GOTHVOS Jonathan Polkest

Orientation of the true West

From the East to the West.

below: From the West to the East.

It is from the Tudor period that Peter Berresford Ellis finds satisfactory evidence as to the state of the Cornish Language. The Cornish Language And Its Literature; routledge ISBN 0-7100-9070-6

In the broad field of Human Communication, Gothvos concerns itself with a wider phenomenological, Socialogical and Anthropological area of exploration and experimentation. Each unique assertive positing attempts to identify and express challenges to tradition and unorthodox modes of critical response.  Focussing attention upon the potent object and the receptive landscape and the nature of art itself and its relationship to our whole way of life.  I am referring to those activities which our society generally avoids, which are excluded from us in the mainstream of cultural and literature connections, the primal materials and objectives in our societies were until recently the premiss of crafts people, those who employed certain physicalities to their persuits I am also referring to the broader issues of expression via language, environment via semiotic analysis, signification and empirical impact. These actions are dedicated, for the most part but not entirely ; to the production of meaning, through a "glassless lens",  however, here I'm thinking about the problems with criticism as ethnocentric evidence, in our deliberations to a specific landscape and in culture we strive for universal meaning and tolerance of course. Through a special lens but also questioning the desire for homogeny and perfection. Why different languages express the same things differently. In this respect I am asking if there are certain questions, certain answers and certain names which are specifically expressed through a particular language?
If this specific language ceases to operate or exist does that specific meaning also cease to exist. Is that specific meaning transformed into something new ?
Can that "new specific something" be accurately translated and understood ?



A Long seam of Quartz running due south from the Skilly.


The Gothvos Stone is a very specific object made from a very specific material from a very specific location. The object carries a word written in a very specific way. The word Gothvos broadly translates into english as Knowledge or wisdom, the idea is an obvious device which encourages a question and tempts a response. The answer when discovered refers to the word on the stone, the material that the stone is comprised of and the concept of literature being influenced by the landscape wherein it is couched.

Stone Axe Heads.The act of taking a stone from an area is vested with geological, metalurgical and physiological considerations. The mineral content of the stone seems very important although we do not know absolutely why this has formerly been the case. Historically the stone material was relatively easy to achieve a high gloss using basic polishing techniques and this transformation could be an intrinsic element in the initial "value" of the polished stone axe heads around which there existed a cult.
 Now as I walk along the beach to Newlyn the shingle banks near or above the foreshore are for the most part white and more rounded at Marazion, they seem to flatten increasingly as we walk west through Penzance Dock where large Greenstone deposits are exposed and wettened by the tide, they look like vast blobs of black jelly but they dry quickly in the wind and sun, they then become green, blueish grey sometimes more Umber, Raw Umber or slightly lilac.
 At Larrigan and Wherrytown they are really for the most part more frequently egg shaped stones or bullies as they were known and flat like an axe head, near the beach in Newlyn theres a place called Greenrocks and there is Penlee.
The geographical feature of this part of the promonatory is actually a non feature. It is a great hole in the side of an otherwise arcing skyline whose trajectory rises gradually from the sea shore to form a line not unlike that of the outline of a seabirds brow. The Quarry at Penlee has been mineralogically exploited for a long time, the galleries and cliffs have been landscaped towards gaining planning permission to build a marina style housing complex.
Penlee, means the head land of flat stones (Leh), and it is possibly a coincidence that all the best dark axe shaped stones are found closer to Penleh, these are pebbles and stones worn down by wave and current action which influence my opinion about the whereabouts of the submerged Gear Rock, the mythical Lyoness within Lyoness, or Atlantis within Atlantis. Part of my mission is to find the Gear Rock as the story proports it to be the essential source of Greenstone for ceremonial axe making. Initially I chose to use the whiter stones from Marazion because I needed the placing to be clearly seen through the pitch black screen of a prepared pinhole camera, once the exposed film is processed the successful image is sharp and saturate but during composition very little light gets into the viewer and the image is upside down. That was when a concern about my side of this ritual act was important to me. I thought that it was very important that once the correct position had been found for the stone, that the camera exposure should be as long as required ( up to half a minute)  that the camera should be "earthed" to the location, preferably not in tripod. The alchemy was getting the lens at the right distance because the pinhole made everything close and far in focus......up to a point. That is why I occasionally refer to the composing as the Tabular Rasa, because I want to differentiate between Composition as a fundamental geometric equation and composition as a relational format.

