First Steps

This is the first entry for a Blog documenting a "First" - the logging of a locative journey through a fictional landscape. "The Crow Road" is a novel by Iain Banks from 1992. While the Crow Road is a district near Glasgow, it is also a Scottish euphemism for death. This is very much the subject of the novel, also made into a BBC serial in 1996. Part of the novel is set around Crinan on the West Scottish Coast in Argyllshire. The tracing of the points where real landscapes overlap the fiction world will be undertaken using GPS enabled PDAs and mobiles and turned into a locative tour of sites mentioned or fictionalised in the book.

The project is a participation between the Department of English at Bath Spa University and two CETL Labs(Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) BroadcastLab and DesignLab, both part of ArtsWorks. Over four days in July staff and students from the Labs will be photgraphing, filming and inscribing the locations in this beautiful part of Scotland. This Blog will be a record of that journey.