Tag Archives: campus

Jun 30 2020
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

Pondering the future

Tuesday 30th June 2020, 11.20am (day 3,232)

Pondering, 30/6/20

First trip to campus since March 8th, which as it was a Sunday, already had a desolate, end-of-the-world feel about it that the subsequent closure has cemented in place. On the few days over lockdown that I have visited, all of the city of Manchester has seemed like a coma patient. There is a certain amount of internal activity, things moving around from place to place, but there’s no real life or consciousness to it. This guy looks very much like he’s pondering his future and so should we all. Plants are doing well, though.

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Jan 06 2020
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Daily Post, Urban scene

On campus (with optical illusion)

Monday 6th January 2019. 2.05pm (day 3,056)

Campus optical illusion, 6/1/20

A Manchester shot for the first time since December 19th. I must be showing my face on campus again. I like it when there’s nobody there. I only went in, basically, to up my step count.

There is a nice optical illusion on fhis shot. Look at the three pieces of guttering to the right and note how we seem here to have one of those ‘can this shape exist?’ dimensional paradoxes. I know how it’s happened, but it’s not immediately obvious on the picture itself.

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Nov 12 2019
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Daily Post, Urban scene

On campus (early, and wet)

Tuesday 12th November 2019, 8.10am (day 3,001)

Campus Greenhouse 12/11/19

I do still turn up on campus now and again but because of the increasingly painful train journey that it takes to get there — and, just as importantly, back — I am trying to do so less and less. Rainy mornings (which lead to me smelling damp all day) are no help either. But every so often I have little choice.

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May 14 2019
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

The Old Quadrangle

Tuesday 14th May 2019, 2.20pm (day 2,819)

Old Quadrangle, 14/5/14

Even Manchester’s crowded, fully urban campus can crank up the architecture quotient now and again, especially on a sunny May day. The Beyer Building and its cloak of ivy have featured before. My only day on campus this week, so I’m glad it was a pleasant one.

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May 11 2019
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

The IG Farben Building

Friday 10th May 2019, 5.55pm (day 2,815)

IG Farben building, 10/5/19

At one point during the conference I was attending at the Goethe University in Frankfurt today, there were vague references to ‘our famous building’ that drifted through my Friday consciousness but didn’t take hold. Then, on my way back into the city centre afterwards, I saw the building.

The IG-Farbenhaus has had a chequered history to say the least. HQ to the eponymous company, when built in the 1920s it was the biggest office building in Europe and remained so for thirty years. IG Farben manufactured the world’s first antibiotic — and also the gas that was used in the Nazi concentration camps. After the war the USA used it as a military base — the ‘Pentagon of Europe’; following German reunification ownership passed to the state of Hesse who renovated it and then helped the Goethe-Institut build a new campus around it from 2001 onwards. And all set in parkland (kept free of development by the Americans for security reasons) right in the city centre.

I’m sure this photo doesn’t do the architecture full justice, but what the hell, the sun looks good too.

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Apr 08 2019
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Arts West Building, University of Melbourne

Monday 8th April 2019, 11.20am (day 2,783)

Arts West building, 8/4/19

Another university campus makes it onto the blog. The week’s work that my colleague Lee and I have to do here is the reason I got the funding to come to Australia in the first place, so I’d better pay attention to my duties. It’s a pleasant — if somewhat cramped — campus; this is one of the newer buildings on it and is quite impressive inside and out. I was told that the shapes on the outer frame make patterns when seen on Google Maps but I’ve checked and nothing seems apparent to me: not as much as they remind me of the pattern on the cover of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, anyway.

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Apr 04 2019
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

The cameraman gets ready

Wednesday 3rd April 2019, 9.40am (day 2,778)

RMIT cameraman, 3/4/19

My last day in Vietnam — this time — but I certainly hope there will be further visits. I have had a very fine few days and want to return. The day saw me do the one bit of work I had committed to while here, a talk at the RMIT Saigon campus, and this guy was setting up to film it; I like the random arrangement of table legs behind him, they give the shot some background texture.

The M in RMIT stands for Melbourne — and that’s where I’m heading off to next. Today is the halfway point of this trip as a whole.

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Mar 29 2019
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Nanyang Technological University campus

Friday 29th March 2019, 2.45pm (day 2,773)

NTU, Singapore, 29/3/19

Last day in Singapore before I move on once more on this spring tour of Asia. Nanyang Technological University, or NTU, becomes the latest campus to feature on the blog. It’s a pleasant green space, though with that generic feel that many campuses — and, in the end, the whole world — is starting to have. This is one of those shots that would be nicer if it were truly symmetrical, but I guess that level of symmetry happens only rarely, so perhaps I should embrace the nearness of it, its imperfections in that respect.

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Nov 28 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Winter is coming

Tuesday 27th November 2018, 9.35am (day 2,651)

Campus morning, 27/11/18

This burst of wan and vapid sunlight is about as much as we got today. Not long after this, foul grey rain set in and did not let up all day. Winter is coming… we are in the late November doldrums of the year and as usual, I just hope to get to the end of the semester (mid-December) without any major grief.

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Jan 08 2018
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Back on campus

Monday 8th January 2018, 11.10am (day 2,328)

January campus, 8/1/18Since 30th December, a photo that featured a cast of thousands, not a single person has featured on here; but then again there haven’t really been many chances to depict them. Nor was the Manchester campus this morning very busy, it does not crank up again until next week student-wise. This photo is a fine example of how all the litter and recycling bins around the place are good for the environment, but not photography. I suppose here it’s just about tolerable.

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