As the storm Ophelia was forecast, I wondered if I might take the opportunity of experimenting with 'line and self' up on the hills close to Pott Shrigley in the Peak District.
It seemed a special occassion but I struggled to come up with a decent agenda for my time up there on the hills, for what kind of installations to try out and in what way to respond in particular to the situation of these high winds. I did not know quite what to expect. I only new that the focus was NOT to work with the sound that line can make in the wind....rather, I wondered if I could make an installations where I could get myself into the scene and move around with line and wind. I asked myself if the particular situation of the high winds, and the many dangers it might bring to other places and people should impact in particular onto the agenda. I was not sure what the answer could be. In the end, I made two installations. None worked too well, or so it felt. For the second one I moved around with the lines that got moved by the wind and I experimented with getting very close to the ground, and close to the camera. I felt very 'observed', not only by the camera but also from possible hill walkers, though I did not see any. The light was strange, beautifully warm but unfamiliar. It gave such a special red tone to the bracken. When I was close to the camera, all down on the floor, I pushed past the camera's view....to 'get away from it' .....and turned my head over, and I looked straight into this weirdly red eye of the sun, a colour of which I had never seen before. Like an intense glowing 'over-ripe' egg yolk with its own wet surface shine...