Alastair Cook | Written In My Hand

The Year of the Dragon.

2012-01-23T11:11:00.001Z

It's been a while since I've been here...my new daughter Rosebud has been growing and is now 6 months. My plans for the next year are in place, the 16mm Bloex and the Rollei SL66 firmly in my heart (30 120 films of nude model work hand developed since we last spoke) and the plans for a Collodion spring are coming along nicely.

But first, I have How the Land Lies, a show comprising the Five Seascapes commission, choice cuts of the Analogue Decay work and finally, my Kilned Collodion work. The Kilned Collodion is a difficult, slow and protracted process I developed while on residency at Northlands Creative Glass in Lybster, completing the work in May 2011. It's fully explained in the show, which is from the 10th February until the 28th February 2012 at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Edinburgh and is free. More soon, lots to tell about both Filmpoem and Absent Voices!

1787

2011-08-23T22:49:00.004+01:00

I was right pleased to be commissioned by Kevin Williamson to provide 12 short films for his Edinburgh Fringe Festival show about the radical poetry of Robert Burns. 1787 is the third in a series of the twelve films with a soundtrack by composer Luca Nasciuti. The second Edinburgh Fringe run of Not In My Name is from 24th-28th August, starting 7pm, at the National Library of Scotland. It's picked up a couple of 4* reviews and a nice shiny 5*; Joyce McMillan of the Scotsman described my wee films as beautiful, so I get to go home feeling all warm.

1787 (film by Alastair Cook, sound by Luca Nasciuti)

"Linked by a sequence of video narratives – especially created for this show by filmmaker Alastair Cook – Not In My Name is the live performance of the radical subversive poetry of Robert Burns, the dangerous stuff he couldn’t put his name to during his lifetime. Without changing Burns text, Kevin Williamson (poet, iconoclast and founder of the legendary Rebel Inc publishing house) will attempt to perform the poetry as he believes Burns may have done if he was around today. Alastair’s short films provide both context and chronological narrative to the performed verse. From the vicious political satire Address of Beelzebub through little-known underground, republican, anti-war, patriotic and revolutionary classics to the famed anthem of humanity, A Man’s A Man, this is Scotland’s Bard as never heard before."

Tipsy Tapsy

2011-07-02T09:26:00.003+01:00

I was honoured to have Tipsy Tapsy screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011.

Tipsy Tapsy (film by Alastair Cook, music by R M Hubbert)

This film is the winning entry for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Ten Tracks Music Pictures Project, culminating in ten bands playing infront of ten new films. Music Pictures was screened at the Festival House @Teviot, Edinburgh, on the 24th June 2011. This film was shot on black and white Russian Super8 stock which went out of date in 1992. It has not been colour treated, there are no after effects.

Collodion

2011-05-08T20:35:00.004+01:00

Carl Radford, Deborah Parkin and I spent Saturday making wet plate Collodion tintypes in support of my new collection of fine art photogarphy, Analogue Decay, at the Howden. We had a superb day, a great UV index (Collodion speak for the sun being out) and met some wonderful people. This is a portrait of my good friend, poet Andy Philip.

There's review of Analogue Decay here, in Aesethetica Magazine.

Ground.

2011-04-18T09:54:00.004+01:00

I am honoured to have Las Vegas filmmaker Ginnetta Correli make a film from my poem, Ground.

Ground by Ginnetta Correli

Ground is a series of five haiku, written as part of the Twitter Renku Experiment aka #twenkuxp. I don't write terribly much (as you may have noted) and am perhaps unnecessarily precious about what I do write (see Abachan, for instance) and am pleased to see what such a wonderful, dark filmmaker can make of my words. Filmpoem is filmpoemed!

Naming

2011-01-22T09:46:00.004Z

The combination of film and poetry is an attractive one. For the poet, perhaps a hope that the filmmaker will bring something to the poem: a new audience, a visual attraction, the laying of way markers; for the filmmaker, a fixed parameter to respond to, the power of a text sparking the imagination with visual connections and metaphor.

