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Art, Al And Allotments

Despite having passions for painting and gardening, I have always taken an interest as to why, from a psycho-sociological perspective, these needs exist. I'm aware that my own are derived from the misconception of freedom in contemporary societies, specifically within the context of poorly built environments and green-poverty outcomes, they are essentially sublimation sinks for an agrarian homesickness.

A place that many of us were exposed to, is represented by the preceding image. Our pre-clearance home, standing on what is now the most contaminated land in the UK, was situated directly below the coal-fired power station and the source of our formative experiences, i.e confined within a provincial pocket of manufacturing, the windows framing the imagery of heavy industry that produced not only goods but also identities, generated power and also exercised it. It wouldn't be wholly unreasonable to regard this somewhat sulphurous, Dantesque scene, a landscape of Marcusian Man amongst the smoking stacks as an additional candidate for Betjeman's ire. These areas populated by people, who through historical circumstance and the stealing of the soil, were absorbed into the machine for perpetuity, from the spinning Jenny with it's wheel of misfortune, to the modern microcontroller and microcontrolling of Taylorism, the menchanic forwarned by Shelley, except one turned parts into man, the other turned man into parts.

There exists a certain irony within the focal point, in that the station was operated by a company called Manweb and despite utility, scrutiny reveals a Lancastrian Leviathan amongst the mass industrial terraforming, the furnace effluence conferred not just to lungs of the poor, the consequences eventually stoking the conscience of "Old Nick", although sadly not enough to sanction relief in his own backyard, but also an unsolicited imposition on their senses. For those captive, it was an environmental assault - the broke got the smoke and 'civil society' had become obscured. With regards to personal autonomy , little has changed, the viscous lattice is simply evolving to manWeb 3.0. Technological society is essentially polymorphic, the tooling proliferates in various forms, complexity and scale, but it's encapsulated essence is immutable, to deliver the neo-trinity of profit, efficiency and control, to the detriment of the human spirit. The new machine may forge itself, but the ghost inside will still haunt and creep with bias.

I was still young when briefly introduced to a another place. It came with an awareness that socio-economics were predominantly responsible for generational confinement, Calvinist predestination was merely man-made, but to leave behind the brick walls and class ceilings, I have a paintbrush and a spade.