immutable photos on Flickr

Archive Dreaming / Documentation by Refik Anadol

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Commissioned to work with SALT Research collections, artist Refik Anadol employed machine learning algorithms to search and sort relations among 1,700,000 documents. Interactions of the multidimensional data found in the archives are, in turn, translated into an immersive media installation. Archive Dreaming, which is presented as part of The Uses of Art: Final Exhibition with the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union, is user-driven; however, when idle, the installation "dreams" of unexpected correlations among documents. The resulting high-dimensional data and interactions are translated into an architectural immersive space.

Shortly after receiving the commission, Anadol was a resident artist for Google's Artists and Machine Intelligence Program where he closely collaborated with Mike Tyka and explored cutting-edge developments in the field of machine intelligence in an environment that brings together artists and engineers. Developed during this residency, his intervention Archive Dreaming transforms the gallery space on floor -1 at SALT Galata into an all-encompassing environment that intertwines history with the contemporary, and challenges immutable concepts of the archive, while destabilizing archive-related questions with machine learning algorithms.

In this project, a temporary immersive architectural space is created as a canvas with light and data applied as materials. This radical effort to deconstruct the framework of an illusory space will transgress the normal boundaries of the viewing experience of a library and the conventional flat cinema projection screen, into a three dimensional kinetic and architectonic space of an archive visualized with machine learning algorithms. By training a neural network with images of 1,700,000 documents at SALT Research the main idea is to create an immersive installation with architectural intelligence to reframe memory, history and culture in museum perception for 21st century through the lens of machine intelligence.

SALT is grateful to Google's Artists and Machine Intelligence program, and Doğuş Technology, ŠKODA, Volkswagen Doğuş Finansman for supporting Archive Dreaming.

Location : SALT Gatala, Istanbul, Turkey

Exhibition Dates : April 20 - June 11

6 Meters Wide Circular Architectural Installation

4 Channel Video, 8 Channel Audio

Custom Software, Media Server, Table for UI Interaction

For more information:

refikanadol.com/works/archive-dreaming/

Nikon D800E Photos of Nikon D800E Photos Hanging at the Los Angeles Gallery Show! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Malibu & Socal HDR Photography by 45SURF Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography

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Nikon D800E & Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF Lens photos of my HDR Hero's Journey Mythology LA Gallery photos taken with a Nikon D800E & Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF Lens! If I keep this up I may create a black hole! See the full-seize photos here:

www.flickr.com/photos/herosjourneymythology45surf/sets/72...

dx4/dt=ic & 45SURF Hero's Journey Mythology Photography (31 photos)

From press release: "Theoretical Physicist hosts Hero's Journey Mythology Photography Gallery Show in Honor of Moving Dimensions Theory Physics Research." Ph.D physicist and photographer Dr. E signs all of his fine art with dx4/dt=ic -- the foundational equation for Moving Dimensions Theory, which stipulates that the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c--the velocity of light. His Princeton advisor, the late J.A. Wheeler, wrote "More intellectual curiosity, versatility and yen for physics than Elliot McGucken's I have never seen in any senior or graduate student," and Dr. E's award-winning artificial retina dissertation, titled Multiple Unit Artificial Retina Chipset to Aid the Visually Impaired and Enhanced CMOS Phototransistors is now helping the blind see. Though seemingly disparate pursuits, all three endeavors--the photography, retinal prosthesis, and MDT are united in light. For MDT stipulates that photons surf the fourth expanding dimension on their way to exciting electrons in our our retinas or camera chips. The Hero's Journey Mythology motif derives from the heroic pursuit of truth and beauty, calling the viewer to adventure--to turn up Beethoven's Eroica and join the fellowship. When Dr. E's Princeton mentor J.A. Wheeler passed away, the National Post wrote, "At 96, he had been the last notable figure from the Heroic Age of Physics lingering among us. . . the student of Bohr, teacher of Feynman, and close colleague of Einstein. . . Wheeler was as much philosopher-poet as scientist, seizing on Einsteinian relativity early . . . He was ready to believe in the new world before most physicists. . ." And so it is that in honor of the noble Wheeler and all the heroes of yore, the Hero's Journey Mythology Photography seeks to remind us that the heroic age has not yet passed, that it is everywhere we look, should we only look towards the immutable ideals which mark both nature's sublime beauty and the imperishable soul. Words alone can do little to honor those who came before, but only action in the service of truth and beauty--serving those who come hence--can truly honor those heroic spirits of all ages. — in Malibu, CA.

Los Angeles Gallery Show! Dr. Elliot McGucken's Fine Art Photography! Dr. E's Legendary Malibu & Socal HDR Photography!

