The Compulsive Quest

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Compress the shrub, absolute, geometric forms, orders, rules and regulations, free

    from imperfections. Barriers, screens, nature, manmade, angles, lines, arches and 

pyramids. Ordered shadows. Privacy.



Society seeking a form, straight lines and curves. Deviating from nature, shaping

and re-defining.



"In a chaos of shifting impressions, each of us constructs

a stable world in which objects have recognisable shapes,

are located in depth, and have permanence."

(Mary Douglas, 1966)

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Grand formality, retreat from strife, precision. Maintaining 'curious greens.'

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                 Kaleidoscopic - changeable, fluctuating, fluid, complex and confused.               Problem solving in a complex world.

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"Our British gardeners…instead of humouring nature, love to

deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in cones,

globes and pyramids. We see the mark of the scissors on

every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in

my opinion, but for my own part,  I  would rather look upon a tree

in all its abundance and diffusions of boughs and branches,

than when it is cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure."

(Joesph Addison, 1712)

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"There is no other way forward but consciously to act as nature

acts, consciously ordering things in a way that allows individuality

to unfold, while this unfolding also serves the life of the whole. This

whole is the form of our life."

(Hugo Haring, 1925)















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Ruminate 4



The landscape, harsh yet fragile, static yet fragile. Shaped by ice

wind, rain. A landscape devoid of trees. Dominated by rock, peat, bog  

and water.



Sheep roam. Always on the move. Semi-wild.



Man controls them, marks them, sheers them, kills them.

There is tension.



Tension between the wild and the domesticated, the manmade and

the natural.



What is wild, domesticated and tame?



The landscape is a complex interaction between the natural

processes and human activity.



Push, pull, resist, support. Fluid, temporary, adjacent.



"Holding to the ground is not that important if the ground can be reached and abandoned at whim, in a short time or in no time. On the other hand, holding too fast, burdening one's bond with mutually binding commitments, may prove positively harmful and new chances crop up elsewhere."

(Zygmunt Bauman, 1999)















Anthropocene 2



   

                                         Anthro - human           cene - new



Where human activity exceeds natural processes in many ways.                      

What will the rocks of the human species look like? - influenced by concrete,

farming, mining, pollution, habitat destruction.                                                       

                                                    

Have we entered the New Man Epoch or is it an epoch in the making?



Natural, manmade. Where does one

begin and the other end?



No longer pure.                                                                                                          

Create mixtures, hybrids of nature and culture.

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The natural, manmade, architectural, human activity, natural processes -

they meet and collide.                                                                                           

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Ecotones. A transitional zone between 2 different ecosystems where 2 different patches meet that have different ecological compositions.

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Tension zones.

Edge effects.

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Dismantle traditional separations. Look at ways to conjoin nature and culture.

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Anthropogenic fragmentation of landscapes.  

 

 

 

Subterranean

 

Into the edgelands to search for the mounds of soil. 

                                                                                            Transforming the grass.

Looking for the residue that these solitary,

                                                             subterranean, 

                                                             animals create.

                                                                             They dig and shift the earth,

shaping and maintaining their precarious tunnels,

                        making routes

                                           and connections.

 

This process                                                disrupts                              the landscape.

                                                                                      Temporarily.

The repetition of digging and moving of soil. 

                                                                                       Just happening beneath

                                                                                                                              the

                                                                                                                       surface

                                                                                                                  in secrecy.

 

                               A concealed routine.

 

                    Encountered by humans as

                                                                   displaced,

                                                                                ephemeral,

                                                                                               curious, 

                                                                                                         molehills.

                 Wild readymades change the rural environment where

             I walk and discover nature and it's ecosystems.

                                                                    I think about their behaviour underneath me.

Their zonal world of order,

                                               territories and boundaries.

                       These spatial interventions can cause

 

                                   chaos.

 

They are an                                                                                       annoyance.

They make people want to

                                                control nature.

                                                                                       They must be

removed and 

                       made to                                      disappear.

                                              Transport them elsewhere.

 

Select, carry, accumulate, relocate, remake, remodel and change.

 

Place them amongst the architecture,

                                      the concrete, urban society

 

                                                                                                           and relocate for good.