Filmpoem 9: Naming by Alastair Cook

Naming is a film by Alastair Cook of a poem by US poet Scott Edward Anderson. Scott’s poetry received the Nebraska Review Award and the Aldrich Emerging Poets Award and appeared in the recent issue of Anon. You can read more of his poetry at his Seapoetry blog and his website. Naming was premiered at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Edinburgh, January 2011. It was shot entirely on Kodachrome Super 8 in 2010 and contains no post production, after effects or digital trickery. Photograph by Charlie Cook, shot on 35mm Kodachrome Ektachrome.

Broken Conversation

2010-11-27T09:32:00.004Z

Broken Conversation: A Photographic Essay.

This post is part of Mairi Sharratt's Simultaneous Blogging Project. Please see the links at the tail-end of this essay for links to the other participants. All blogs have been published at noon, BST on 27th November 2010.

Broken Conversation.

“A little less conversation, a little more action please”

Mac Davis and Billy Strange; written for Elvis Presley, 1968.

Beyond the polite but immediately suggestive nature of this reference to frustration, this quip expounds that conversation is by its nature curtailed by physical intervention. All conversation is broken, stopped, interrupted by all manner of things: the chime and clatter of modern life, the needs of children, the need to stop a conversation growing into an argument.

This photographic essay considers the current nature of our society from the point of view of our generally perceived loss of conversational skills to the 160 character text, the 140 character tweet and of course to the naturally taciturn amongst us. This is dedicated to those who text in longhand by principle. I salute U.

Broken Conversation.

2010-11-27T09:27:00.001Z

2010-11-27T09:12:00.001Z

2010-11-27T09:07:00.006Z

Broken Conversation: A Photographic Essay is ©Alastair Cook 2010, all rights reserved.

A list of my fellow simultaneous bloggers is below. All links are live. Also, my blog is part of the Guardian's Literary Edinburgh project, which can be seen here: Literary Edinburgh

JoAnne McKay Titus the Dog

Rachel Fox More About the Song

Russell Jones Russell Jones

Peggy Hughes Scottish Poetry Library

Marta Romeros de las poesia y otras disciplinas en palabras

Mairi Sharratt A Lump in the Throat

Roger Santiváñez Junin 381

Cisco Bellavista Bella Bestias

Jesús Ge El Grito Capicua

Ana Pérez Cañamares El Alma Disponible

Felipe Zapico Felipe Zapico

Martaerre Marta R. Sobrecueva

All Bless.

Abachan

2010-11-03T21:30:00.009Z

I am in Lybster. This was taken in Achastle early this morning, as I drank coffee from a flask. Caithness is stunning. I wrote a poem, a rare occurrence. The poem uses Caithness language, a beautiful thing. Meanwhile, enjoy the view...

Father

2010-10-01T00:06:00.003+01:00

Father

The razor slid back,
wet black with the cleaving.

Those five days I tried,
to see a sense of myself,
to look beyond my faeries,
to breathe the Arab’s smoke,
deep enough to touch my God.

He is the devil,
he is my devil,
he is my father.

Inspired by Richard Dadd’s portrait of Sir Alexander Morison, his physician whilst at Newhaven. Richard was plagued by visions of faeries, murdered his father and ran off to France and Egypt before being caught and incarcerated. And boy, could he paint.

Andrew Philip, Poet, Linlithgow

2010-09-30T12:36:00.001+01:00

Posted via email from iPhone Portrait Series

The Collector

2010-09-26T20:38:00.008+01:00

I have just completed an installation as part of Rocio Jungenfeld and Esra Oskay's project, Weaving Threads, at Lauriston Glasshouse at Davidson's Mains in Edinburgh. My installation, The Collector, deals with the building itself: it is still used, but as a conservation architect, I feel that the rot has set in. This poem is the interpretation for the work.

