Psychogeography

Wanders: The M53 Cavern (A Northern Concrete Island)

Somewhere in this nexus of concrete and structural steel, this elaborately signalled landscape of traffic indicators and feeder roads, status and consumer goods, Vaughan moved like a messenger in his car…  – Crash (1973), J.G. Ballard In the dead space before Christmas 2015, I found myself meandering back towards my old secondary school on The Wirral peninsula, one of only two things that I still … Continue reading Wanders: The M53 Cavern (A Northern Concrete Island)

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Art, Landscape, Literature

Responses: Blind Landings (2013) – Jane And Louise Wilson.

Debris degrades and degradation can be measured but can art be this measurement?  Orford Ness in Suffolk, a former atomic weapons mechanism research and testing facility, doesn’t ask these questions but the place has attracted such a huge number of artists to its shores that the question of creativity and its role as a reaction to such politically doused spaces cannot help but be evoked.  … Continue reading Responses: Blind Landings (2013) – Jane And Louise Wilson.

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Film, Landscape

Fear And Loathing In The Countryside – Withnail And I (1987).

British cinema is obsessed with the effect of location upon the individual.  In fact, it wouldn’t be so sweeping to suggest that large swaths of culture born on these isles stems from the idea that the individual can be deeply molded by their surroundings and any fictional drama from Albion will be bare the aesthetics of its areas as far more than a setting.  While … Continue reading Fear And Loathing In The Countryside – Withnail And I (1987).

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Folk Horror, Landscape, Literature

Salthouse Marshes (Ghost Story).

In October I released a ghost story for Halloween.  It was partly inspired by Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows, but the majority of its actual narrative structure (especially in terms of character) came from a short story of my own inspired as well by Blackwood’s story.  As it’s near Christmas, the original story is presented below.  It’s very typically Jamesian and should be read late at night … Continue reading Salthouse Marshes (Ghost Story).

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Folk Horror, Landscape, Literature, Psychogeography, Short Film

Showreel 2015.

Above is a showreel built from footage I’ve shot over the last twelve months.  Compared to last year’s showreel, this one feels far more defined and less haphazard with the visual ideas I want to play with.  Gone are the mixtures of stop-motion, digital and film, instead replaced entirely by different stocks of super-8 footage.  This year has felt like a much more defined trajectory … Continue reading Showreel 2015.

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Film

2015 Top 10 (New Releases and First Time Viewings).

New releases As often stated at the beginning of my end of year reviews, I’ve struggled to keep up with the year’s new releases.  Every year, so much more new cinema is put out there for consideration that I doubt keeping track is financially viable or creatively of point; the huge shift in quantity, over the last five years especially, most definitely has not lead … Continue reading 2015 Top 10 (New Releases and First Time Viewings).

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Literature, Television

Communicative Reality in The Lover (1963) – Harold Pinter.

This article contains plot twists. Harold Pinter’s The Lover was a script first publically showcased as a television play in March 1963[i] before it went on for a theatre run a few months later starting from September that year.  As a model of how Pinter plays on words and the natural duel meaning found explicitly within the English language, it develops on several ideas that would … Continue reading Communicative Reality in The Lover (1963) – Harold Pinter.

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Film, Landscape

The Breeze In The Grass – Elemental Realisation in Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975).

In last month’s issue of Sight & Sound (November, 2015) Nick James details his relationship with the cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky in line with the season of films he’s curated for the BFI.  Though the article is chiefly surrounding Tarkovsky’s (vast) legacy, one aspect in particular caught my attention whilst reading.  He refers to a scene from Tarkovsky’s 1975 film, Mirror, which partly accounted for … Continue reading The Breeze In The Grass – Elemental Realisation in Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975).

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Folk Horror, Landscape, Short Film

Short Film – Salthouse Marshes

Salthouse Marshes began life in a strange way.  Having chatted about adapting Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows with Robert Macfarlane (who had wanted to re-set it in England), there was always to be a “haunted waterway” film on the cards.  But, after constant reading of the narrative of The Willows, the thought of organising the filming on two boats and on celluloid simply proved too intimidating.  … Continue reading Short Film – Salthouse Marshes

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Film, Folk Horror, Landscape, Literature, Psychogeography, Television

Walking “A Warning To The Curious” (M.R. James).

A few years back, whilst on holiday in Norfolk, I began exploring some of locations used for the BBC’s famous M.R. James adaptations, specifically for Lawrence Gordon Clark’s adaptation of A Warning To The Curious (1972).  Though I had been far from thorough in this escapade (I completely missed the film’s most iconic structure in the church at Happisburgh), on finding myself in Suffolk, I … Continue reading Walking “A Warning To The Curious” (M.R. James).

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