacity to succeed or adapt to changing circumstances. The fact that mutations tend to reappear creates a resilient and diverse progression.

I drew this image thinking I’d try draw a diagram to explain evolution. It’s interesting because it’s a branching pattern endlessly repeated in nature – in trees, blood vessels, rivers and tidal estuaries. The different colours at the end of each branch signify a specific type of mutation.

Media Surges

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What I specifically want to talk about in this post, is modern society’s addiction to social media. It’s probably a bit rich coming from someone who is ‘putting it out there’ and indulging in psychological navel gazing, but ‘in real life’ I don’t consider myself married to my devices and I am doing this, for the time being, as a sort of mental therapy. This topic is a bit of dark theme.

Without sounding Orwellian, I think we have all become ‘plugged in’ to this media machine, bombarded with so much information and subliminal messaging, perish the idea that you may have any time or inclination for independent thought. Before you know it, you are opinionated about stuff you don’t understand, and ready to walk out of work or school to demand government action. Follow whoever is loudest. Ignore the small print that explains the real, much more complex issues (and might actually demand different action): it’s long since submerged into oblivion. Sure enough nearly everyone, probably me as well, is swept along this urgent, gushing surge resulting in damaging changes to policy, funding and general societal opinion. But is it uncontrollable? Is it really just the result of a few random ripples, or is someone busy cultivating the momentum? Whatever it is, your elected government is already drip feeding the next surge to your children at school via the national curriculum. We have to stop tolerating this.

The problem is, unless you can educate yourself in all matters, what sources can you trust? Doesn’t everyone have an agenda? Can anyone not be ‘bought’? Or, more sinisterly, ‘silenced’? It really brings home the importance of education and nurturing critical thinking.

I’m not proud of today’s sketch. It’s probably a reflection of my mood as well. The surge starts, powerful, momentous, dragging along everything beneath it. Momentum peaks mid-wave, but too late, a crest inevitably forms and suddenly you are over the crest, devoid of energy, left with the consequences.

Communication

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I’ve always loved the power of the art, to convey a feeling, a thought or idea, a truth. Language can bend messages and twist truths. But then so can images. Sometimes the best writers and poets succeed in building vibrant images with language, but a different version is always imagined depending on who is listening or reading. Visual and Audio art is also read in whatever way your brain is willing to digest it. Just like your brain draws an imaginary line around the atom, or between tides, we build our own systems to understand the world around us. These limit us, but we clearly cannot function without them.
Will my truth and your truth ever be completely the same? Can two people ever achieve a complete understanding of one another? Sometimes there are moments, maybe sparks, where this can happen, but I don’t think two beings could ever be in complete synthesis for a sustained period.

Relationships are like this. As you build them you gradually accumulate more of these sparks, and bonds are formed. Sometimes those initial sparks might be all you have, other times we build on them to form intense life-long friendships, or maybe one day we realise we only thought they were happening and the truth was completely different. It’s funny how fundamentally, I think everyone desires completeness with others. It’s a shame what rubbish communicators we are.

This post isn’t so much to do with tides, more reflections. One might be the truth; the other your perception of it; the other someone else’s. Of course there is no knowing which is which. Your truth is yours and no one else’s, and probably not the truth at all.

Generations

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I woke up to this scene this morning, my little one had crawled into bed and was quietly breathing next their sleeping father. They looked like they were flowing together, snoozing away. It was a happy, peaceful scene.

As I watched them I thought of how we pass on some of ourselves, in various guises, onto our children. It lead me to think about how we grow, flower, bloom, fruit and then eventually wither like every other life form. This endless cycle is as sure as the tide: ebbing from the shore to the massive swell, eventually coming back to land, different.

We tend to focus on our own singular existence, but we are just a wave if the sea. What if we could reposition our perspective, our sense of self, to this larger, shifting, continuous and collective existence? How we might live differently?

Tidal forces

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Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how nature exists in balance because of the eternal fight between…everything that exists. This tidal fight, which maybe isn’t tidal at all, given it involves an infinitesimal number of multidimensional, time-transversing, elements, will never be static until there is nothingness. I’ve also been thinking about how people are like this. We all fight for our own agendas; everyone pushing away, maybe sometimes pulling together. Sometimes I do wonder what we could achieve if we all acted collectively, moving in a straight line. Maybe it’s our self determined role to keep stretching those boundaries in all directions…just a thought.

Today a really crude sketch of an idea I’d like to refine. This represents just two opposing forces as men. I need to get back into some life drawing to really draw out the tension in the bodies, and have a think about any symbolism I can introduce…what specific message I want to convey.