Psychogeography

Avery Hill Publishing are delighted to present Grey Area Issue 2, by artist and writer Tim Bird.

Titled 'The Old Straight Track', Grey Area Issue 2 is a tribute to the Great British Motorway System. A narrative created by constantly moving across tarmac. A biography on roads. A spiritual journey through the sacred service stations of the country. A meditation of traffic jams.

Following on from Grey Area Issue 1 (although unrelated narratively), Tim's second issue further establishes a unique voice and vision in British comics, as he explores the mysterious connection between electricity pylons and standing stones. Lines painted on roads. Roads drawn on maps....

Fen Lander Talks about his new book Humanoid landscape, A Baby Giant hidden in the British Landscape since time in memorial Its existence covered up for cent...

Manhole covers were once a part of a town’s civic pride, with foundries and local authorities placing their stamp on the cast-iron covers. Covers were a reflection of the progress made through the industrial revolution and the new provision of services that accompanied increasing urbanization. Extruded designs on the surface were to prevent pedestrian slippage, but the subsequent rubbings artists produced forever placed manholes on the boundary between aestheticism and functionalism. In England, the manhole was an evolution from the coalhole, a cast-iron rectangular cavity into which coal could be delivered without having to enter a house. Coal was gradually phased out with the Clean Air Acts of the 1950s, but the semiotic link between coalhole and manhole reinforce this idea that the manhole is an external sign of the hidden systems beneath the city. With the exception of one, all manholes in Westminster Abbey are rectangular or square in shape. Today, manholes trace an ephemeral and disappearing history. The production of manhole covers is increasingly outsourced to major foundries globally, while coal covers are removed during street improvements. The covers in Westminster Abbey have fortunately not suffered the same fate since they lie within the premises.

Whilst sorting through my late father-in-law’s photographic equipment recently, I found a number of files of studies he had made of the ever-changing skies of Devon and Cornwall...

The National Monuments Record of Scotland (NMRS) is a wonderful thing, accessed remotely via the CANMORE portal, offering a window onto tens of thousands of mostly old things around Scotland. I use the word ‘thing’ here because it is difficult to summarise the content of the NMRS without recourse to such a vague term. At a slightly more specific level, the kinds of things you can expect to find while browsing in the NMRS includes archaeological sites, historic buildings, material culture, shipwrecks, cropmark sites, events (such as watching briefs or surveys), natural features, public art and sculptures, and perhaps surprisingly, some very modern phenomena such as tower blocks and – much to my amazement – roundabouts. I stumbled upon the NMRS category ‘roundabout’ when exploring the urban prehistory of East Kilbride (note to self: there is not much urban prehistory in EK, but there are many, many roundabouts). I could not resist exploring a little further...

We woke early one Saturday morning in order to join a guided wade along the rocky bed of Deptford Creek. All in the name of ecology, botany, history, and zoology. It was absolutely fascinating. The...

Memory Band main-man, Stephen Cracknell, plans to mark the release of his band’s latest album On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line Of The Downs) by undertaking“three days walking from “Farnham to Stonehenge in search of the route of the “lost” section of the Harrow Way, going via the site of the ancient Weyhill Fair”.

Stephen continues: “For inspiration I’ve been reading a couple of amazing books written by the writer George Bourne at the turn of the last century about a character called Bettesworth. He was an agricultural labourer who lived in one of the villages on squatted heathland around Farnham. It’s fascinating the stories of how much labourers travelled all over the country back then, mostly on foot.

Brighton is like the Emerald City for many because it appears so inclusive and open-minded. Of course, there’s a darker side to this. Those who come seeking sanctuary are often vulnerable to various forms of exploitation. This is similarly true of Hastings along the coast. Seaside towns always have a sense of melancholy because of their terminal aspect and the sense that they’re not built for permanent habitation – they’re for holidays or dirty weekends. When you live in such a place it can feel somewhat unreal. In many ways, Brighton isn’t quite real; there’s little industry here apart from entertainment and leisure, and a few call centres where struggling artists eke out a living on minimum wage with commission if they’re particularly good at doing the unspeakable. Brighton feels less “solid” than London, more like an illusion shared and sustained by 155,919 people.

Watch the trailer for Underworld musician Karl Hyde's film about the Thames estuary, made in collaboration with director Kieran Evans

I recently read Peter Ackroyd’s London Under. A kind of subterranean coda to the author’s magnificent London the Biography, the book provides a tantalising glimpse into the world beneath the city; ...