The Collector

Tired of piercing the bodies of benign butterflies, I laid my gloves aside
and struck out for a new entomology.

To understand this place, this great glazed growing space, its fringes
now green, its edges now mould.

And so I have collected this glasshouse, held its broken body in my
hands, choked on the dust of its wings and pushed the pin through.

Look in here, wear my gloves and leaf through these if you will, study
them and feel the temporal beauty, the past now present.

All bless, Alastair.

Swear: A Photographic Essay

2010-07-17T10:01:00.005+01:00

This post is part of Mairi Sharratt's Simultaneous Blogging Project. Please see the links at the base of this post for the other particpants. All blogs have been published at 10am BST on 17th July.

Swear.

"Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak."

John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Penguin, London, 1972)

The basic tenet of this is true, though of course, seeing without words is a desperate place to be and a child will absorb language at an astonishing rate from an impossibly early age, proffering epithets to a parent's delight. I speak from experience. This photographic essay is based upon the ideas Berger put forward in Ways of Seeing, an early BBC series about insight into the visual arts.

Swear.

2010-07-17T09:57:00.000+01:00

2010-07-17T09:54:00.005+01:00

Swear: A Photographic Essay is ©Alastair Cook 2010, all rights reserved.

A list of my fellow bloggers in the project.

Mairi Sharratt A Lump in the Throat

Caroline Mary Crew Flotsam

Colin Will Sunny Dunny

Andrew Philip Tonguefire

Sally Evans desktopsallye

Kevin Cadwallender Cadwallender

Claire Askew One Nights Stanzas

Russell Jones Russell Jones

Martaerre Sobrecueva de la poesia y otras disciplinas en palabras

Tony Williams Tony Williams's Poetry Blog

iPhone Portrait [50]

2010-07-15T12:17:00.001+01:00

Claire Askew, Poet, Edinburgh

Posted via email from iPhone Portrait Series

iPhone Portrait [29]

2010-07-13T19:26:00.001+01:00

James Norton, Artist, London.

Posted via email from iPhone Portrait Series

New poem -'Ash'

2010-04-19T10:27:00.006+01:00

I read in one of the three minute slots at 'Poetry at the...GRV' last night, in-between poetry giants, and included a new poem called 'Ash' reflecting on current empty skies. The photo is from my garden in Leith, this morning. This is feeling more like a portent with each passing day...enjoy and all bless.

'Ash'

Listen.

Today each one of all of us
is rooted, grounded, held;
our feet firm on our earth,
flightless animals
under a blank blue sky.

Of course it starts here
where it's nothing new
the wee frees devoutly
curtailing the vapour trails
of every Lewis Sunday.

This is apocalyptic, I say.
You bite into your Solero,
savouring before you smile:
"Well if it is" you say, "it's a cheery
ice cream based apocalypse."

[With thanks to GR and HP]

Borderland

2010-04-01T10:52:00.004+01:00

My acting debut, James Norton's film Borderland, is being premiered in Whitechapel at the East London Film Festival on the 27th April. Borderland was shot in January this year, in the depths of this ridiculous winter; it was shot in the Lee Valley Park. Facebook page is here

Sutherland | Caithness

2010-03-23T21:21:00.004Z

Well, Timespan have been wonderful and I took down my exhibition on Sunday. Not before completing a great workshop with the local kids, who made me laugh for two hours. Very messy and lots of fun...

Sutherland | Caithness opening night...

2010-02-10T09:49:00.006Z

Sutherland | Caithness

2010-01-22T08:10:00.009Z

My new photography exhibition opens in Helmsdale in a couple of weeks, I'm framing like a crazed thing. Large scale black and whites (film, not digital) of the emotive landscapes of Sutherland and Caithness. If you live around there, please consider this an invite to the opening! See below for details. Otherwise, I'll post a link to the work once the exhibition closes in late March. It's going to be a great show, Timespan is an incredible place, linking art and heritage and their positive arts policy is refreshing. Hope you can make it!