The importance of scale as an orientational factor in my documentation is challenged but not always an obvious success, pinhole technology and techniques are characterized by the presence of a "zone of confusion", a sort of visual vortex that can bend and fragment light as it intersects through an aperture in the exact focal plane, or to be more correct it creates several little bouncy focal points. On film emulsions as opposed to digital cameras, the results can be quite aesthetically sensational but they fail to convey the importance of the composition as a philosophical foundation. The composition is fraught with possibilities, difficulties and delights.  Any action begins with a question and the composition represents the question. Where do I place the object? Yes, it is being placed in the landscape, itself a part of and referencing a landscape. Parts of this landscape remain obscured owing to my position in it. By moving the stone around the composition I reveal a distant hill, a blade of grass, by drawing nearer to the object with the camera I can increase the proportions and the scale, I can obscure certain features and make them invisible - even so, they remain and they can reflect a presence that can be subtle. Composition in techniques such as this are very influenced by the saturation of colours through some of the slower exposures. Of course there are reduced opportunities to control a wider range of variables, most cameras use a combination of shutter speeds and aperture openings. A fixed aperture technique is mostly approximation, trial and error.


Articulation of the Urge.

It does not take the curious mind long to find that the survival and reinstatement of the brythonic Cornish language known as Kerneweck depended almost entirely on Theatre and Theatrical literature. This image of the Minack Theatre is interesting in its juxtaposition of mythic, historic and geographic, the dense historical data referencing unique cultural features are not so much sidestepped as embellished towards that of a mediterranean idyll that is itself conjured. The granite carn becomes a faux greco carved amphitheatre in stark contrast with the totally horizontal typeset Cornish Miracle Plan-An-Gwarry or playing place. The spectators in the Minack will bravely cling to a vertical vision of Epidauros, sometimes in the rain. Often the natural landscape is extraordinarily dramatic and beautiful but in a Plan-An-Gwarry three days of active performing ensue from openings, pits and stationed constructions among the spectators, without the orthodoxy of site lines, raised platforms or constructed forshortened retorts. The repertory is a variety of text based plays, musical theatre and opera. One evening we took our place on the stacked rocky outlet opposite the theatre, across the water in the above photograph.  As the sun went down and the theatre lights became more prominent the sound carried well in the darkness, the event was a curious spectacle from that side of the giant natural auditoria, clapping, chatting, waves splash as boat goes chug chugging by and seagull activity looming through the darkness. I have seen a couple of shows in the auditorium, something phenomenal usually occours, a passing boat, a curious seal but to my mind those things happen along the coast anyway, its an odd prospect, going to a theatrical production because of the Theatre, the plays not the thing. One of the plays I saw was a musical adaptation of the Marriage of Figaro [sic], I got quite cold but there's that resolve connected to ticket value, will there be a good bit ?  Are we there yet ? Closer analogy may define this as tourist art, the experience.  Gothvos certainly plays on the idea of the tourist who purchases an object "A Gift From Cornwall", or a painted landscape with wild thorn trees or blue glittering seas with the exception that Gothvos is the landscape that is put into the landscape and interacts with all elements of that landscape even, and especially, to the detriment of its continuing existence, like a slow meteorite falling the moment is the thing - just like the play in the theatre, the theatre can be anywhere. That is why there is still such a high degree of ritual in a Gothvos photograph. In my role as curator I no longer take all the photographs Nor position all the stones, it was always my hope that "finders" would keep, move or reposition the Gothvos stone as they saw fit. Many stay put until the sunlight erases their message, the story proceeds namelessly.


From Porthcurno to India two million words a day.