Some photos of my fine art photography hanging in the gallery for all my flickr fans! Thanks for the 120,000,000+ views y'all!

Setting up in a gallery was fun! It did not seem like work. :) I even got to drive to Home Depot & buy lumber (pine), hammers, nails, and a saw! I added a few dozen feet of new wooden strips to hang all the Hero's Journey Mythology photography--white strips and grey strips--cut them, nailed them up, and painted them so that we could fit all my fine art photography in the gallery! I told them I have even more on flickr if they want more photos--haha. :)

Some photographs are 13"x19" metallic prints on Kodak metallic paper mounted on 18"x24" matts in wood frames with 2.5" black, wood-grain borders, set behind anti-reflective, UV protective, museum glass! Awesome--everyone asks "why didn't you put these behind glass" because the anti-reflective museum glass is so clear! Other fine art photographs are 24" x 36" printed on canvas wraps, or 24" x 36" printed on canvas and front-mounted to plexiglass / acryllic (I love these! Great for HDR)! And the finest ones are 40" x 60" laser-printed on Fuji-crystal archival paper, front mounted to UV-protective acryllic / plexiglass, with a solid aluminum backing for durablity! Heavy, but nice! :) Also have a couple huge 40"x70" (the motorcycle in Venice and Corvette on the PCH) printed straight on a sheet of metal! Some were printed on Canon, some on Epson, and others on a laser printer so expensive it doesn't even have a name. :) I saw it in downtown LA--it was HUGE!

This is my first gallery show, and the funny thing is that while setting it up and adding all the carpentry/new wood strips, I shot more photography than usual, getting up every day at 5 AM to shoot the sunrise at around 6:30-6:45 AM. The Journey Never Ends! As Malibu faces South, the sun rises over the water this time of year, and sets over it too! So it keeps me busy as I hate missing the awesomely magical December cirrus cloud sunrises & sunsets, some of which you see hanging in the gallery, with many, many more to come!

Well, all the best on your epic hero's journey! The gallery is just below Bel Air Camera in Westwood, and if you ever want to meet up, drop me a line! :)

Happy Holidays & Best on Your Epic Hero's Journey!

P.S. (Some folks have asked me when I am going to have a goddess gallery show--soon! :)

Duncansby Head Lighthouse, Caithness, Scotland. by HISTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

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Duncansby Head is the most northeasterly part of both the Scottish and British mainlands, slightly northeast of John o' Groats. It lies approximately 20 km (12 mi) east-southeast of Dunnet Head, the northernmost point of both the Scottish and British mainlands. Duncansby Head is located in Caithness, Highland, in north-eastern Scotland. The headland juts into the North Sea, with the Pentland Firth to its north and west and the Moray Firth to its south.

The point is marked by Duncansby Head Lighthouse, built by David Alan Stevenson in 1924.

A minor public road leads from John o' Groats to Duncansby Head, which makes Duncansby Head the farthest point by road from Land's End.

The Duncansby Head Site of Special Scientific Interest includes the 6.5-kilometre (4-mile) stretch of coast south to Skirza Head. It includes the Duncansby Stacks, prominent sea stacks just off the coast.

In 2016, it was reported in The Sunday Post newspaper that scientists from the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldemarston had proposed a nuclear weapon test on the Stacks of Duncansby in 1953, but that the prevailing wet weather was too much for contemporary electronics and the idea was shelved

The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.

The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.

Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.

Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".

Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".

Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.

Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.

In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.

When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.

According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".

The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.

In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.

A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.

Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.

The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.

There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.

Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.

The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.

These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.

The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.

Climate

The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.

Places of interest

An Teallach

Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)

Arrochar Alps

Balmoral Castle

Balquhidder

Battlefield of Culloden

Beinn Alligin

Beinn Eighe

Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station

Ben Lomond

Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore

Cairngorm Mountains

Caledonian Canal

Cape Wrath

Carrick Castle

Castle Stalker

Castle Tioram

Chanonry Point

Conic Hill

Culloden Moor

Dunadd

Duart Castle

Durness

Eilean Donan

Fingal's Cave (Staffa)

Fort George

Glen Coe

Glen Etive

Glen Kinglas

Glen Lyon

Glen Orchy

Glenshee Ski Centre

Glen Shiel

Glen Spean

Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)

Grampian Mountains

Hebrides

Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.