Twitter Renku Experiment aka #twenkuxp

2009-11-03T09:17:00.003Z

My haiku from the 36 verse #twenkuxp. The numbers are there just to identify them when you read the all the way through. Have a look at Modern Haiku for the full 36. These have also been submitted to Alan Summers' amazing 1000 verse renga project. I hope you like them!

tiny drops beginning to fall
resting lightly in our hair

14.
caps aloft in damp grey air
a long walk home on broken ground

20.
a slumber gently nudges
we drift off, hands held tightly

31.
poison pen
your blistered fingers
crumple paper

36.

tabula rasa
white shades dark

©Alastair Cook 2009

#zajal

2009-10-09T12:09:00.004+01:00

Zajal (Arabic: زجل) is a traditional form of oral strophic poetry declaimed in a colloquial dialect (most notably in one of the many dialects of Arabic).

"I fear but one courtesan, your twin shadow on my pillow. Wrap yourself around me: sweep, curl, entwine; knit into my heart. Whisper, whisper into my ear, your lips are safe with me, so do not fear! Answer me, hold me, let my lips take your words, hold your smile. My smile wraps your mighty sword so behold! That rising sun now wriggling inside me!"

#zajal was a poetic experiment with writer Nada Cabani, using Twitter to exchange lines to create a zajal, accompanying my images. It's pleasing to collaborate like this, although we have only completed two; I hope you enjoy them.

#jollop; a tweet-novel.

2009-10-03T10:58:00.005+01:00

#jollop (plural jollops); noun. (Scots) concoction: an unspecified crude medicine; a cathartic drug. ‘ah’ve a ache in ma belly, gie’s a jollop.’; [C17th. Prob. < Mexican "jalap"; plant extract]

#jollop is a tweet novel co-authored by @n_cabani and @alastaircook; it is now concluded. It was an experiment between two people who did not meet until it's conclusion, except within the realm of Twitter. I'm keen to repeat the experiment, so if any of you are interested, you can find me on Twitter at @alastaircook

Download the unedited text here: #jollop

Peeling a Sticker from a Wall.

2009-09-22T11:05:00.015+01:00

Peeling a Sticker from a Wall is a set of observational narratives written on consecutive days, the idea not to edit subsequently. They have an extended tweet feel to them, but were written a number of years prior to twitter! Published in the Eildon Tree, the Scottish Borders new writing magazine, I'm posting them to coincide with the Eildon Tree 10th Birthday celebrations. I hope you enjoy it!

Peeling a Sticker from a Wall.

Venice, Italy.

You ask how to get back to your house from here, aware a man is dying in the background, a desire to fall backward into sleep overwhelming. He tells you that he’ll be going to get cigarettes and it’s on the way home, so he’ll show you. He stands and speaks to his friend and they are gone. You are told they have gone to get cigarettes.

The man is dead now, the white sheet covering his face, the focal point of everyone’s attention, whether looking or looking away. You walk back through the square, dampened. People are milling now rather than standing, moving away from their focal point, quiet. You find out that he was twenty-five and that his friends thought he was fucking around. He was having a stroke, a massive coronary. It’s three-thirty in the morning.

Pula, Croatia.

She blows into the top of her bottle, a note sounding. She talks about Duchamp and he watches the sea. Her fervour rises and the water breaks. There is no sand only stone.

Alter the number of your house. Where will the letters go? When will the milk arrive? Why will the ambulance never get here? You are scared. Where are they? Try phoning again. They are in another place, looking for another person.

Sitting in the shade, you see a slab of stone set vertically into the ground. Inscribed on it are the words ‘Arheoloski Musej Istre.’ Walking to it you see it is inscribed in crisp new lettering. As you turn away you glimpse the Roman engraving on which the letters have been placed. This is the entrance to the museum.

You arrive, the walk down the hill in anticipation of the return, to find that all the food has been cooked and has been eaten. The alternative is singular and the sky lights up in silence, the storm only thinking about coming in. It begins to rain.

