Rural Modernity, Everyday Life and Visual Culture by Shirley Rosemary Dr

Author:Shirley, Rosemary, Dr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Published: 2015-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

NOTES

1 Aesthetically this difference can also be seen as belonging to the register of the picturesque rather the sublime. The definition of the picturesque has always incorporated ‘strange sights, and signs of ageing and decay’ with picturesque subjects including old mills, gnarled oaks, well worn paths through fields, sluices covered with moss, backyards filled with junk and ramshackle cabins’(Taylor 1994: p. 265). While Stallabrass’ reef of litter might be sublime, the abandoned shoe in Figure 3.2 could be considered picturesque.

2 This is also the case for other perceived forms of littering in the countryside such as the visual littering of advertising signs detailed with reference to the Shell Guides in Chapter 2.

3 Steven Connor notes that while this definition is widely attributed to Mary Douglas, she did not formulate it, rather she referred to it as an ‘old idea of matter out of place’ (Connor 2011).

4 Litter trail documents show that reports were also being made of litter trails being found in different part of the country, specifically records are made of similar occurrences in Salisbury.

5 T.C. Lethbridge, was a somewhat infamous archaeologist whose many projects include the discovery of ancient hill figures in Wandlebury, Cambridgeshire (Lethbridge 1957), and went on to develop controversial occultist archaeological methods involving using a pendulum to douse for objects (Lethbridge 1976).

6 The documents came to the archive through a connection made by Tom Harrisson with John Parker MP who was concerned with litter trails as a threat to national security at the time.

7 Jennings left Mass-Observation in late 1937 (Hubble 2006: p. 7). His interest in collage as methodology is evident in his later projects such as his posthumously published Pandemonium (1985) which builds a picture of modernity through the collation of fragments of texts. Jennings film Listen to Britain (1942) also employs montages to map the nation.

8 This group included Kathleen Raine a poet and married to Madge; David Gascoyne a poet and writer with an interest in French surrealism; and Stuart Legg who was working with Jennings on the GPO film unit (Highmore 2002: p. 76).

9 Several international examples were also included, which the authors asserted were to provide a ‘control’ measure – a vocabulary more often associated with quantitative scientific methodology, and one that reveals their seriousness in experimenting with collage as a mode of investigation.

10 This is because on some occasions it was believed that the litter trails were being used in conjunction with messages written on walls and gates.

11 TC41/1/A refers to the Mass-Observation Archive Topic Collection: Wall Chalkings (41), Box no.1, File A, which contains the litter trails documents.

12 ‘deus absconditus’ refers to the idea of a hidden God.

13 Artist Tim Brennan remade these maps, for the exhibition English Anxieties (John Hansard Gallery Southampton and Ffottogallery, Chapter, Cardiff, 2009). Brennan used the Isotype visual system developed by Otto Neurath and the Isotype Institute in the 1940s, which was utilised in the Mass-Observation publication Exmore Village (Turner 1947). Brennan’s exhibition and subsequent catalogue also included a fascinating selection of

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