The year of the Ox is about to begin

This Year of the Ox is a double "earth" year. It will be a good year for our project. By the way, I was born in the Year of the Ox, and the same year as the People's Republic of China was inaugurated.

Posted by Philip Courtenay

Reader at the foot of the Tower

From page 56.

 

The science of the I Ching is based not on the causality principle but on one which—hitherto unnamed because not familiar to us—I have called the synchronistic principle. My researches into the psychology of unconscious processes long ago compelled me to look around for another principle of explanation, since the causality principle seemed to me insufficient to explain certain remarkable manifestations of the unconscious. I found that there are psychic parallelisms which simply cannot be related to each other causally, but must be connected by another kind of principle altogether. This connection seemed to lie essentially in the relative simultaneity of the events, hence the term "synchronistic." It seems as though time, far from being an abstraction, is a concrete continuum, which possesses qualities or basic conditions capable of manifesting themselves simultaneously in different places by means of acausal parallelisms, such as we find, for instance, in the simultaneous occurrence of identical thoughts, symbols, or psychic states. Another example, pointed out by Wilhelm, would be the coincidence of Chinese and European periods of style, which cannot have been causally related to one another. Astrology would be an example of synchronicity on a grand scale if only there were enough thoroughly tested findings to support it. But at least we have at our disposal a number of well-tested and statistically verifiable facts which make the problem of astrology seem worthy of scientific investigation. Its value is obvious enough to the psychologist, since astrology represents the sum of all psychological knowledge of antiquity.

                                     

Jung. C. G. (1966) The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Photo sequence: © Lin Holland, February 1984.  Solomon's Temple, Grin Low, Buxton, Derbyshire, UK. 

The Old Mill of Bidston Hill 2002

Bidston Observatory 2003

Bidston Hill Telegraph

Towers and views are connected to knowledge and power.



The Messengers – an e-space lab project proposal for Liverpool ‘08 - included references to the history of Bidston Hill including the telegraph.

• This project is called “the messengers”. In actor-network theory “the world is made up of diverse networks of association which are constituted by that association - by the links rather than the nodes of the network and, more than this, by the traffic through the links.” Taking a leaf from the work of Michel Serres, “the most important elements of the world are counted as the messengers which do the work of keeping networks connected and folding networks into each other. These most prominent performers of association stitch the world together.”

• The project is about messages as “knowledge transfer”, and how this connects to ways of seeing, and finding out where (and when) we are, as well as seeing what is happening elsewhere! This “seeing” also connects to Liverpool (and Merseyside) stories, to Liverpool locations, and also Liverpool’s location, as a port, on the river, by the sea, and connected to other ports, on other rivers, by other seas. We want to create links with Stavanger, Bremen, Gdansk and Shanghai as part of this project through our developing expertise. e-space lab works with electronic and visual communication, experiments with video-streaming, builds international groupings (currently in Shanghai and Gdansk) and connections between people in different places, using photography, video, and promoting conversations “in situ”. In other words we are all “the messengers”.

• “Edginess” for us is an adjunct of this work and process, as we explore the possibilities for new types of perceptual relations in the hybrid space of an event, or events, happening in several places linked by sharing a virtual space. Edginess is also about being at the edge, and in Liverpool’s case being at the edge of the land and the ocean. The people and places we want to work with are:

• A. In Liverpool, the original site of the Liverpool Observatory: In 1845 Liverpool Observatory was built on Waterloo Dock, to determine the exact longitude of Liverpool; to give accurate time to the Port of Liverpool, determined by observing the stars, thus calculating Greenwich Mean Time. A daily signal was given at 1 p.m. by the release of a time ball; to test and rate ships' chronometers against the stars; and to commence meteorological observations in order to provide local forecasts for shipping.
• B. Liverpool University’s Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory on Brownlow Street, originally housed in Bidston Observatory on the Wirral, that researches and monitors storm surges responsible for flooding, global sea level rises, oil spill movements and the dispersal of pollutants.
• C. The World Museum Liverpool. The changing nature of research at the Bidston Observatory has enabled the museum to acquire all its past astronomical equipment as well as non-electronic oceanographic equipment. These include the Roberts-Lege Tide Predictor, Doodson Current Gauge and Fave and Lege Tide gauges.
• D. Bidston Hill on the Wirral: the site of the relocated Liverpool Observatory in 1864, due to the expansion of Waterloo Dock. Earlier, in 1763 a telegraph service was set up to give early notice of the arrival of ships in the Port of Liverpool. Over one hundred signalling poles were erected, belonging mainly to the merchants in Liverpool. As the ships carrying their cargoes were spotted out at sea, the relevant flags were raised and could be seen from Liverpool. The advance knowledge of their ships' arrivals enabled the owners to hasten the unloading of their cargoes. The first Bidston lighthouse was built in 1771 and became part of a chain of stations fitted with semaphore signals, between Bidston and Holyhead, in order to 'give alarm upon any intelligence of an enemy'. It took only eight minutes to transmit messages from Holyhead to Liverpool.

• Our project “the messengers” is about the intelligence that arrives imperceptibly on every tide. People living on the edge of land and sea, world-wide, will be the first to adjust to sea level changes. Here in Liverpool The Proudman Oceanic laboratory is a world class research centre looking at; how climate models of sea level changes agree with actual measurements; how climate change will affect extremes in sea level and waves on time-scales from hours to centuries; and how natural events and man-made changes affect our coastal waters. POL also conducts oceanography from space, making use of state-of-the-art satellite technology. POL has also developed a 12km grid model of the coast of Europe that predicts storm surges and subsequent coastal flooding, and the Multi Year Return Tidal Equipment is a 5 year mission to send back sea level and temperature information from the deep oceans.