Premantura, Croatia.

Getting out of the car you inhale the blue sea smell, the voices around you you cannot understand. This intensifies your emotions seeing the sea and amplifies the discomfort of strangers. The rocks are sharp and fall away so you dive, eyes open to the streaming salt.

Rovinj, Croatia.

You float in the Lido one metre from the sea. Half price admission to the open air. You think loosely about the wooden steps, cantilevered from the wall, the spaces in between as large. Reaching the top the open space introduces abject fear and you can only turn and retreat. You descend, feeling the sweat drop from your forehead down your nose. You taste the salt in your mouth as you step onto the flagstone floor.

The tape she winds in and out of its cassette as you ask for Cuba Libre. She looks at the cassette, nudging the tape back into place. She brings your drinks and the music begins. You sit, sip and listen to the broken tape.

The Adriatic.

Tune the radio. It buzzes and blisters and you are unable to change it. You cannot speak the language and if you could you would still be without the ability to influence. The radio tunes, a tune comes onto the radio. You wait for it to blister.

Padova, Italy.

The city is brimming with churches so you begin with the biggest. The space is blank cliff face and there is a lone climber. He sits on top of the highest ledge, fixing a light. The cherry picker is a violent green, a contrast to the white space. You trip over the power cable as you look up and the lights flicker.

Verona, Italy.

The café is busy, pushed to burst. There is a bench at the back, occupied only in part. You ask if you can sit and he speaks his own language, not a native one. You understand that he is waiting for his wife. You stand and enjoy your lunch. As you leave, you look at the empty seat. There is no wife.

A list, experiments in culinary terror: horsemeat, minced; veal, undressed. Somehow the real culprits are the mushrooms, recently excavated from the bottom of a tin. You eat all these. You drink your wine with relish.

Brescia, Italy.

The plane taxis and you look past the man next to you and out of the window. The sun is bright. You see he is reading a book on Clinical Dermatology, complete with lavish photographic illustration. In the back of the seat in front of you is a sick-bag.

Tram: Return fare from Leith to Edinburgh.

2009-09-03T19:46:00.007+01:00

This article was first published in the March 2009 edition of London Architecture magazine Mix Interiors as an opinion by an 'industry insider'; it was latterly published in the August 2009 edition of Edinburgh's very own Leither. Enjoy!

Tram: Return fare from Leith to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is gorgeous. In a stop dead drink it in every single day kind of way. Its heart is medieval, its body neoclassical and its mind the setting of the Age of Enlightenment. Well, its mind may be a wee bit Shortbread Disneyland too, but that’s all part of the tartan trap, the tease to tantalise the tourist.

Edinburgh, wet and impenetrable to those who’ve never experienced the religious fervour with which we inhabitants go about our business, is coming to the forefront of people’s minds as its two financial institutions face their own particular music. But as an architect, I see an Edinburgh blessed with designs cut from every historical age in written memory: some of the finest public and commercial monuments of neo-classical Europe reside in this city, reflecting its continuing status as a modern European capital and as an influential centre of thought and learning.

Not a native, I am perhaps all the more inclined to smile appreciatively at the perched castle and the lilting topography that carves up the very centre of the city each morning as I drift blearily up Princes Street on the number 22. Though perhaps it is the stark transition from Leith to Edinburgh that wakes me up, jolts me to my senses and prepares me for my day.

Leith, then, is another place altogether. Dragged up the Walk and into the body of Edinburgh in 1920 against the wishes of its inhabitants, Leith spills north from the old Boundary Bar like a soaked mutt shaking its coat next to your well pressed yellow corduroys, dripping water on your brown brogues. Leith Walk, one of the longest streets in Scotland, was healed following an unofficial referendum in which the Leither voted 5 to 1 against, effectively ending it’s time as a separate burgh. Not for nothing does its motto, Persevere, still ring true to the good people of Leith. Indeed, the first thing the Edinburgher sees when alighting at the boundary is a sign stating ‘Welcome to Leith: Twinned with Rio de Janeiro.’ It’s also worth noting that Leith has an incredible history: a base from which Mary of Guise ruled as Regent for her daughter, Mary Queen of Scots; HQ for Cromwell during the reformation; and home of one of Scotland’s three Napoleonic Martello Towers.

