Cultural Geography Blog

This was shown on BBC4 last night and can be found on the iPlayer currently. An excellent film following an Inuit hunter in Greenland as he heads out into the landscape surrounding his home town to hunt and fish, and constructs an igloo for shelter. It explores the threats to this culture from the rapidly changing climate as sea ice thins and traditional skills are lost.  The opening scene where he says goodbye to his daughters as they play on their smartphones, before heading out to harness his huskies was a lovely way to set up the cultural changes taking place, and the drone filming of the landscape was incredible. The music was also excellent:

Thanks to the AAG for the tipoff to this interesting-sounding game. A new indie video game, The Geography, "bridges the interactive with the meditative" https://t.co/iUBxqctwu4 h/t @brockwilbur for @TheFastPitch — American Association of Geographers (@theAAG) December 22, 2021 The Geography is a new indie video game from a creative duo that bridges the interactive with the meditative. A collaboration between Michael Berto and Titouan Millet , the program uses geographic data from Svalbard, Norway rendered into low-poly landscapes—brought to life with soft shaders. An endless and nonlinear musical score weaves soundscapes, to keep the ambiance evolving. It costs £6.99 for iPhone.

Another music post, and an album with a landscape theme to it...

Pink Floyd's concert in Venice.  was an interesting moment in music history and one which also links with the history of the city and its complex issues. The band had been trying to play in the city for some time. In 1987, they released their album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason". The band toured the album around the world. I attended the tour when it reached Manchester, with a concert in the old Maine Road stadium which was home to Manchester City at the time. It took place on the 8th of the 8th, 1988 (and the concert started at 8 minutes past 8. Here's the setlist that I saw:  https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pink-floyd/1988/maine-road-manchester-england-3bd76478.html There were real concerns over the possible environmental impact of the concert on the ancient city itself. The free concert was held in St. Mark's Square in Venice. This was to be a free concert so people travelled in various ways to be there. The concert was shown last night on Sky Arts on Fre...

Just listening to this earlier while doing all the work to follow up from 2 days of ERASMUS meetings (of which more to come in a blog post in the next day or so.) This is a wonderful piece of music, composed by William Jackson, one of the members of Ossian: one of my favourite ever bands. The music conveys the atmosphere of different elements of the Scottish landscape , and ends with a suite of pieces named after islands including Iona, Islay and Jura. It can be found on many of the usual music streaming services.