GOTHVOS PIEZOELECTRIC PRESENCE

Gothvos Carn Bussa

Three exposures made with a prepared Nikon 35mm Film Camera and Vivitar Lens. In the Isles of Scilly on the Pump Road near Parting Carn Moor.
This Blog is quite messy in its current incarnation the key focus, via Negativa or  locating a Tabula Rasa in which to place the Potent Object the Gothvos Narrative if you will: these themes and images lay scattered around in various guises, the online saga is the usual torture of making hasty choices in hardware and then being hacked about by larger accommodating websites who are suddenly no longer accessible - my own fault in being attracted to the myth of the free lunch. So please scratch the surface, there is more and don't be put off when you read repetitive information, my role is changing as this becomes a Community project I find myself a more curatational role replete with the considerations of enmeshing different perspectives. The Gothvos is about a particular type of stone arising from a particular place from which Cornish Stone Axes were made, over 450 have been retrieved from all over the joint so far. They crop up in books and museums and they represent something extremely fundamental to me about Place geographically, about Language culturally and about the individual in society. I lean heavily on the broadest terms, Landscape and Consciousness.
I have spliced a theatricality into my own way of doing things. Combining this experience  (praxis) with geological and geographical datum, societal, anthropological factors and experimenting with cameras and film emulsions I'm proposing that the potent object is positioned via negativa  through the threshold of a tabula rasa. The potent object releases potential through the hand of the appointed activist, for them ( the catilyst or author) the ultimate action is now to position and document this contempletive act - the piece must fit or be found a more perfect location, only then can the object rest and maximise an emerging compositional matrix. There may be gaged tangible elements present: residual body warmth or smooth density in the stone, external weather conditions - particularly light and available trajectory plinths there will certainly be exposure to piezoelectric influences. It is interesting and rewarding to note that already some reactions have found their way back to me, people are curious about the little stones provenance and cultural inscribed word, the action must be recorded and the object given up or abandoned before the object regains potential in a revitilized composition. 




The old sunken forest of Carreck Loes or Mounts Bay, my school teacher Mr Steve Ottery, encouraged an enquiring mindset he sent us forth on inquiring about Carbon 14 testing of the pollen layers and petrified oak stumps of this sunken landscape over on the mainland (we were on Scilly) . Carbon fourteen was explained and duly acknowledged, the existence of a Green Stone now submerged, called The Gear Rock, where Axe Makers came to get Greenstone. This is one of the closest locations for the Gothvos placings, this stone, I'm fairly sure became submerged but it may have attracted someone to move it to a new Tabula Rasa.

The rock exposures around St Michael's Mount provide an opportunity to see many features of the geology of Cornwall in a single locality. The mount is made of the uppermost part of a granite intrusion into metamorphosed Devonian mudstones or pelites. The granite is itself mineralised with a well-developed sheeted greisen vein system. Due to its geology the southern coast of the island was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1995.
Gothvos of the Elevated Section of the A30 Penzance By-Pass.

(St.Michaels Mount is to the left of the moving tractor)

At the end of 1875 Edison and his assistants were experimenting with the Acoustic Telegraph when they noticed that a rapidly vibrating spark gap produced a spark in an adjacent relay. Subsequent investigation showed that the phenomenon could be made to occur at a distance of several feet without interconnecting cables. Edison, with this small amount of evidence, announced that it was "a true unknown force" since he believed that the spark transmitted electricity without carrying any charge.  Edison concluded that this discovery had the potential to cheapen telegraphic communication and to allow transatlantic cables to be laid without insulation. He was also interested in finding new forces as a means for providing scientific explanations for spiritualist, occult and other allegedly supernatural phenomena following his disenchantment with Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy.

Edison's apparatus consisted of a spark gap vibrating at a high frequency powered by batteries and connected to tin foil sheet about 12 by 8 inches, effectively acting as an antenna. A similar tin foil sheet, connected to ground was located at about eight feet away with two more similar, un-grounded tin foil sheets between. Sparks could be seen at the "receiver" sheets. The last laboratory notebook entry on etheric force in 1875 can be seen at The Edison Papers.

Carreck Loes St.Michaels Mount.

One of the former roles of monasteries and priories, like St.Michaels Mount in the Middle Ages was to offer aid, food, lodging and conditional spiritual guidance to pilgrims. Hundreds of thousands of them walked across the causeway from throughout Europe to the fringes of the "known" and frequented or undocumented societies. Apart from adventure, many could have sought redemption of a kind unfamiliar to the more consumer orientated society and an easier route to paradise as witnessed by the relics of saints in sacred places. During the 12th-14th centuries, pilgrimage became increasingly popular, particularly along routes linking sites devoted to St Michael and those that led to St Iago de Compostela in Spain. Many pilgrims travelled to Canterbury Cathedral in England (see Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales) where archbishop Thomas Beckett was the saintly attraction, his murder in 1170 having been incited by his former friend, King Henry ll, Duke of Normandy. But the connection between St.Mont Michelle and St.Micheals Mount became difficult during the 100 Years' War and both islands were fortified. There are other islands similar to St. Michaels Mount more easily identified as Breton, Mont San Michelle has been disputed territory between Brittany and Normandy owing in part to the Norman invasion of Britain and the gifting of Earldoms for favours, the reason seems to be upheld that it is the tidal flow that bestowed the property to Normandy. A small Islet close to Mont San Michelle is the reputed burial site for King Hoël of Wales.