Highland Wildlife Park

Inveraray Castle

Inveraray Jail

Inverness Castle

Inverewe Garden

Iona Abbey

Isle of Staffa

Kilchurn Castle

Kilmartin Glen

Liathach

Lecht Ski Centre

Loch Alsh

Loch Ard

Loch Awe

Loch Assynt

Loch Earn

Loch Etive

Loch Fyne

Loch Goil

Loch Katrine

Loch Leven

Loch Linnhe

Loch Lochy

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park

Loch Lubnaig

Loch Maree

Loch Morar

Loch Morlich

Loch Ness

Loch Nevis

Loch Rannoch

Loch Tay

Lochranza

Luss

Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)

Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran

Rannoch Moor

Red Cuillin

Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83

River Carron, Wester Ross

River Spey

River Tay

Ross and Cromarty

Smoo Cave

Stob Coire a' Chàirn

Stac Polly

Strathspey Railway

Sutherland

Tor Castle

Torridon Hills

Urquhart Castle

West Highland Line (scenic railway)

West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)

Wester Ross

Robert Cremean: Ecce Homo (Pages 11 and 12 of the Winter Notebooks ) from STUDIO SECTION 2005-2007, The Seven Deadly Sins and Three Diptychs from The Winter Notebooks by rdlv1

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2005-2007

80" x 96"

Colored pencil, graphite, acrylic on wood panels

Collection:

Crocker Art Museum

(Robert Cremean: Metaphor and Process, the video, may be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgrxW8xSvrA)

Hereafter is a transcription of the handwritten text on the diptych above:

