The idea for this journal came from Alasdair Gray's response to a question at a recent talk at Stirling's Smith Museum and Art Gallery. He was asked to what he now thought of his late 1980s venture into promoting a touring exhibition of his own and others' paintings. He listed the problems afflicting any cultural initiative in Scotland as
"... the cultural desert of Central Region." (1)
If these are problems in Scotland as a whole (and this is not to suggest that they are not equally problematic elsewhere), they cannot be assumed to be salved by some nationalistic programme. For the problem repeats itself within Scotland for those who live outwith the main cities. Little could be expected if power passed to an internal political class which sits in Edinburgh or Glasgow and claims to represent a general interest.
The metropolitan mindset is more pervasive than to allow us to assume that the politicians will look after us. Politics has always been metropolitan, locked into a myth of progress. The highest value has been placed on an idea of liberty unburdened by any sense of being bounded by place. The carriers of that value turn out to be managers and administrators whose careers are dedicated to avoiding getting involved in the long-term pursuit of any particular skill.
How is the problem experienced by people who try to realise projects off the Waverley-Queen St. line? Projects outwith these cities are ignored by the national media. The Glasgow and Edinburgh newspapers see a town like Stirling as within what they would like to claim as their circulation catchment area but marginal to their editorial coverage. Essentially, they see Stirling as a dormitory suburb. Which may then become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We have no illusions about what the media can provide, but do need a place to discuss projects which we initiate and projects which affect us.
We live in interesting times when townscapes are being remodelling by new sets of social forces. Those who remain within administrative logic see themselves as "enabling" these transformations. But they are problematic for those outside that worldview.
In Stirling over the past year, some issues have been the plan to drive a "relief" road through Forthside (2) , the inward-colonization of the public arts projects (3) and the proposed James IV statue. Each of these projects seems to map onto a "technical services" view of the town as having two poles - heritage and shopping - with a need for a transit scheme to carry traffic between them. (4) (Of course, the chaotic realisation of some of these schemes worked to the detriment of the tourism aspect this summer.)
But again, the debate on these issues has not been sustained. For example, the public discussion on Sandy Stoddart's proposed James IV statue (for which, even those who disagree with his views must acknowledge, he makes a coherent case) was all too easily diverted onto the question of what clothes the monarch should be depicted as wearing. But what role can such statues play today? That discussion got lost somewhere. And after the discussion, the entire issue disappears from view. We will try to debate that issue here.
This venture is partly a response to critics (e.g. John Gray (5) and Christopher Lasch (6) ) who see the net as a non-place where a post-modern pretense to universalism disguises dominance by a technical elite. Instead, we are choosing the local, where the issues are underpinned by a marginality which is far from the "otherness" celebrated by post-modern mediators. Rather, this marginality is shared by all those who find their interests outwith the business plans by which the technical elite are remodelling the town.
This is likely to remain as a predominantly text-based journal, although small-sized graphics can also appear. It it likely to remain biased towards documenting visual arts projects, just because it is those for which we have information. But the scope is there for suggestions on other debates, other information which can be included. Let me know your opinions.
(1) Unnamed Glasgow Herald writer, cited in Guardian, 31st October 1995. Return.
(2) The E2 Relief Road has been opposed most energetically by the Riverside-based campaign, as well as by the Stirling Civic Trust. They have questioned the need for the road (the latest in a long line of relief schemes in the middle of the town), the positioning of its end point at the Seaforth Place railway bridge, and the wider question of why the freed-up Ministry of Defense land should automatically be filled by yet another road and business park scheme. (Enterprise bureaucrats abhor a vacuum.) Return.
(3) The manner in which the commissions were awarded caused some debate in the Spring. The consultant fielded concern that local artists had not been given the chance to submit proposals by characterising this as a parochial viewpoint.
Now that most of the actual commissions are in place, the most successful can be seen to be the inscriptions, which do create a sense of particular place. By contrast, the least successful were the briefly-exhibited banners of shopping centre photographs blown-up to a degree where anonymity fades to nothingness. Only in the broadest possible sense could they be regarded as site-specific. It can also be noted that the proposal for this work said its intended situation was a "city" - which Stirling isn't. The background assumption was that higher values can be brought from outside - a form of internal colonization which marginalises the local and celebrates the top-down cultural model. Return.
(4) Surprisingly, some of these issues were raised in Roy Strong's radio programme Strong Impressions on BBC Radio 4 on 2nd December 1995. Return.
(5) “Sad Side of Cyberspace”, Guardian April 10th 1995. Opposing “computer-democracy”, Gray emphasised that community is more than the technical fix of a friendly interface plus information. However, because this was essentially a review of “Wired”, a magazine of those with something to sell, he put forward a static view of cyberspace: as the child of commerce, now and forever. He thus keeps his distance from attempts to use the net to create temporary (and of course imperfect) interest groupings (which, of course, accords with the original definition of acceptable use of the Internet). Return.
(6) Especially in The Revolt of the Elites. Return.
What Can We Do Here?
Notes: