Background

Continual Movement: science has created knowledge of a planet continually on the move, the earth’s mantle flowing; shifting and changing the crust on which we live. In our discussions we focus on continual movement being at odds with national/physical borders, particularly those drawn across maps with pencil and rule to create finite lines across the planet. We have also tried to think about conceptual boarders particularly surrounding beliefs, including religious and political dogma and the seeming immoveable ideas (often linked to feelings of belonging) and again we sense a group disquiet of the conjecture between scientific reality and cultural/communal knowledge.

Science: Big World in a Small Thing:  We have been drawn by the awe and wonder of what science and technological development have enabled us to see and understand, it can’t be helped, it’s amazing that so much understanding of the planet can be drawn from a single piece of sediment. We are thinking about back tracking; trying to imagine a beginning, something coming from nothing, and it seems impossible to us. But why? Is it because of the dominance of material capitalism and its institutions and structures creating sense and reason or is it something deeper and more intrinsic and ‘natural’ in our psyche? A survival instinct, a need to understand what has happened to predict what may come next.

The Eroded Steps: Thinking about no beginning no end Giuseppe Penone’s The Eroded Steps relates to the old factory steps in Dean Clough Henry Moore Studios Halifax worn away by heavy boots of workers. What we find interesting is the suggestion of a beginning, the steps once perfect, but we wonder what happened to the dust and grit? We presume it was washed away down a drainage system. Where are is it now? The steps remain but the other half again buried?

Local is a very Large Place: We were unnerved but fascinated when we traced back the Tweed (as far as we could). There is evidence that emergence from the sea of the first vertebrates and their diversification occurred in locations near what is now the Tweed, though at the time (450 million years ago), it was attached to what is now N. America, in the landmass called Laurentia (Otherlands by Thomas Halliday p. 214 and related references in his notes). And of course this kind of evidence comes from rock created by build-up of sediment. Messages from distance in both time and place.

We thought about its roles as a divider of nations, a provider of sports and livelihoods, a stage set in many arts and photographs, a supporter of towns, and understood a character against which we think about our sense of being and belonging, a tradition and heritage that we need? To hold our feet to the ground without which we would be floating and moving we don’t know where. The ground created from sediment.

Machines and Words: Scratching the surface of planet earth for humans to live, farming and building are clanking towards becoming advanced robotics. A process we liken to religion, ‘the glory of hope in technology’. Against this we have thought about words, and the work they need to do to conjure the layers below the scratched surface into time and events that if all time was a ton of wheat, the bible would barely be a handful.

Video: The video element of the installation have been developed by Phil Dobson from his paintings. The paintings fall into 2 categories. Acrylic paintings built up in layers which are then sanded revealing the underlying relief. The process can be seen as erosion of layers of sedimentary rock. The second category are produced with watercolour, inks and gouache, which are pooled and allowed to interact forming organic shapes and textures. This process can be seen as a form of flow and sedimentation.

 

The still images will be digitally animated to suggest geological forms and primitive organisms and the evolution of life from marine to land animals, a process seen from fossils in sedimentary rock.

 

The allusion to deep time in the installation is also suggested by the images as if seen from a future time, or rather, as if time is cyclic and images of past life forms can be viewed through contemporary technology.

 

This is appropriate to this project since there is evidence that early colonisation of land by marine animals occurred in the region of what is now the Tweed estuary, but at the time, around 460 million years ago, was attached to what is now North America. On this scale of time, the imposition of national boundaries makes less sense.