ECCE HOMO

This is as it is. Behold me. I am you, a reflection in the artist’s eye; and as I see you, myself, I reflect on our condition. Ecce homo. I do not wash my hands of responsibility. I embrace it. It is not for me to judge. I am a simple craftsman of recordation and as an artist I am pledged to record what I see. This is neither excuse nor evasion; rather, a simple statement of isness. I accept full responsibility for my reflection. This is what I see. If what I see is viewed as judgement, this is a reflection of the beholder. As I accept responsibility as artist, I expect the beholder to accept his. We meet only on this plane of shared reflection. Only here does intimacy occur free of interpretation, cultural catechism and correctness. If you insist on encumbering yourself in the armor of cultural correctness, your performance here will be clumsy and predictable. In a sense, sensuality on this plane is similar to sexual intimidation. Your ability to perform and to penetrate lies within your bourn of possibility. If you predetermine my limitations by your reflection, our mirror will remain opaque, your image obscured, and your subservience to cultural and historical prudery reified. I have the disinterest of a whore. It is not my business to guarantee gratification. I can only service the possibility. Consider the compass of our sexuality; setting the due male North, the due female South, the due homosexual male West, and the due female homosexual East creates a 360° horizon of infinite possibility. Although the magnetic North has always determined the direction of human entelechy, that entelechy has a 360º choice of direction. Due North is no longer viable. That way lies oblivion. This is as it is. The diameter stretches from due East to due West, a horizontal demarcation between life and death. The arrow points South, a 180º shift of our vision of expectation. We must establish now an entirely new triangle of possibility, a state of being shorn of masculine hegemony, an oppositeness of all that was and all that was always expected to be. All of masculine entelechy has become toxic. The entire hemisphere must be abandoned. As we continue to explore the sphere of human possibility, the Northern Hemisphere with its redundancies and repetitious predictability is barren of resource, hackneyed and clichéd. It has been exploited ad nauseum and further indulgence threatens continuance. If we, the explorers of human entelechy, were to turn 180º to confront possibility rather than repeat, what new discoveries and alternatives might be presented. What new metaphors might flower in the nourishing soil of oppositeness...through technology, masculine necessity is redundant; only his metaphors continue to control the human condition. War, religion, commerce, history, tradition—this gestalt of metaphors which make masculine human reality is no longer viable. We must turn our back on death and face a new world for survival and fecundity. What the Masculine has made finite, the feminine must make possible. The alternative is repetition unto oblivion. A 90º shift to the West on the horizon of possibility is now credible; the homosexual male can replace the heterosexual masculine in all ways including, through technology, reproduction of the species. It is the unexplored West that pulls tight the severing horizon line on the vertical axis of Masculine redundancy. The remaining poles of diversity which describe the human compass present an infinity of possibilities for the survival of all species and the nourishing planet. As the technology of death advances beyond the stasis of masculine gestalt, humankind can no longer tolerate the immutability of mankind’s Isness. If we continue to define ourselves in the mirror of masculine redundancy, our extinction is assured. The severing horizontal diameter of the East/West homosexual horizon offers the human condition the rationale for redrawing the maps of possibility. Through decapitation of the necrophagous North, an entire frontier of new metaphors based on other gendered realities would be explored. Ecce Homo. As I view the simplistic vertical axis of staff and distaff, the linear reality of repetition is entropy, a metastasis of boredom and predictability of repeat. Inevitability is the saddest of life’s consequences. 8/6/45. I am an artist at the end of history. In this final concentric ripple of linear time, the confusion is noisome, an explosion of masculine frustration and hypocrisy. Man’s surrogate, god, is everywhere, an excuse for slaughter, pillage and destruction. Art is a frantic recordation of nihility to support a culture our culture-makers can no longer create. Information and intimidation have unnerved personal response and we eat what we are fed and live in fantasy and fabrication pretending to a culture that does not exist. We claim that what Is is not and what is not Is. Our drift into entropy and stasis has created an illusion of movement as the groove of repetition digs deeper and deeper our blind addiction to a necrophagous gestalt. Situated on the East/West homosexual horizon, I view the possibility for human extension by the light of a setting sun. I cast my glance at what has been, not as historical accumulation but as evidence of what might be because it always was. The compass of human Isness is dominated by the magnetic arrow of a due masculine imperative. The arrow now points toward death. The pointer must be demagnetized so that the compass can be turned without the constant insistence of a dogmatic actuality. The monocularity of this actuality has erased the horizon line and replaced it with a single and simplistic vanishing point. Infinity. This ignorance of the sensual curvature of the sphere of human possibility makes phobic the human condition and toxic our repetitive diminution into entropy. As an artist, I find perspective to be the most complex and challenging of the many disciplines of Making. What one sees, how one sees, and how one relates that which is seen, is an artist’s statement. Further, perspective is for the artist a monocular though ever-shifting viewpoint of a multidimensional universe, an examination of interior and exterior landscapes as seen through the dual silvered mirror of self. The way he sees, his so-called “style,” is an admission of limitation rather than an academic virtue of cultural and historical value. For me, the most fascinating discovery was the difference between Greek and Roman perspective wherein Roman or scientific perspective establishes the vanishing points on the horizon whereas Greek perspective implants the vanishing point within the mind of the viewer. The philosophical difference is explosive, separating the masculine hemisphere from the feminine along the homosexual diameter of the sphere of comprehension. By placing the vanishing point within the bourn of the viewer, humankind’s exploration of Isness is internalized and enlarged through a demystification of the masculine horizon. Objects and concepts are adjusted to the expanding interior universe as they pass through the lens of human understanding. It is the inner world of human possibility that incubates reality rather than obdurate dogmas and rote that inculcate fear of self-discovery through the imposition of unquestionable