One of Edinburgh’s most recent publicised and expensive projects has been the financial shenanigan that was the design and construction of the Scottish Parliament, after which we could have hoped for a hiatus. But no, we were offered the trams! A genius idea, reintroducing a tram system, dismantled sixty years ago, to the place with the best public transport system of the cities I’ve lived in (this is highly subjective I know: London doesn’t have a system, just a series of painful experiences; Glasgow has a clockwork orange; and Amsterdam, well, transport is not a big worry in the ‘Dam).

Over and above the incredible tumult this caused our dear politicians, it drew the Edinburgher and the Leither together: Line 1 leaves Leith (Newhaven) and arrives in Edinburgh (Haymarket) sometime in 2011. I need not bore you with the pandemonium and perplexity caused in the hearts of our cultural ambassadors as they sweated over whether Princes Street may be shut during the festival this year, part of an eight month showdown. Currently, those intelligent enough to try to traverse the city on foot are shepherded through Heras fencing at either end of the main drag along this most illustrious street, now eerily quiet. Leith Walk too has been struggling as shoppers hide indoors wondering whether the Tesco home delivery van will make it through the revised contra-flow.

So, we are united in our confusion about these interventions. Edinburgh seems more akin to a World Building Site at present, not quite the World Heritage Site we know and love. It is a brave and masterful decision by the new administration to take this legacy on, to drive it forward with such vigour, to see us driven demented within the warzone we inhabit. Our politicians are putting their all into this and those of us on the ground are feeling the attrition. But it’s a good lesson to step back for a moment, draw breath and see the bigger plan. I’ve lived with trams, they are clean, smooth, reliable and an elegant addition to a fantastic urban streetscape. Edinburgh will be the better for it and if it draws Leith and Edinburgh together, albeit ideologically, then that is just fine with me.

The single most impressive tram journey I have had, after having lived in Amsterdam, (which has an exemplary tram system and introduced a whole new fleet of trams overnight with a shrug of its light shoulders) was in fact in Roma. The number 3 goes from Termini into the funereal district of San Lorezo, stopping dead outside Tramtram, a true blessing disguised as a trattoria. Unburdened by the tourist, stuffed with locals, it was every week long Roman’s dream. I just hope my Edinburgh tram stops outside my favourite Edinburgh eatery but I may be waiting a while.

And, just in case you were wondering, I am indeed a Citizen of Leith.

Alastair Cook | Written In My Hand

The Year of the Dragon.

1787

Tipsy Tapsy

Collodion

Ground.

Naming

Broken Conversation

Abachan

Father

Andrew Philip, Poet, Linlithgow

The Collector

Swear: A Photographic Essay

iPhone Portrait [50]

iPhone Portrait [29]

New poem -'Ash'

Borderland

Sutherland | Caithness

Sutherland | Caithness opening night...

Sutherland | Caithness

Twitter Renku Experiment aka #twenkuxp

tiny drops beginning to fallresting lightly in our hair14.caps aloft in damp grey aira long walk home on broken ground20.a slumber gently nudgeswe drift off, hands held tightly31.poison penyour blistered fingerscrumple paper36.

tabula rasawhite shades dark

#zajal

#jollop; a tweet-novel.

Peeling a Sticker from a Wall.

Tram: Return fare from Leith to Edinburgh.

tiny drops beginning to fall
resting lightly in our hair

14.
caps aloft in damp grey air
a long walk home on broken ground

20.
a slumber gently nudges
we drift off, hands held tightly

31.
poison pen
your blistered fingers
crumple paper

36.

tabula rasa
white shades dark