My thanks to everyone who has visited The Devil’s Plantation so far, especially those who took the time to comment. I’m heartened by your positive response. The website is live and visitors now have the choice of visiting this blog or the main site. With any luck my efforts won’t dissuade anybody googling ghosts on the M8 motorway or dogging at Carron although they might be disappointed - or downright perplexed - to land on my tiny patch of cyberspace. Not that I should presume anything about who arrives here because the joy of the online experience is often found in random corners and the places chanced upon. Besides, surely the desire to get jiggy in a remote car park is not incompatible with lesser exploratory urges. [read more]
tagged:
cities,
demolition,
Harry Bell,
moving image,
psychogeography
In 2006 the city of Glasgow was named by Conde Nast Traveller magazine as the UK’s favourite tourist destination, beating London and Edinburgh to the punch. Another promotional stunt disguised as fact? As a native I find these accolades dubious perhaps because I’m conditioned to the negative reckoning of my home city: violence, substance abuse, impenetrable argot. I’m writing this on the week Glasgow played host to the MOBO Awards, the first outside of London, several of whose nominees are known to actively promote violence, substance abuse and… insert punchline here.
I found this quote –
Think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger, because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.
Alasdair Gray, Lanark
Gray’s condescending proposition is obvious and troubling. Obvious because the city uppermost in his mind – Glasgow – is not Florence, Paris, London or New York. Neither is it Rome, Marseilles, Bath or Chicago. It’s Glasgow. It doesn’t need to be anywhere else. [read more]
tagged:
artists,
cinema,
cities,
No Mean City,
PR,
Saltmarket,
Trongate