Its time now for me to start thinking through my own book ideas. I need to get moving so that I can be working on it whilst whilst continuing to teach and support everyone else and this wont be easy!
In our initial presentation last Wednesday I introduced my significant place as my first ‘home’, or the place that first felt at home, in Liverpool. I have lived in the city for more than 25 years but this particular place has a special meaning for me, my personal life and career, and I’ve been thinking about how I can comment on this over the last couple of days.
Going up the Anglican Cathedral tower and seeing my old home from this vantage point has given me a fresh eye. I took some photos of the city scape while up there with an emerging idea of using some kind of panorama / sequence that culminated at the location of my first home here.
I am also thinking about the layering of information and visual sensuality of the Charlene Von Heyl’s abstractions and am wondering how I could incorporate these ideas into my book pages.
Looking through the stone fenestration of the tower ramparts has made me think about this more, the partial and obstructed views of the city and the need for you, as the spectator, to adjust your own position to get the best view. This makes you a physically active observer.
Now I’m thinking about how I can construct some apertures that both reveal and conceal, so that the city is not seen at once but through a series of encounters. I’m really liking this idea, it closely resembles the ideas discussed in psychogeograhy that I’ve been reading about. These ideas concern the active participation of the individual with the city, or any environment, so that you become more attuned to the nuances of space, place and geography through a rich mixture of sensory, psychological and personal factors as well as external concerns of political, historical and sociological readings.
I have started to edit my photos using photoshop. I’ll begin my thinking by printing some out and have a look at how they fit together and start from there.
Then I have to do is figure out how to pull it all together and find time and a space to do it!
