Port Talbot: Some more specimens from the Collectors Cabinet
1 See Interview with Reynolds:
NG: Chasm City is a diseased metropolis, a utopia gone radically to seed. What inspired your vivid portrayal of this warped locale?
AR: I can't, and wouldn't, claim any originality for it -- it's just a fusion of all the great, festering fictional cities I have loved. Nothing too surprising, either: Blade Runner's LA; Judge Dredd's Mega City one; the Radiant City of the Mr X comics...dozens of others. Also Port Talbot, the steelworks down the M4 from where my family still live in Wales. At night it's the most amazing sight -- mile on mile of illuminated chimneys, belching smoke and flames. Oddly enough, I've even heard that Ridley Scott's vision of LA in Blade Runner was itself inspired by a drive past Port Talbot, so it's all circular in the end.
2 A further Port_Talbotism
See Situationist Raoul Vaneigem's concluding chapter of The Revolution of Everyday Life, a touchstone of May '68- a utopian-revolutionary impulse, just in case all this dystopian cyberpunk stuff colours our vision too much:
Chapter 25 "You're Fucking Around With Us? - Not For Long!"
In
Watts, Prague, Stockholm, Stanleyville, Gdansk, Turin, Port Talbot,
Cleveland, Cordoba, Amsterdam, wherever the act and wareness of refusal
generates passionate break-outs from the factories of collective
illusion, the revolution of everyday life is under way. The struggle
intensifies as misery becomes universal. What for years were reasons
for fighting specific issues - hunger, restrictions, boredom, illness,
anxiety, isolation, deceit - now reveal misery's fundamental
rationality, its omnipresent emptiness, its appalling oppressive
abstraction. For this misery, the world of hierarchical power, the
world of the State, of sacrifice, exchange and the quantitative - the
commodity as will and representation of the world - is held responsible
by those moving towards an entirely new society that is still to be
invented and yet is already among us. All over the globe, revolutionary
praxis, like a photographic exposer, is transforming negative
into positive, lighting up the hidden face of the earth with the fires
of rebellion to ink in the map of its triumph.
3 The Collectors Cabinet
The otaku impulse-
pattern recognition or apophenia ?
We were going to discuss a project on art, landscape and memory.
We arranged to make an early start and head for the Gower. The rest was up to the weather. A superb Ocotber's day meant that nothing short of a full route beyond Llanmadoc Hill to Rhossilli would do.
Hence- park car up at Bury Green just as the big white Pullman scooped the kids up for school, detour to see the fort near Fairy Hill, and thence Ryers Down, Llanmadoc Hill, Llangennith, Rhossili - the bottom route just above the beach, Rhossili and around the head alongside Worms Head and on to Fall Bay, Rhossili and lunch stop in pub, then Rhossili Down, LLangenith - and another pub stop as the sun was so insistent upon a beverage; the Pullman now dropping off the kids - and to make life easier the direct route along the road back to Bury Green.
Once I was home I recalled a connection between Cedric Morris - who painted Llanmadoc Hill - and East Anglia, where he set up his East Anglia School of Painting (-including Lucian Freud amongst his students):
"In 1937 Morris and Haines, with hardly any qualifications for doing so, opened the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at nearby Dedham in Essex. By the close of its first season, its pupils had grown in number from one to sixty, and the future of this unorthodox establishment was assured. Even the catastrophic burning-down of the original premises in 1939 proved only a temporary setback: the school, and Morris and Haines with it, moved the next year to Benton End, a Georgian mansion with a sixteenth-century core, set in acres of land on the edge of the Suffolk village of Hadleigh. At Dedham pupils had lodged in the village; at Benton End they lived in the house, joining in the lively dinners every evening, cooked and supervised by Haines, and dancing afterwards to gramophone records of Latin-American music. Instruction was often given outside, watched over by peacocks, cockatoos, cows and ducks, while gardeners wove their way around the easels - the garden itself, and especially Morris's collection of irises, soon became as well-known as the school. Pupils of all ages were admitted and encouraged, non-professional artists as well as those ambitious for a career in painting: among the latter were Lucian Freud, David Carr, Joan Warburton, Glyn Morgan and Maggi Hambling (...)" (x).