Trāṭaka (Sanskrit n. त्राटक trāṭaka; tratak, trataka: to look, or to gaze) is the practice of staring at some external object. This fixed gazing is a method of meditation concentrating on a single point such as a small object, black dot or candle flame. It is used in yoga as a way of developing concentration, strengthening the eyes, and stimulating the ājňā chakra.

The practitioner fixes his attention on a symbol or yantra, a black dot, or the image of some deity, and stares at it, paying attention to each thought and feeling as it arises, and letting them go, so that the mind is completely absorbed in the symbol. The practice continues until the eyes begin to tire, at which point they are closed, and relaxed.

The second stage is staring at a candle flame. The practice is the same up until the eyes begin to tire, after which the eyes are closed, and the yogi tries to concentrate on the after image, and hold it for as long as possible. At first, it will be a real after-image, but later, it will exist only in the mind's eye, and the exercise in concentration comes from trying to maintain it there for a long period of time.

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Porthcurno was, until recently known for its international submarine communications cable station. In the late nineteenth century, the remote beach at Porthcurno became internationally famous as the British termination of early submarine telegraph cables, the first of which was landed in 1870, part of an early international link stretching all the way from the UK to India, which was then a British colony. Porthcurno was chosen in preference to Falmouth because of the reduced risk of damage to the cables caused by ships’ anchors.

 In 1872, the Eastern Telegraph Company (ETC) Limited was formed which took over the operation of the cables and built a cable office in Porthcurno valley. The concrete cable hut, where the cable shore ends were connected to their respective landlines, is a listed building and still stands at the top of the beach. ETC and its cable operations expanded through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in 1928 to merge with Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited to form Imperial and International Communications Limited which was renamed Cable and Wireless Limited.

In the Inter-War years, the Porthcurno cable office operated as many as 14 cables simultaneously, for a time becoming the largest submarine cable station in the world, with the capacity to receive and transmit up to two million words a day. Porthcurno is still known colloquially by the acronym 'PK' being represented in Morse code as 'di-dah-dah-dit' followed by 'dah-di-dah'. In the early days of expensive telegraphy, this could be sent unambiguously with just two letters instead of ten. 

The cable office at Porthcurno was a critical communications centre and considered at serious risk of attack during the Second World War being only about 100 miles (160 km) from the port of Brest in occupied France.

 To improve security a network of two parallel tunnels, connected by two smaller cross-tunnels, was bored into the granite valley east side by local mining engineers, starting in June 1940, to accommodate the essential telegraph equipment.  Each of the two main entrances was protected by offset and double bomb-proof, gas-proof doors. To provide evacuation for staff in case the defences failed, a covert emergency escape route was provided by granite steps cut into a steeply rising fifth tunnel leading from the rear cross tunnel to a concealed exit in the fields above.  Each of the main tunnel interiors was that of a windowless open-plan office constructed as a building shell within the granite void, complete with a pitched roof to collect water seepage from the rocks, a false ceiling, plastered and decorated walls and all the necessary services. In total about 15,000 tons of rock were removed to construct the tunnels. The construction work progressed relentlessly day and night, taking nearly a year and the completed tunnels were opened in May 1941 by Lady Wilshaw who was the wife of Sir Edward Wilshaw, Chairman of Cable and Wireless at the time.  The concrete defences around the tunnel entrances and the nearby buildings were camouflaged with the help of a local artist, the design, when viewed from the air with some imagination, resembling a belt of trees, complete with rabbits and birds. The Tunnel environment being secure, dry, and at a virtually constant temperature proved to be ideal for the sensitive telegraph equipment and it continued to house the subsequently upgraded equipment after the War until the cable office closure in 1970. It was then used for training facilities for the Engineering College until the college itself also closed in 1993. Today the tunnel is both an exhibit itself and houses exhibits of the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, operated by PK Trust, a charity formed by Cable and Wireless Limited.

Language acquisition

There are two theories as to how children acquire language, and continuing debate as to which theory is correct. The first theory states that all language must be learned by the child. The second theory that the abstract system of language cannot be learned, but that humans possess an innate language faculty, or an access to what has been called universal grammar.
 The idea that language must be learned was  prevalent before 1960 as represented by the mentalistic theories of Jean Piaget and the empiricist Rudolf Carnap. Likewise, the school of psychology known as behaviorism (see Verbal Behavior (1957) by B.F. Skinner) posits the  view that language is a behavior shaped by conditioned response, hence it is learned.

