Trying to force something personal into my work, I’ve been including some books I’ve been reading to try and explore the themes I want to create, themes I cannot pinpoint. The blog and subsequent books for “A year in the Country” have impacted my feelings for the landscape. The first time I read “A Year in the Country” I had to give up, it was too obtuse and a slog of a read. Like watching “Bladerunner” when your 9, painfully boring, then you become haunted by it for the next few years. By 18, it’s become something mythical. Maybe it will never be a “Bladerunner” of the book world, but it is the first time I have discovered a whole new cultural phenomenon I’ve been following but never knew its name or realised I was a follower.
In its most basic function, the original book explored Folk Horror, which is something not fully understood as a subsection of Horror. You then go on a path discovering something eerie about the English countryside. Footpaths through suburbia that seem to be of another place, not anchored down to any period. Then you're taken further into a weird world of the past. British low-budget and information films present the countryside as something otherworldly or strange. This leads to the more interesting nature of how things have been misremembered and elements of nostalgia strung together to create memories of possible futures that never came to fruition. The author's dominant skill is his knowledge of music and bands that all feature these elements.
This Book “Straying from the Pathways” seems to be directed away from the English countryside into other areas of similar vibes such as brutalist architecture and motorway service stations. Both ideals of a future Britain that seems somewhat failed, lost and forgotten. I discovered there is even a book of poetry and essays dedicated to the motorway. "In the Company of Ghosts – The Poetics of the Motorway "
I find the concept of a photography series about the M6 motorway worryingly appealing. Dotted along its veins are many a seriously outdated concrete service station, reminiscent of the best Soviet Science fiction set design had to offer. I have a dream for one day visiting a photography exhibition of the Lake District and briefly mention I have an art book about Keele Services.
Regrettably in a world more watched by CCTV and an illogical suspicion of photographers I’ve an inkling hanging around service stations and roadside architecture will be more problematic than logic would assume.
The book also introduces how we’ve lost the concept of loss in our cultural artefacts such as music, films and art. In a world of streaming services, there’s little possibility of cult films being lost in time due to BBC warehouse fires and mishandling. Such artefacts seem to take on a new significance when we realise, they are slowly eroding, to be lost in time, like teardrops in the…. Ok, enough Bladerunner. It inspires me a little to consider gifting away photographs in formats that do perish over time, never having a digital copy circulated.
Finally, discussing the music of Portishead and Tricky, it mentions they seem to exist in their own universe, and contain their own history. As yet, I’ve no idea what that means, but its inspiring.