answers. Metaphors and concepts are diminished as they pass through the lens; their viability, objectified. They assume human proportion in terms of the reflecting curvature of the sphere. It is the viewer who commands the 360º horizon of human possibility from the infinity of centered entelechy. Because objects and concepts enlarge as they recede from the eyes of the viewer, Greek perspective, by placing the vanishing point within the bourn of human perception, affirms humanity’s absoluteness in terms of unique Isness. Ecce Humanitas. By spanning the horizon across dual lobes of perception, the focus of human need is internalized according to interpretation. By this process is reality created and communicated through metaphor. I embrace chaos. My desire to shear the magnetic needle of cultural/historical imperium from the compass of possibility fuels my enterprise. Every viewer has choice. Response cannot be forced regardless of critical intervention or cultural intimidation. Your being here with me on this plane at this time commits us to nothing. If, by chance, esthetic orgasm occurs, your release confirms your existence on this plane. I will never know you as I have never known you. I am an object if conveyance, nothing more. This plane confirms your existence—not mine. Only in the act of making do I exist. Only on this plane do I convey. The orgasm is yours. You have created me in your desire for creation. And on this plane, you are the creator. You are creating yourself. And this is Art. And the creating of Art is the essence of human Isness. It is the pinnacle of our reality. No artist aspires to the creation of Art; he is enveloped in the process of Making. This process is circumstantial to the viewer and his creation. Through making, the artist creates himself. Through response, the viewer may experience epiphany. Whether the responder can or will demagnetize the needle of hegemonic gestalt and embrace the chaos of self-creation is not the maker’s concern; it lies within the bourn of the creator.... I, the maker, have attended this plane time after innumerable time. This is a place I have known always and yet is always unknown. There is no place more mysterious and exotic than this foreign place. Here, I am always a stranger. I come here to create shadows out of pure light. I come here to destroy my face. I come here to create a stranger. If my enterprise here is successful, my failure is worthy of return. Here, on this plane of paradox where viewer becomes creator, anarchy is born. The chimera of hierarchy is dissolved into noisome pixels of deposed authority. Silence erases dimension and actuality reforms to a palimpsest of alternate realities. always the way it was becomes always the way it is and always the way it might have been and always the way it might be. Always there is choice. Always there is choice until a final choice is made. Ecce humanitas.... I speak now for myself as maker, as skater across a seamless and boundless plane of light, a single glide of ever increasing weightlessness and space. There is no sound, there are no shadows. I remember only the future. The unforgiving coldness of this place inflames me. I embrace it as it enfolds me. As it has always enfolded me. I am in and of its vacuity and provoke its indifference. I would be recognized but shun all that would recognize me. I skate this plane like one pursued by shame, erasing, and honing my blades against distraction and obstruction, clearing and cutting a path through the shadowless light. I am dissolved by light and hidden in its brilliance. The light has eaten my edges and destroyed definition. Do not seek me here. I am finished with it. Only you, the viewer, responder, perhaps creator can define this space. For me, it has become a weighted opacity, an artifact of indifference. As this triangle impends to infinity, the ghosts of new work present themselves. As I prepare to leave this plane, they will consort me. It is they who have prepared my next place of encounter which is this same place...which I will not recognize. I sense their presence. I know they are here, pressing altering, shifting their weights and contours in spasms of peripheral excitation, creases and undulations in the light. These glimpses are the essence of Greek perspective. I grasp their enormity as they distance themselves in ambiguity. As my desire enlarges, my hand is hastened in anticipation. I must quit this plane before they materialize, before objectification. They yearn for closure. They seek unbroken light as this plane layers, a triplicity of past, present and future, a scumbled erasure of recordation. Stains of the past cavort with ghosts of the future on the labored plane of the present in a noise of absence, a clamor of silence. Completion becomes an auto-da-fé, an execution enforcing conversion. An admission, of sorts, that the plane of the Future could not be homogenized beyond recognition. My failure can only be rectified by the creator. Purity exists only in his response and ever and always I, the maker, remain senseless of creation. I search not so that others can find. There is no selflessness in my production. I make only to free myself of repetition, to free myself of linearity and history and compilation. I long to create absence...to be free of evidence...to be pure light...to exist in orgasm and epiphany. To destroy my face. Recognition repels me. I court no audience and leave this plane to its creator. Only through his creations will I be erased. By his self-creation are we become light. As the triplicity tilts more and more this plane toward the future, the present bends into a shadowing and weighted past. It can no longer sustain purchase. I, the maker, must enforce the present on this plane of possibility through the reification of light. I cannot erase the stains of the past from this bent and bended plane; they are beyond redemption. In order to retain balance and achieve departure, I must restrict peripheral vision and banish ghosts of the future to their predestination. Narrow is the way to withdrawal from this emptied space. No curiosity attends my departure as to its future occupancy. If I, the maker, have furnished this space and enhanced its capacity for occupation, then my stripping of self has served further purpose. This plane, for me, has entered into palimpsest and erasure. My success will once again be measured in the unforgiving light of failure on a new plane in a foreign place in the paradox of self-creation...Ecce Humanitas. The triangle descends from the horizon of east/west diversity to its apex of direction pointing toward survival on the compass of human possibility. The imperium of masculine gestalt must be castrated, the directive needle de-magnetized, the reality of repeat annihilated. In redundancy, mankind must learn to destroy its face, its mask which was never a face whose empty sockets stare blindly toward a future which is no future which is neither past nor present but the end of time and dimension and all things measurable, which is the completion of direction and directive, which is the end of the human experiment and the fulfillment of prophecy which was no prophecy but, rather, the obfuscation of process. An excuse for inevitability, the obviousness of conclusion. Ecce homo.

