Under them skies of blue
Out in the great wide open........
One more piece from my current MA work . One of the Context lectures we had earlier this
year took as its starting point Wittgenstein and the period he spent in Manchester early on in
the last century , something I wasn't aware of . A student at Manchester University studying aeronautics , he took to flying large gliders out on Chunnel Moor up beyond Glossop in the Peak District - an area I know well . Taking this as a starting point , the Context group organises a kite flying day up on the moors , followed by a theatre evening down in Glossop - all good fun.
My own knowledge of Wittgenstein was essentially of the building he designed and built in Vienna for his sister and I was fascinated by the structured thought and discipline that he brought to the design process , clarifying his own philosophical ideas whilst resolving the formal arrangements of internal planning and detailing. Records also exist of where he lived whilst in Manchester , both at the Grouse Inn out on the moors above Glossop and the house in Palatine Road in Didsbury.
So, Wittgenstein , kite-flying , houses , constructions.......................
The premise of the piece of work illustrated is that our hero the Book Lover , with his own house in the centre of Manchester - the ' House Of The Book Lover ' - is intrigued by this and decides as a homage to Wittgenstein and writers in general to build a Kite Flying Platform on the roof of his building , to enable ideas to escape , to float.................pamphlets , notes , sketches are launched from here to find their own way out into the great wide open.......
