Wednesday, 28 November 2012

..INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN.....

 
..Into the great wide open
  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.......

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