Lucky enough... by David García Fonseca

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"Sometimes we are lucky enough to know that our lives have been changed, to discard the old, embrace the new, and turn headlong down an immutable course." Jacques-Yves Cousteau

The Summit of Power by Cedric Percival Wycliffe-Hawthorne

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London bows beneath his gaze, the empire’s heart beating in measured precision. Sir Cedric stands above it all—not as a relic of the past, but as its unyielding architect. The skyline shifts, ages pass, yet the immutable truth remains: power belongs to those with the will to seize and hold it.

“Men are born, empires are built, but only the strong endure.”

hydrangea mosaic by muffett68 ☺ heidi ☺

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the scavenger item was to create a diptych from bud to flower but unfortunately we are into autumn and i have a non-green thumb, so i took my new-to-me painted stool outside and put it in front of one of our two our fading hydrangea bushes for a current picture. the rest of the pics were taken during various times of the growing seasons of 2 years, arranged as a time line. some years the hydrangea are clearly going to come in blue but for the last couple they have come in a fuschia and toned down to blue......... if you click on one of the blue links below, you can go to that particular picture.

1. painted chair, 2. a very confused hydrangea bud, 3. progress of the bud(s), 4. stem tag, 5. budding hydrangea, 6. jenny, looks like they will be fuscia this year, 7. our hydrangeas are coming in fuschia, 8. deepening to purple, 9. i don't have a totally brown thumb, 10. fading hydrangeas, 11. life is.... as immutable as the change of seasons, 12. oak leaf stuck in hydrangea1, 13. hydrangea against the snow

ANSH scavenger2 "from bud to flower"

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

India’s Foreign Policy by S Menon by The Gateway to South Asian Diplomacy

India’s Foreign Policy

(Delhi University, 19 January 2009)

S.Menon

Prof. Deepak Paintal, Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi

Dr. S.K. Tandon, Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi

Thank you for asking me to speak to you today on India’s Foreign

Policy. It is an honour and intimidating to be asked back to one’s alma

mater. It has been thirty-nine years since I left Delhi University and it is

impressive that it looks much better than my memory of it.

I thought that I would try to discuss what foreign policy is, then speak

of independent India’s experience of conducting foreign policy, and finally

try to foresee what our foreign policy may look like in future. After that I

would be most interested in hearing your views and comments.

What is Foreign Policy?

The hardest question for a professional diplomat like me to answer is,

“What is it that you actually do?” The simple answer is that we implement

the country’s foreign policy. Which invariably invites the question, “What is

foreign policy?”

Perhaps the simplest definition of foreign policy is that it is the

attempt by a state to maximize its national interest in the external or

international environment. Even this simple definition suggests some of the

complexity of this attempt. The definition assumes a commonly agreed

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definition of the national interest in the country. This is not always true.

Secondly, foreign policy is an ends and means problem, a problem of

achieving certain national goals with the limited means available. Unlike

domestic policy, the attempt to attain one’s goals has to be made in an

environment which is largely outside of one’s own control. Thirdly, and

again unlike domestic policy, this attempt is made in competition with other

states who are seeking the same goals for themselves, sometimes at your

expense. For instance, if any one state in the international system attains

absolute security for itself, there would be absolute insecurity for every

other state in the world. So merely maximizing one’s own interest

competitively will not suffice. One needs to include some measure of

cooperation, or at least of alliance building or working together. Of the two

basic goals of the state, security and prosperity, one, security, is often

presented as a zero sum game. The other, prosperity, requires states to

cooperate with each other. Both goals can therefore pull one’s foreign

policy in opposite directions.

And this competition and cooperation with other states to maximize

one’s own interests takes place in a perpetually changing external

environment and while the states themselves gain and lose relative and

absolute power. As they change, states change or modify their definitions

of national interest. Even the domestic mainsprings of external policy shift.

Some factors that one expects to remain constant undergo change. History

is redefined continuously by all political systems. And immutable facts of

geography are made less or more relevant by advances in technology and

ideology. This is why attempts to analyze foreign policy require the use of

dynamic concepts like the balance of power, game theory, and such like.

For a practitioner or diplomat, it is in the analysis and working of

these changes that the opportunities, threats and joys of diplomacy and

foreign policy lie. My generation has been fortunate in having lived through

the fastest ever period of change in India’s history. For a diplomat, it has

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been an amazing transformation of India, its place in the world, and the

foreign policy that we can now aspire to practice.

Let us look at the Indian foreign policy experience.

The Beginnings

There have been diplomats and diplomacy since time immemorial. By

some accounts Hanuman was our first Ambassador to Sri Lanka and

Krishna one of our first known envoys. But foreign policy as it is now

understood is a function of the modern state system. One can therefore

legitimately speak of late medieval Indian foreign policy. But just when the

modern Westphalian state system, based on the nation state, came into

existence in the eighteenth century, India was losing the attributes of

sovereignty and her capacity for an independent foreign policy. So long as

India was not an independent actor on the world stage, imperial British

interests prevailed over Indian interests. When strong personalities like

Curzon tried to assert what they saw as Indian interests, as he did in 1904

by sending Younghusband on his Tibetan expedition, London rapidly reined

him in, forcing him to give up his gains in the Chumbi valley and Tibet in

order to preserve the overall British interest in keeping China on her side

against the Russians. So, while the Government of India had a Foreign and

Political Department from 1834 onwards, its primary functions were to deal

with the Indian princes, (as representative of the paramount power), and to

handle British-Indian commercial and mercantile interests in the Gulf and

the immediate neighborhood of India.

