Thoughts coming together

I have gathered a number of images that describe communication devices in the village where I live, they are explicitly connecting the village and it's inhabitants to the world beyond it's boundaries. The short (still growing) list is as below.

Definitely not finished yet - need to refine to firstly ensure the assignment brief is met - may need to do some more exercises - and, ensure the underlying narrative is clearly developed. The first image linking to the last, the need for the village to communicate to survive, the insularity of the village over time being eroded.

Tracks, paths and bridleways.

The oldest means of communication (after speech of course) being travel. The tracks, paths and bridleways that, whilst now used infrequently, are still part of the fabric of the community that established links with neighbouring villages and trading . As the residents have changed and the rate of evolution seeming to rapidly increase in the last few decades, the links to the outlying villages and communities have dwindled in use. These old routes seem to offer a corollary to that change, where the tracks and public footpaths are now longer used as arterial connections they are used by the villagers to walk, to enjoy, to forage amongst the wild fruits that were sown either purposely by the former villagers or, accidentally, by those same villagers as they went about their business of communicating via trade with others.

The track on the left leads to a barn on the smallest farm in the area. The farmer (Brian) has had to supplement his income by not only taking work as a builder but, has also allowed the use by mobile 'phone companies to site their base stations and masts on his land, more later. The photograph on the right above has a curved path that leads bottom right in an arc to almost bottom left, following a footpath between Westcote Barton and Middle Barton.The image below left is the track to Purgatory, which is now a derelict settlement and the track is almost impassable through most of the winter. The triangular structure leads the eye into the image, though whilst the graphical image resolves easily, I sense a foreboding and that may be because I have heard all the local rumour about the reason for this remote settlement. That it was perhaps to do with the plague and isolationsim, certainly the nearest church yard has a covenant that forbids the digging of a certain part of the grave yard for a few hundred years yet. The photograph opposite Purgatory is Mill Lane in the centre of the village, connecting South Street to North Street. Mill lane was, of course, where one of the mills in the Bartons was sited (there were several) and, as such, was a major thoroughfare in the community. The sweeping curves takes the traveller around the "run-off" from the mill, which is still there, and, subsequently, to the ford across the river Dorn the flow of which was used to power the mill.

Signs: working, subliminal and, well, simply incorrect.

The sign-post on the image below left shows a bridleway to Duns Tew; this takes the traveller via Brian's farm (Holliers Farm) and the mobile 'phone base stations. The track is used reasonably often, that is assuming Brian hasn't placed his rather large Charolais bull in the field. The image contains a number of verticals, an implied triangle or two and the photograph is dominated by two points, the fence post and the sign post. The kissing gate below right was originally sited to link the public footpaths that crossed the divide denoted by the fence; but interestingly the rope is now tied such that the gate cannot be opened and the public is therefore ushered to a walk this side of the fence. I focussed the camera on the rope, though the knot is hidden, to highlight this idiosyncrasy, But, nevertheless, the image is constructed on two crossing verticals and the single construct dominates the photograph.

This signpost does (currently) lean this far over; it has clearly been shifted by some force or other, maybe a 4X4 reversing up the lane in which it is situated (the footpath actually leads away from the lane across the fields). There are several elements of design in the picture, but I thought it an interesting allegory for how villagers tend to give information to "new-comers". If you are a villager you don't need a sign to tell you where the foot paths are - so why have a sign? And if you aren't a villager you will need to work some stuff out for yourself! Make an investment! Those of us who have moved to a village will recognise that early (half a generation or so) alienation that comes from being a "new-comer". We have been in the village, once described by a estate agent as "the village of the damned" because once you arrive you never ever leave, for nearly 30 years. Curiously, we intend only to leave when courting our mortal coil.

The two views of the same sign post give another sense to the previous image. The signs are there for anyone else - the insiders can read the obverse side of the sign and still have a better idea where they are. I also like the way the sign bends around the corner, I have absolutely no idea how or why the signs are distorted - but there they are. Apropos the brief, well these are weak on that score I think and may be culled. Clearly there are a lot of verticals and horizontals , but they may not enough.

Bus stop

Keeping to a chronological scheme, public transport in the village is becoming another vestigial service; barely hanging on to provide a continuum that has barely lasted a century. This bus stop, one of two in the village with a roof, standing next to a "lock-up" has certain characteristics required in the assignment brief. It was/is also a meeting point, so local rumour has it, for trade in what are euphemistically termed "social" drugs. The trader arrives, in what has to be private transport, with the delivery, to meet the local market needs, just as the horse drawn carriage would have done a couple of centuries ago, with other goods I suspect.

Post box and notice for all.

The photograph opposite delivers extra in colour. It was taken to provide two distinct points - the red of the post box which matched with the red of the sign on the telegraph pole. In deriving the image in a similar treatment to the rest of the series it loses it's impact. The post box which has for a century or more been the formal means to communicate to the outside world; again a dwindling communication means, the sign however warns the the world that "This is a Country Watch Area". Who is watching whom? 

New (relatively) roads

Interconnectedness, the village has its hardware connection via the road system. I say hardware as the internet is the other way of connecting. But the infrastructure has developed considerably even in the time I have been in the village, the existence of the village is now predicated on "outsiders" coming to live in the cottages that were occupied by villagers who have either left or simply expired. The young villagers now are leaving, either to seek a broader canvass or lower cost dwellings. The road sweeps around a curve as it exits the village.

The next image of the same road a little closer to the village shows a divergence to another village, again there are sweeping curves, but I see the sign - for road narrowing" as a sort of plea to try and hold onto the people from the village, or to at least not to go at too fast a pace.                                            The photograph below is a contrary image to the above photographs in that is an entrance shot, it guides the viewer into the village. I focussed the lens on the post to the right and kept the depth of focus as short as possible singling out the post as the dominant point in the image.

Telegraph pole (interesting they are still referred to as telegraph and not telephone) with and without signs.

What I saw in the first image is the multiple use of the telegraph pole as a communicator, there are police notices, public notices, technical information notices and around the village there are all sorts of notices on these poles turning these passive erections into communicants to and for the community. However the first image, whilst it does have an array of geometric elements isn't a very strong graphical image so may be culled. However I do like the message the pole brings to communication and may seek out a better example for the assignment.

The other "pole" shots have a veritable profusion of angular, triangular, diagonal elements providing a geometrician's utopian view of the village I reside in. I notice that some need further work as they tend to suggest a less than vertical world!

There are two images amongst the "Poles"here that might stand for "single points, but the photograph below would fit the two point requirement I think. I like it because the one pole echoes the other, and there is a direct link between the two. Additionally there are plenty of examples of design that are built in via composition.

Leading to the latest communication device the mobile 'phone

The fence that separates the viewer from the mobile 'phone base station has a very regular rhythmic patten that itself provides some cover for the ventilation slits in the box, also a very set patten and the the main panels equally dividing the image into two distinct labels. Pattens and rhythms. But the metaphor of the fence keeping us away from the means of communication is very strong in this area around the twin base stations owned by Orange and T3.

The sinusiodal barbed wire offers an sensuous curve as it seeks to protect the base station from intrusive outside intervention. Whilst the mast, composed across the diagonal occupies a very dominant single point in the frame, the wisp of cloud suggesting the smoke of an overheated amplifier?

These last two photographs both offer patten, rhythm, angular elemental construction and continue with the theme of isolating the means of communication from the people who increasingly come to depend on it for that very thing. Without it, this Mercurial monument situated in Brian's field amongst the medieval tracks and Charolais excrement the village would be less stable, less integrated into the wider and narrower community and potentially more prone to further diminution and dilution.