• Using a data driven website, video-streaming, blogs and webcams, etc to make explicit visual connections between people working in these places, relating to these places, visiting these places, we can make an art which is about becoming part of a network where the impetus is knowledge transfer. Activated by a programme of events, and supported by our on-line resources, interactivity is vital to this process, and because we are committed to “notions of performativity which fosters the new”, we are developing a whole series of techniques for “refiguring times and spaces”, and in contexts “where the witness must become an observant participant rather than a participant observer”.

• The visual and performative elements will include working with webcams to create new types of experience of space, and using the anachronistic visual signalling techniques of flags and semaphore, workstation to workstation, screen to screen through video streaming interactive events. We will use the visual time signal of the time-ball as a device that pre-dated the 1 ‘o clock gun signal fired by telegraph signal from the Observatory (this happened daily at Morpeth Dock in Birkenhead, until it was fired for the last time on July 18th 1969).

• The speed of light and electricity is quicker than sound, and melting ice, flowing as water into river or ocean, is slower still, but its impact on sea levels is nevertheless actual and measurable. Anything we do here has an impact elsewhere, and the consequences will return on the tide. Water is the great leveller, and each ripple and wave is a messenger!

• We aim to create some visual height-gauges as physical structures (like inverted depth gauges) and projection works on existing urban fabric, in Liverpool, Stavanger, Bremen, Gdansk and Shanghai (the impact of possible sea level rises will have dramatic effects on the entire low lying coastal region around Liverpool’s sister city Shanghai). All these gauges will be visible via webcams in real time on our website indicating where current and changing projections of future sea level rises may occur.

• Our first “messenger performance” connects with inaugurating ’08, using a webcam image of a time-ball marking GMT 00.00h GMT 2008, and then firing a gun 12 minutes later, when Liverpool’s lost local time actually begins the year. Our audience of already interested groups, primed in our lead-in programme, will focus on the Bidston Hill site, Morpeth Dock in Birkenhead, and in Liverpool on the Waterloo Dock. The data driven website then promotes the beginning of a process of knowledge transfer. The second event will take place around the equinox in March, developing the links to the Museums and POL, and making a connection to Gdansk and Shanghai. Event 3. will take place at the summer solstice, and connect to gauges in Stavanger and Bremen. Event 4 at the autumn equinix brings people from all five cities together in a video-streaming live link exploring the varying environmental impact scenarios. Event 5, culminating at the winter solstice, will be a forum of ideas and issues debated on live video links and archived on the data driven website. All the information and archive material will be downloadable as podcasts.

Enough to say that the Capital of Culture Co initially disallowed the project proposal from the proposal process, along with many other artists proposals, on some technical grounds concerning the application process, that they forgot to share with artists who bothered to come along to all the meetings! They backtracked following my complaint, nevertheless they could not find any value in this proposal. Probably because it is a bit mad, but I expect we will do it anyway one day!

Posted by Philip Courtenay

The Gutzlaff Signal Tower

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-- ATONOBO --

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"At the south end of the Bund stands the old Gutzlaff Signal Tower, originally built by the French in 1865 and rebuilt in 1907. It was used to transmit weather reports from the Zikawei Observatory at Xujiahui to ships at sea, and served this function until 1956. Nowadays, it serves as a small museum - the Bund Museum, with black-and-white photos of the Bund during Shanghai's heydays (entry fee RMB10). There is an attached, rather expensive, cafe." --cheezecake deli

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"Replacing a simpler wooden structure from 1884, the current tower, called the "Gutzlaff Signal Tower" after a 17th century German missionary, was built in 1907 as part of a system of meteorological relay stations set up by the French Jesuits. It served to warn riverboats and locals of oncoming weather through an elaborate flag system, a sort of a Jesuit precursor to the Weather Channel. " --smart shanghai

Transpire

Here's something I've been working on and there are more related documents in the pipeline. Any feedback from e-space labbers out there would be welcomed. Philip"s recent Virgil piece sparked off a few more ideas in me around this theme, of which more later....  Are there many such 'towers' in old Shanghai I wonder? It would be good to make contact with artists in some of Liverpool's 'twinned' cities with a view to future collaborations... 

Sean

Handover of the European Capital of Culture

Liverpool's '08 year as European Capital of Culture is over.

Goodbye to 2008

Sean is working on idea about city vistas. Here is a myth about towers and knowledge that is dear to my heart for some reason.

• Virgil’s tower “Somehow in the confusion of the Dark Ages, the great poet Virgil became transmuted into master Virgil, a consummate sorcerer whose magic helped the emperors rule the world. …. In Rome he was associated with every ancient marvel. Besides tales of magic talking statues and buried treasures, there was the tower Virgil built for the emperor, covered with mirrors facing every point of the compass. Whenever a province was threatened with invasion or revolt, the danger would appear beforehand, reflected in the mirrors, and the emperor would know how to deal with it.” (p77) Rome; Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls 1989.

Now, a certain kind of knowledge about what is happening in the provinces comes via the satellite dish!

The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (http://jvwresearch.org) is soliciting "think pieces" in response to the following questions:

"In thinking about the spaces of virtual worlds, and the practices we witness within them, how can we define what counts as culture? Can we see any common cultural trends emerging in different virtual worlds, or are practices as disparate as the worlds and groups we find within them?"

From a Liverpool perspective Peter Hagerty points out that this is an apposite subject for the end of 'LC of Culture 2008'

Your thoughts?

Posted by Philip Courtenay