The unintended benefit from this absence of an indigenous foreign

policy tradition became apparent when the freedom movement began to

think of national issues. As early as 1927 it was possible for Jawaharlal

Nehru to start describing a purely Indian view of the world. In July 1938,

when it was highly unfashionable to do so, he was speaking of both

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fascism and imperialism in the same breath, refusing to choose between

them, and to start saying what India’s foreign policy would be. By January

1947, these thoughts had coalesced in a letter to KPS Menon into a

doctrine, non-alignment, which seemed best designed to meet independent

India’s needs in the bipolar world she found herself in. Nehru said:

“Our general policy is to avoid entanglement in power politics and not

to join any group of powers as against any other group. The two

leading groups today are the Russian bloc and the Anglo-American

bloc. We must be friends to both and yet not join either. Both America

and Russia are extraordinarily suspicious of each other as well as of

other countries. This makes our path difficult and we may well be

suspected by each of leaning towards the other. This cannot be

helped.”

At Independence

When India became independent in 1947, our economy had not

grown for over fifty years, while population was growing at over 3% a year.

The average Indian could expect to live for 26 years, and only 14% of

Indians could read. What had once been one of the richest, most advanced

and industrialized nations in the world had been reduced by two centuries

of colonialism into one of the poorest and most backward countries, deindustrialized

and stagnant. From accounting along with China for twothirds

of world industrial production in 1750, by 1947 India’s share of world

industrial product was negligible.

It was therefore natural and clear that the primary purpose of

independent India’s foreign policy was to enable the domestic

transformation of India from a poor and backward society into one which

could offer its people their basic needs and an opportunity to achieve their

potential. And this had to be attempted in the Cold War world, divided

between two heavily armed and hostile camps, each led by a superpower,

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and each saying that if you were not with them you were against them. It

took courage and vision to choose, as Nehru and the leadership did then,

not to join either camp and to opt for non-alignment, to retain the choice to

judge each issue on its merits and on how it affected India’s interests rather

than those of an alliance or its leaders. Having fought so hard for our

freedom, we were not ready to abdicate our independence of judgment to

others.

India’s immediate foreign policy objectives in 1947 were therefore a

peaceful environment, strategic space and autonomy, free of entanglement

in Cold War conflicts or alliances, while we concentrated on our domestic

tasks of integration and nation building. Non-alignment, as this policy came

to be called was the ability to judge issues on their merits and their effect

on India’s interests or, as our first Prime Minister Nehru used to say,

‘enlightened self-interest’. Indian nationalism has not been based on a

shared language or common religion or ethnic identity. As we sought to

build a plural, democratic, secular and tolerant society of our own, it was

natural that we would look for and promote the same values abroad.

Our foreign policy experience can probably be divided into three

broad roughly twenty year periods: 1950-1971, 1971-1991 and 1991

onwards till today.

1950-1971

Non-alignment as a policy was a practical and strategic choice, but

was soon put to the test by the alliances. It was denounced by John Foster

Dulles as immoral, and Stalin had strong words to say about it too. Our

neighbours were rapidly enrolled in the competing alliance systems – China

by the Soviet Union and Pakistan by the US.

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Our attempt was to enlarge the area of peace, of those states willing

to coexist peacefully despite ideological and other differences, enabling us

to concentrate on our own development. Hence the very early summoning

of the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi in March 1947, our

activism at the Bandung Afro-Asian conference, our reliance on the UN,

and the institutionalization of the Non-Aligned movement in the sixties.

Throughout this early period, our means were limited, our goals were

primarily domestic, and our aspirations were local. The foreign policy

challenges that we faced, such as having a border with China for the first

time in our history after China moved into Tibet, could not be addressed

with any tools other than diplomacy because of the simple fact that we had

no others. Our primary focus was domestic, and at no stage in this period

did we spend more than 3% of our GDP on defence. It was this desire to

escape external distractions that accounts for some of the tactical choices

in handling issues like the India-China boundary, resulting in the short but

sharp and salutary conflict of 1962.

Our preoccupations were with the consequences of Partition and the

uniquely complicated birth of the independent Indian state. The J&K issue

itself, which was with us from the birth of the Republic of India, was one

consequence of that birth. One of our first tasks was also to compress into

a few years what history takes centuries to do for most other states –

agreeing and settling boundaries with our neighbours. In a major diplomatic

achievement, we agreed all our land boundaries except those with China

(and between Pakistan and our state of J&K) within thirty years. We have

also agreed all our maritime boundaries except for those with Pakistan in

Sir Creek and Bangladesh.

1971-1991

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By the early seventies, the steady development of India, (which even

at 3.5% p.a. was faster than that achieved by Britain for most of her

industrial revolution), had created capacities and relative strengths that

were dramatically revealed in the 1971 war. The liberation of Bangladesh

was equally a liberation for India. For the first time in centuries, India had

on her own and without relying on external imperial power crafted a political

outcome in our neighborhood, despite the opposition of a superpower and

a large and militarized neighbor. That we could do so was also tribute to

Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s political skills and willingness to take risks. The

diplomatic task was primarily to hold the ring internationally by winning over

public opinion for a just cause and averting actions by others which would

prevent us from assisting the birth of Bangladesh.