OGHAM

According to Professor Greene, written or inscribed Ogham, was an archaic speech of the Druidic fraternity, which he considers unintelligible to non druidic readers, he suggests that it was written in an archaic language, rather similar to modern english use of latin. 

"When we find Irish written in Roman letters, from the seventh century onwards, a linguistic revolution had taken place, with words greatly reduced from their Ogham forms. This is a paralell to the changes which took place in France and the other Roman languagesas compared to latin, and it is possible that the historic process was the same. Of the six Ogham inscriptions in Cornwall, all carry an inscription in latin repeating the name of the commemorated person. There are also numerous Latin inscriptions, some bear the Chi Rho, one of the earliest Christian symbols derived from the first two letters of thge Greek word for Christ. A Cornwall where undocumented Kings ruled of whom we can only derive the scantiest information. 



Porth Kidney Gothvos (T'wards Trencrom)

Ogham 

The earliest inscriptions in ogham date to about the 4th century AD, James Carney believes its invention is within the 1st century BC. Although the use of "classical" ogham in stone inscriptions seems to have flowered in the 5th–6th centuries around the Irish Sea, from the phonological evidence it is clear that the alphabet predates the 5th century. A period of writing on wood or other perishable material prior to the preserved monumental inscriptions needs to be assumed, sufficient for the loss of the phonemes represented by úath ("H") and straif ("Z"), as well as the velar nasal, gétal, all of which are clearly part of the system, but unattested in inscriptions.

It appears that the ogham alphabet was modelled on another script, and some even consider it a mere cipher of its template script (Düwel 1968: points out similarity with ciphers of Germanic runes). The largest number of scholars favours the Latin alphabet as this template, although the Elder Futhark and even the Greek alphabet have their supporters. Runic origin would elegantly explain the presence of "H" and "Z" letters unused in Irish, as well as the presence of vocalic and consonantal variants "U" vs. "W" unknown to Latin or Greek writing. The Latin alphabet is the primary contender mainly because its influence at the required period (4th century) is most easily established, viz., via Britannia, while the runes in the 4th century were not very widespread even in continental Europe.

In Ireland and in Wales, the language of the monumental stone inscriptions is termed Primitive Irish. The transition to Old Irish, the language of the earliest sources in the Latin alphabet, takes place in about the 6th century. Since ogham inscriptions consist almost exclusively of personal names and marks possibly indicating land ownership, linguistic information that may be glimpsed from the Primitive Irish period is mostly restricted to phonological developments.

Mên Scryfa, inscribed stone, Morvah. Cornwall
Craig Weatherhills excellent book Cornovia describes The Mên Scryfa: The stone stands in a field on the north side of the track, 300m beyond the Mên-an-tol (site 29 in his book) The northern face of this stone, which stands 1.8 tall, is clearly inscribed to the memory of RIALOBRAN - CVNOVAL-FIL-(Rialobran, son of Cunoval). These names in modern Cornish Ryalvran and Kenwal, mean respectively 'Royal Raven' and 'Famous Chieftain', so the stone almost certainly commemorates local royalty of the sixth century AD, the date ascribed to the style of lettering used.

Writing emerged in a variety of different cultures in the Bronze age. Examples include the cuneiform writing of the Sumerians, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Cretan hieroglyphs, Chinese logographs, and the Olmec script of Mesoamerica. The Chinese script likely developed independently of the Middle Eastern scripts, around 1600 BC. The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems (including among others Olmec and Maya scripts) are also generally believed to have had independent origins. It is thought that the first true alphabetic writing was developed around 2000 BC for Semitic workers in the Sinai by giving mostly Egyptian hieratic glyphs Semitic values(see History of the alphabet Proto-Sinaitic alphabet). The Ge'ez writing system of Ethiopia is considered Semitic. It is likely to be of semi-independent origin, having roots in the Meroitic Sudanese ideogram system. Most other alphabets in the world today either descended from this one innovation, many via the Phoenician alphabet, or were directly inspired by its design. In the case of Italy, about 500 years passed from the early Old Italic alphabet to Plautus (750 to 250 BC), and in the case of the Germanic peoples, the corresponding time span is again similar, from the first Elder Futhark inscriptions to early texts like the Abrogans (ca. 200 to 750 CE
There are currently estimated to be approximately 6000 languages existing within the various contemporary societies.