noisiv | vision : from the road north
Outlandia (photo Luke Allan)
This
sequence is composed from field-notes on the culture of viewing, remnants from
a book-length poem that records a journey through Scotland, guided by Basho’s Oku-no-hosomichi, pairing
Basho's temples with Neolithic sites, or contemporary temenos. Our journey,
from Edo-Edinburgh to a view of Sado-St Kilda, guided us toward an
understanding of viewing, from chambered cairns, most notably Bharpa Langais,
North Uist, through folly viewing points, to contemporary secular
constructions. The visits are detailed in the posts on the road north blog. Although we decided that
this material did not, finally, belong in that journey narrative, I have preserved it here, as
it bears on my ongoing research into shelters, huts, viewing platforms, follies
and comparable constructions made, or proposed, by contemporary poets,
architects, and artists.
Alec Finlay