Morris hailed from the industrialist's family which gave the industrial suburb Morriston its name. A former student of Morris recalls his left leanings - for instance once a year Morris opened his gardens at Hadleigh, and some locals "would have been pained to learn that the admission
fees went to Labour Party funds" (x).
I was on my way to a conference, where I attended a debate on Innovation
How come efforts to focus on "a national story for Wales" leads to cul de sacs?
Whither the industrial revolution?
Whither the digital revolution?
Yes, packet switching and Donald Davies.
"The concept of packet switching had two independent beginnings, with Paul Baran and Donald Davies"
Part of the frustration when visiting a new country for work-related activities such as a conference, is that you rush by interesting sights bereft of any historical commentary.
In the case of this monumental sculpture, Wikipedia proved a useful tour guide after-the-event:
Monument to the Red Latvian Riflemen in Riga, Latvia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_riflemen
Latvian Riflemen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monument to the Red Latvian Riflemen in Riga, Latvia
Latvian riflemen (Latvian: Latviešu strēlnieki, Russian: Латышские
стрелки) were military formations assembled starting 1915 in Latvia in
order to defend Baltic territories against Germans in World War I.
Initially the batallions were formed by volunteers, from 1916 by
conscription among Latvian population. A total of about 40,000 troops
were drafted into the Latvian Riflemen Division.
From 1915 to 1917, Latvian Riflemen fought in the Russian army against the Germans in positions along Daugava river. In December 1916 and January 1917, Latvian riflemen suffered heavy casualties in month-long Christmas battles which began with a surprise attack on German positions during Christmas. Suffering heavy casualties, Latvian riflemen managed to break German line of defense but the effort was wasted as the attack was not continued. The Russian Army lost over 26,000 soldiers in the failed attack. The casualties included 9,000 Latvian riflemen, about a third of the total number at that time. The heavy casualties resulted in a strong resentment for the Russian generals and tsar among the riflemen. This resentment led to an increased support for the Bolsheviks, who were advocating an end to the war.
In 1917, a large number of Latvian riflemen sided with the Bolsheviks. They became known as Red Latvian Riflemen ((Latvian: Latviešu sarkanie strēlnieki, Russian: красные латышские стрелки) and actively participated in the Russian civil war. The riflemen took active part in suppression of anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Moscow and Yaroslavl in 1918. They fought against Denikin, Yudenich, and Wrangel. In 1919 the division received the highest military recognition of that time — the Honorable Red Flag of VTsIK. Latvian Red Riflemen officer Jukums Vācietis became the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army. Latvian red riflemen were also a part of the attempt to establish Soviet rule in Latvia in 1919. They were defeated by Baltic German volunteers in Western Latvia and then by the Polish and new Latvian army in Eastern Latvia.
11,395 former Red Riflemen returned to Latvia after the 1920 peace treaty between Latvia and Bolshevist Russia. Other former riflemen stayed in Russia and took positions in the Red Army, Bolshevik party, Cheka. Many of them were arrested or executed during the Great Purges, when ethnically Latvian Communists became one of the groups particularly targeted by the Purges.
Post Soviet Views
How to describe the red riflemen is a hot issue in Latvia after the
fall of the Soviet Union. There has been disagreement over whether the
statue (pictured) should be demolished or kept. Some see the red
riflemen as pro-communists and want the statue removed, while others
see them as pro-Latvian and want the statue to remain. The building now
housing the Latvijas Okupacijas Muzejs (Occupation Museum of Latvia)
originally was the Latvian Red Riflemen's Museum.
Cory's Buildings | Bute Street, Cardiff
"Several more
opulent banks and
offices opened around the square - Baltic House, Ocean Building, Cory's
Buildings, Cambrian Buildings..." ( X )
"But around the turn of the twentieth century, south Wales was one
region where
growth was still breakneck and full of promise. It was Old King Coal of
course,
who was the kingpin; he had conquered the British navy and his city had
become
the greatest coal port in the world. In 1921 he had at his command
270,000
miners (...). But this was not simply a matter of coal export huge
though it
was, of John Cory's bunkers
straddling the
world and south Wales keeping the greatest navy in the
world afloat
staggering though these were. The capital, technology, the enterprise,
the skill
and the labour of south Wales fertilised large and distant tracts of
the world,
from Montana and Pennsylvania to Chile, Argentine and Russia" (Gwyn A
Williams, When Was
Wales?)
