Season's Greetings

A few weeks ago, whilst wandering back through Wytham Woods, I came across a piece of artwork suspended among the trees.  Composed of rattan balls, it reminded me of the game takraw, which one of my Thai cousins used to play barefoot.   The work is designed by the artist Hermeet Gill and called ‘Beneath the Surface’, commissioned as part of the Indirect Signs of Presence programme.  The spheres, which represent pollen grains, were woven by basketmaker Greet Blom, Andy Goodwin and Charlotte Holmes of the Basketmakers’ Association.

As I looked up I was struck by the sense of depth – cells in 3-dimensional space extending into the sky.  I took a quick snap and filed it away, not thinking much about it, but as Christmas approached I recalled the spheres and they reminded me of baubles.  The colours in my photo were predominantly dark, so I experimented by taking a negative.   The trees and shadows inverted to near white, conveying the sense of snowy borders.  For a festive touch I just added a little decorative colour (variously hued transparent discs).  

A nature-inspired Happy Christmas!

What Would Turner Paint at 35,000 feet?

QMA have very generously paid for me to attend an EMu training course at KE Software's office near Oxford Road station.  So after just 3 weeks in Doha, I found myself on another Qatar Airways plane, this time destined for Manchester!   Putting pen to paper, I started jotting...

... It's shortly before 8am and we've just taken off.  From my seat I peer out of the window and have an excellent view looking to the West. 

As we ascend we rise above the clouds I recall being told that the painter, JMW Turner, would spend hours simply gazing up at the clouds, simply observing, watching.   So the question enters my mind: what would he have painted if he were to have gazed from besides and above the clouds?  What visual impressions would he have created - especially the light, shading, and colour?  Where would he have looked?  Up, down or across?  And what would he make of the different shapes, including the curvature of the Earth? 

Now at the cruising height, we're atop the fluffy white clouds, which at a distance are like remote islands floating in a now hazy sea whose waters show but traces of the land masses below.  Sometimes we are drawing close to them, moving besides them, and we see them rise up and across towards us, billowing fully in 3 dimensions, like celestial icebergs, a well-defined yet immaterial presence.   Reflecting clear sunlight, they radiate the luminosity of paper lanterns, but here the light is coming from many directions. 

The scene below becomes gradually clearer revealing at first a largely uniform mass of sand with indistinct features.  It's seemingly washed out by the summer heat, but looking more closely reveals a few roads criss-crossing the landscape, and then shades of colour, with reddish hues and assorted patterns from the shadows of the clouds.  And above the clouds we only see our movement relative to the clouds, we only detect their movements through their shadows drifting across the static land... and dwelling there with our eyes can be discerned a few geometric plots of human habitation in the midst of ... and soon more is revealed: many more settlements - the haze is reducing and now there are traces of green, faint at first, and then of stronger hue - irrigation circles. 

And now all obscured again by a soft hazy blanket.   Empty space ... infinite space ... the horizon merges white and blue.  Textures and shade, layered, uniform, ... Then suddenly like twin prongs, two straight lines converge.  What are they?  Roads?  Pipes? Canals? I don't know.  We're approaching the coast.  The hazy view below makes it seem hazier above until a network of lines appears and an orange patchwork... and strips of cultivated land - they look like fields!  There's less haze and more detail ... and these patterns stretch far and wide. And we can see finer details in this patchwork - denser patterns, settlements, many houses.  Then we cross an expanse of water, perhaps a lake or an estuary? 

Now bolder strips of green, even the specks are prominent.  A river!  It twists and turns, with cultivation hugging its curves, and trees and forests, but still surrounded by sand. More irrigation circles, some having concentric radial discs.  As we continue north and west the landscape thickens - sometimes with mountain ridges, sometimes with vegetation and cultivations... Across the Black Sea into Eastern Europe and more familiar patchwork of fields... 

Very soon we were crossing the North Sea and over East Anglia, starting our descent.

It was only my third visit to the Manchester area, the last one was also mainly work-related (a meeting about Personal Learning Environments).  Actually, on that occasion I stayed not at a hotel, but a meditation centre, and on this occasion although I did stay in a hotel (Ibis, Portland Street), I had some free time to join a ceremony at its current location in Stockport.   Meditation helps me not to have my head 'in the clouds'... :-)

Onwards and upwards

Note: This article was originally posted in the Connect section on the Educause Web site, at:
http://connect.educause.edu/blog/pault/onwards_and_upwards/6726. 
However, this address has since become inaccessible, so the post has been reproduced here as an archive with the same date and approximately the same time. Apologies for any broken links.

Can you guess where this is...?



It's inspirational and aspirational - I hope the rest of this week will be likewise for all participants in Educause '06.

Today - Sunday - has been my first full day in Dallas, with a chance to start exploring the city, probably the only chance during my brief stay this week.  I took the opportunity of registering in the morning, whilst it was quiet, and then proceeded to head towards the Arts District a little to the NE of downtown, within walking distance of the hotel where I am staying.  I spent several hours at the Dallas Museum of Art and what struck me was the spaciousness, making the art galleries I'm used to in the UK seem rather poky in comparison.

I took the above photo at the Nasher Sculpture Center. The artist is Jonathan Borofsky.  I think it's very clever; at least everyone who walked in its vicinity gazed up for some while in reflection - few other sculptures seemed to receive the same acknowledgement. I think the clouds create an interesting effect, more interesting than simply a blue sky. Does anyone here play the game of spotting patterns in cloud formations...?

I've uploaded more photos in my MyWebLearn area - showing further sculptures and some of downtown.