Fear and Loathing in the West Highlands Pt 2
The Water of Life, a Spirit Not to be Exorcised, Lonely Piper, 2006
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”
This is the infamous advice contained in Fear and Loathing at the Superbowl, and this seems to be another very apt quote to attach to some further thoughts on Nemeton by Norman Shaw, awarded his PhD in 2003.
What is Nemeton? There is a lot of psycho-geography around at the moment (Sinclair, Self, Sebald) and a lot of nature writing (MacFarlane, Mabey and perhaps also Monbiot and McKibben). Nemeton isn’t either exactly. Psycho-geography is usually defined as the exploring the emotional and psychological impacts of geography, about ways of exploring the urban landscape, about rediscovering somewhere and introducing its idiosyncrasies to others. Nemeton is not in the mode of rediscovery, although the knowledge is in some respects lost. Nor is Nemeton concerned with the urban. Rather this is a landscape that is known and inhabited, even if Shaw is transgressing what might be regarded as the perceived norms of communities in the Highlands (although Scotland has regularly been a place where transgressive communities can find refuge under the radar, on the periphery). But Nemeton does explore the emotional and psychological, in particular in relation to the spiritual. Nor is Nemeton nature writing exactly. It’s not a celebration of nature. Rather its a celebration of the specific spiritual dimension of the West Highland landscape.
“It was dangerous lunacy, but it was also the kind of thing a real connoisseur of edge-work could make an argument for.” (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, p.80)
Edge-work is a term coined in Fear and Loathing. It captures the spirit of transgression that applies equally to both texts. The edge in question isn’t just the edge of consciousness, it’s also the edge of art, the edge of social acceptability, the edge of sanity, as well as working along the edge of what most people have experienced and then diving into spaces that they haven’t. Many people have been to Calanais, not many to the other stone circles, let alone carrying an electric guitar, modified amplifier, etc. seeking to capture the energies in the stones.
Just as Raoul Duke is searching for the American Dream in the hotels and conferences of Las Vegas,
“Let me explain it to you, let me run it down just briefly if I can… Well, we’re looking for the American Dream, and we were told it was somewhere in this area…. Well, we’re here looking for it, ’cause they sent us out here all the way from San Francisco to look for it. That’s why they gave us this white Cadillac, they figure that we could catch up with it in that…” (ibid, 164).
The Lonely Piper is looking for the Dreamworld or Otherworld of the West Highlands, the strange alternate universe of the faeries, of the mother….
The tour involved visits to selected nemetons in the Highlands, the fruits of which constitute the material gathered together in this publication. … As the project developed through accumulated visits and collaborations, a range of sub-themes emerged. Chance encounters during particular collaborations resulted in unforeseen iconoclasms and subversions, the direct result of unplanned happenstances and contingencies. These tangential developments were welcomed, and expanded upon, looping back into the main themes. (Nemeton, p.8)
Nemeton starts with an argument that magic mushrooms must have been used by the Celtic bardic culture to access the dreamworld and enter the faerie land under the faerie hills,
In my mind I was right back there in the doctor’s garden. Not on the surface, but underneath – poking up through that finely cultivated earth like some kind of mutant mushroom.” (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, p.65)
Talk about a trip… this is gonzo research.
Google sets itself against ‘two cultures’
Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive of Google, has hit the nail on the head. C. P. Snow‘s two cultures continue to exist embedded in the educational system in the UK, though perhaps less in Scotland. In his McTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Festival (full text on the Guardian website) he highlighted the major innovations (photography, computers and television) that were developed in the UK. He went on to say,
“The UK is the home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV,” he said. “Yet today, none of the world’s leading exponents in these fields are from the UK.”
Of course there are two points to be made: one Scotland has a particular role in this history, and the critique is a challenge to politicians and policy makers, educators and innovators here. Secondly, his analysis predicates that the important exponent is the corporate entity rather than the individual creative person.
But these are two minor quibbles. Schmidt’s argument is more fundamental and important because he wants to challenge the cultural divide. His lecture is a catalogue of key historical figures who demonstrated excellence in both the arts and the sciences, and his particular focus is on the Victorian period: James Clerk Maxwell the published poet; Lewis Carroll the mathematics tutor at Oxford. Perhaps Modernism and the apparent association of ‘Victorian values’ with a recidivist conservative agenda is an oversimplification that needs to be challenged so that we can see again a period when the arts and the sciences were interwoven.
But, not that I want to harp on about Scotland again, Scotland also has a particular history in educating polymaths and a particular pedagogical tradition of valuing the generalist. Young people in Scotland learn within a system that is designed to see them take a range of humanities and sciences until they go to University, and even in University, the first year is designed to encourage broader study (I ended up doing joint honours in English and Philosophy because I had to choose an extra subject in first year and took Moral Philosophy).
So, value the generalist interested in both arts and sciences, and re-appraise the Victorians for exemplars. I’ve been reading a biography of Keir Hardie, a man at the centre of radical agitation at the turn of the century.
Annandale Observer – News – 21st August 11
Merz, Sanquhar
Models and Metaphors: David Ruston at Merz in Sanquhar, Dumfries & Galloway
Images associated with the show at the Herbert on Flickr
Get a message from Simon Beeson on Facebook that he’s headed south after his annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh. Sorry to miss us. He says he stopped in Sanquhar to see David Rushton’s Merz exhibition – he provided a postcode. David Rushton was involved in Art & Language and now lives in Edinburgh. Curious, so on Sunday head East to Cumnock and then South East (intentionally overshooting to the Drumlanrig Cafe in Thornhill for good pizza and coffee) to Sanquhar. Just off the main street around a corner is a smallish, previously industrial, building. Simon had said something about lemonade.
David Rushton’s studio and exhibition space, called Merz, presumably in homage to Schwitters, is just fantastic. It has all the mod cons including a basement studio, an attic to sleep in, a wall that swings out to reveal a kitchenette, and a toilet and shower tucked at the other end. All of these are pushed as far to the edges of the building as possible, in Rushton’s description, to make the most space for exhibiting, perhaps 800 sq. ft. maybe less. There is a woodburning stove at the end of the gallery next to the desk.
He has temporarily installed Models and Metaphors – a show he had in Coventry – in this space.
I haven’t wrapped my head around the work yet, except for the piece (all the works are 1/24th scale vignettes) of a fictitious Pripayat Cultural Centre with major conceptual art works installed. This exhibition opened on 26th April 1986. It was immediately irradiated in the Chernobyl disaster, instantly making conceptual art once again of no financial worth.
What is the importance of art? Is its importance financial? Rushton clearly thinks not if he imagines irradiating his own generations’ best work. He also thinks not, if he chooses to locate himself in Sanquhar. But it is a brilliant place to be. And this is a brilliant space. And brilliant things are going to happen in it.
The only press coverage I could find was in the local paper Annandale Observer – News – 21st August 11.
Without question the most interesting things happen on the edge, in the rural, where it’s least expected.
CHRIS FREMANTLE 
leave a comment