Richard Cory (1799-1882) of Devon, was the owner of a small vessel which traded between Cardiff,
Bristol
and Ireland in the early part of the 19th century. In 1838, he opened a
ships'
chandler store in Cardiff, Glamorgan. In 1844, Richard Cory was joined
by his
sons, John (1828-1910) and Richard (1830-1914), and traded as Richard
Cory and Sons</a> . They described themselves as ship brokers,
ship owners, coal
merchants and exporters. In 1859, when Richard Cory (the elder)
retired, John
and Richard re-named the business Cory Brothers & Co. It became
a limited
liability company in 1888. John and Richard Cory became coal owners in
their own
right with the purchase of Pentre colliery in the Rhondda, Glamorgan,
in 1868.
Gelli, Tynybedw and Tydraw collieries were later acquired, as were
several
collieries in adjoining valleys. The brothers also became the largest
private
wagon-owners in the United Kingdom. They opened coaling stations around
the
world, and by 1908 had 118 agencies and depots on all the major
shipping routes.
They supplied coal on a worldwide basis, most of it coming from their
collieries
in the Rhondda. The company opertaed subsidiary companies including
Aden Coal
Co. Ltd and Gueret, Llewellyn and Merrett Ltd. In 1942, the company was
bought
by the Powell Duffryn Group, but has maintained its identity as a
shipping agent
to the present. As their wealth increased, the brothers began to give
assistance
to social, educational, and moral reform causes in Cardiff, and to
evangelical
movements, particularly the Salvation Army. They supported the
temperance
movement, and established the Cory Temperance Hall which was made
available for
public meetings. In memory of
his work for the
people of Cardiff, a bronze statue of John Cory, designed by Sir
William
Goscombe John, was erected in the city in 1905. ( X )
JOHN, Sir William Goscombe (1860 - 1952)
John Cory(1828-1910), Date 1906
After his election as Associate of the Royal Academy in 1899, Goscombe John began to receive commissions for public monuments and portraits of major figures in public life and in 1905 he made a bronze statue of the philanthropist John Cory which was erected in front of City Hall. Cory was the son of Richard Cory who traded between Cardiff, Bristol and Ireland. In 1859, John and his brother Richard established their own coal exporters Cory Brothers and Co. They established depots, offices and agencies on a world-wide basis. In addition they owned collieries and were reputedly the largest private wagon owners in the UK. Both brothers backed the Temperance Movement and were active Methodists. John's charitable donations amounted to nearly £50,000 annually, in the years before his death. It is likely that this bust was a gift to him to mark the unveiling of the City Hall statue.
... its become a catchphrase.
* * *
Locating locative media?
- Bearing point # 1
Art of ... (Wired News)
"There is an explosion of art projects using wireless -- "locative media" is a buzzword -- a lot of it is banal, fetishizing GPS technologies..."
- Bearing point # 2
Future Wireless (Cybersalon & Open Spectrum UK, National Science Museum, London)
The Cybernetic Wireless Dream? - How are wireless technologies changing our personal and social spaces - or how are our personal and social spaces changing wireless technologies? (x)
- Bearing point # 3
Peter Cochrane keynote: Seamless Freedom: The Wireless Revolution (Video, 30 mins)
"Smart digital radio technologies give us a whole raft of new freedoms, but the old analogue history still seems to dog our progress. All thats needed is a change of mindset, the technology will do the rest."
Yes - thats a heron, centre frame. Taken on the Glamorgan Canal at Forest Farm nature reserve.
Signs of the industrial past saturate the landscape- but one needs the eye of an industrial archaeologist to render them visible.
Find of the day - Gelynis Farm was built in 1574 for the master of the Pentyrch Iron Foundry.
The vineyard at Gelynis Farm is said to include cuttings from the former Castell Coch vineyard nearby, planted by landowner-industrialist the Marquis of Bute in 1875 ( - a noteworthy experiment in the annals of British viticulture )
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