Robot Writes

That's Leeds alright!

My chosen site is Sugarwell Hill, in particular a scrap of land that nestles in the ‘V’ between Scott Hall Road and Buslingthorpe Lane which offers a pretty fine view of the north east of Leeds city centre.

If you Zoom in to GoogleMaps you can see circles in the grass where the tethered horses graze. occasionally, if i remember, I take an apple with me and feed them a half each.

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A number of images of Sugarwell Hill are available on Leodis.net, whilst the natural environment is recorded on leeds.gov. According to this site the hill is the site of a clear natural spring said to never run dry and taste exceptionally sweet, hence the name. It is also mentioned briefly here. Twin sisters Maureen and Margaret Dixon clearly remember bombs being dropped on the site in world war II. The Pins and Needles section of the Leeds Tapestry depicts a painting by Alphonse Douseau circa 1840 featuring windmills on the hill, and from personal experience I can vouch that it’s a very good place to catch the wind. Of course any curious leodensian would do well to visit Secret Leeds where i was able to find a number of brief references. The most interesting of these, if you believe the stories, is to a skirmish in meanwood valley during the civil war, after which two burial mounds were erected for those killed in the fighting, one on the hill and another on the other side of the valley.

Beggar by Mark Jenkins

My first initial idea was to make human figures out of wire and second hand clothes, similar to the street installations of Mark Jenkins, fill them with earth and seeds and then as spring progressed they would become a mass of shoots and greenery culminating in a flowers and then going to seed before dying away in the harsh cold of the winter as the year progressed. A photo-a-day stop motion would give a visual effect similar to the end scene of Darren Aronovsky’s ‘The Fountain’ or the dream sequence in “Clyde Bruckman´s Final Repose” (episode 4, season 3 of the X-Files or “the tenth greatest episode in television history” according to american magazine TV Guide. personally i’d rate it higher than that), where a psychic man dreams of his own death and decomposition.

However I’m also considering other options, for instance making an image that would be visible from space or show up on web mapping services that use aerial photography by either sowing grass seeds of a slightly different coloured strain, or by lacing the top soil with something harmless that might alter the pH, like rust or lye for instance, and therefore alter the colour tint of the grass and plants, sort of like a large stencil.

How about this – Andy Goldsworthy’s ‘Rivers and Tides’ is on google video. watch it if you’ve got an hour and a half to spare. you will be deeply rewarded, despite the poor quality

TWOK

and so I am led to another idea, which is to return to the site and study the naturally occuring media there – stones, plants, litter, the occaisional burnt out stolen car – and from that, craft something that is reflective of the history and possible future of the surroundings, whilst remaining simple, aesthetic and relatively vandal proof.

Finally I should mention that last year, on my way to college I was lucky enough to spot some wild deer that must have presumably wandered all the way down the green corridor of Meanwood Valley from Golden Acre Park. I occasionally have dreams where I encounter the magical and I am always disappointed when I wake up and I am not clutching an alien artefact, the plans for a working time machine, or a real life honest to god leprechaun. So I’m immensly glad I managed to snap this photo at the time:

Spot the deer