The innatist perspective began with Noam Chomsky's highly critical review of Skinner's book in 1959. This review helped to start "the cognitive revolution" in psychology. Chomsky posited humans possessing a special, innate ability for language and that complex syntactic features, such as recursion, are "hard-wired" in the brain.
These abilities are considered beyond the grasp of the most intelligent and social non-humans. According to Chomsky, children acquiring a language have a vast search space to explore among all possible human grammars, yet at the time there was no evidence that children receive sufficient input to learn all the rules of their language (see poverty of the stimulus). Hence, there must be some other innate mechanism that endows a language ability to humans.

Such a language faculty is, according to the innateness hypothesis, what defines human language and makes it different from even the most sophisticated forms of animal communication.

The field of linguistics and psycholinguistics since then has been defined by reactions to Chomsky, pro and con. The pro view still holds that the human ability to use language (specifically the ability to use recursion) is qualitatively different from any sort of animal ability.  This ability may have resulted from a favorable mutation or from an adaptation of skills evolved for other purposes. The view that language can be learned has had a recent resurgence inspired by emergentism. This view challenges the "innate" view as scientifically unfalsifiable; that is to say, it can't be tested. With the amount of computer power and memory increasing, researchers have been able to simulate language acquisition using neural network models.  These models provide evidence that there may, in fact, be sufficient information contained in the input to learn language, even syntax. If this is true, then an innate mechanism is no longer necessary to explain language acquisition.

 Neandertal societies ritual burial of the dead implies a belief system.  Although a primary religious concept, the ritual burial of cave bear trophy heads would also imply a belief system.  The transmission of such beliefs from generation to generation possibly deployed a spoken language.  Tool making skills and technical knowledge infer the existence and maintenance of communicable concepts . 

 Neandertal brains possessed speech centers that were as large as our own (Broca's and Wernicke's areas), were they were capable of language?

 The modern human variant of the FOXP2 gene was recently discovered in the bones of  Neandertals from Northern Spain.  The gene is associated with abilities to comprehend grammar and to control the mouth movements necessary to produce words.  The implication is that Neandertals could comprehend and produce something like modern speech.  The shape and position of the horseshoe-shaped hyoid bone in the neck of Neandertals was essentially the same as in modern humans.  This has important implications for speech because the hyoid bone supports muscles in the jaw, tongue, and larynx.  The high level location enables an extraordinarily spectrum of vocal sounds.  Neandertal mouths and nasal cavities were different from ours, there is the question as to whether they would have been able to produce all of the vowels and consonants that we use today.  With these findings, the  consensus among paleoanthropologists is that the Neandertals could have had something resembling a spoken language, albeit quite alien to our ears.

Research has proposed that surface features of Homo heidelbergensis brains also point to the ability to use and produce speech.  However, this is not as well supported by evidence as it is for Neandertals.

Diodorus Siculus's account

 Ictis

1.bc Diodorus Siculus described tin mining in Britain. "They that inhabit the British promontory of Belerion by reason of their converse with strangers are more civilised and courteous to strangers than the rest are. These are the people that prepare the tin, which with a great deal of care and labour, they dig out of the ground, and that being done the metal is mixed with some veins of earth out of which they melt the metal and refine it. Then they cast it into regular blocks and carry it to a certain island near at hand called Ictis for at low tide, all being dry between there and the island, tin in large quantities is brought over in carts." Pliny, whose text has survived in eroded condition, quotes Timaeus of Taormina the historian  in referring to "insulam Mictim", "the island of Mictim" [sic], where the m of insulam has been repeated. Several locations for "Ictin" or "Ictis", signifying "tin port" have been suggested, including St. Michael's Mount. A shipwreck site with ingots of tin was found at the mouth of the River Erme near Mount Batten Plymouth, which may represent trade along this coast during the Bronze Age, although dating the site is very difficult. Strabo reported that British tin was shipped from Marseille.