Soon thereafter, in 1974 India tested a nuclear explosive device, in

what was described as a peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE). The world led

by the Nuclear Weapon States reacted by forming a nuclear cartel, the

Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and by cutting off nuclear cooperation with

India unless she agreed to forego a nuclear weapons programme and put

all her nuclear facilities under international safeguards to guarantee that

commitment. As the nuclear weapon states were not willing to do the same

themselves, we refused to do so, suffering the consequences of technology

denial regimes for our growth and development. But at that stage we

lacked the relative power or capability to do more than to suffer in silence

while keeping our options open. (This in itself was more than most other

states managed).

1991-2009

The true realization of our foreign policy potential had to wait for the

end of the bipolar world in 1989 and our economic reform policies, opening

up the Indian economy to the world. Historically speaking, India has been

most prosperous and stable when she has been most connected with the

rest of the world.

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In many ways, the period after 1991 has been the most favorable to

our quest to develop India. The post Cold War external environment of a

globalizing world, without rival political alliances, gave India the opportunity

to improve relations with all the major powers. The risk of a direct conflict

between two or more major powers had also diminished due to the

interdependence created by globalization. And the strength of capital and

trade flows was directly beneficial to emerging economies like India, China

and others. We saw the evolving situation as one in which there is an

opportunity for India. The consistent objective of our foreign policy was and

remains poverty eradication and rapid and inclusive economic

development. If we are to eradicate mass poverty by 2020, we need to

keep growing our economy at 8-10% each year. This requires a peaceful

and supportive global environment in general and a peaceful periphery in

particular. The period since 1991 has therefore seen a much more active

Indian engagement with the neighbours, whether through repeated

attempts by successive governments to improve relations with Pakistan, or

the border related CBMs with China, or free trade agreements with

neighbours starting with Sri Lanka in 1998, or the Ganga Waters Treaty

with Bangladesh.

The period since 1991 has been a period of remarkable change in the

scale of our ambitions, and in our capacity to seek to achieve them. The

international situation made possible the rapid development of our

relationships with each of the major powers. Equally important was

another necessary condition which gave India space to work in: India’s

rapid economic and social transformation. As a result of twenty five years

of 6% growth and our reforms since 1991, India is today in a position to

engage with the world in an unprecedented manner. Our engagement with

the global economy is growing rapidly, with trade in goods and services

now exceeding US$ 330 billion. Our needs from the world have changed,

as has our capability. India can do and consider things that we could not do

or consider twenty years ago. This is reflected in how India perceives its

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own future, its ties with its neighbourhood and its approach to the larger

international order.

The contrast between the world’s reaction to the 1974 and 1998

nuclear tests is instructive. And finally in 2008 we were able not only to

break out of our nuclear isolation but to rewrite the rules in our favour by

working with others to enable the NSG decision permitting international civil

nuclear cooperation with India.

Today’s World

Today, however, it seems that we may be on the cusp of another

change in the nature of the world situation. Looking at the world from India,

it often seems that we are witness to the collapse of the Westphalian state

system and a redistribution in the global balance of power leading to the

rise of major new powers and forces. The twin processes of the world

economic crisis and economic inter-dependence have resulted in a

situation where Cold War concepts like containment have very little

relevance and where no power is insulated from global developments. The

interdependence brought about by globalization imposes limits beyond

which tensions among the major powers are unlikely to escalate. But

equally, no one power can hope to solve issues by itself, no matter how

powerful it is. What seems likely, and is in fact happening in Iraq,

Afghanistan and elsewhere, is that major powers come together to form

coalitions to deal with issues where they have a convergence of interests,

despite differences on other issues or in broader approach. In other words,

what we see is the emergence of a global order marked by the

preponderance of several major powers, with minimal likelihood of direct

conflict amongst these powers, but where both cooperation and

competition among them are intense. The result is a de-hyphenation of

relationships with each other, of each major power engaging with and

competing with all the others, in a situation that might perhaps be described

as “general un-alignment”.

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Paradoxically, some of the same forces of globalization – the

evolution of technology, the mobility of capital and so on – which have led

to the decline or collapse of the Westphalian state order are also the

source of our greatest dangers. Our major threats today are from non-state

actors, from trans-boundary effects of the collapse of the state system, or,

at least, of its inadequacy.(Paradoxically, the doctrine of absolute

sovereignty created by the strong European states and rulers in earlier

centuries is now the last defence of the weak against the strong.)

Looking ahead, the real factors of risk that threaten systemic stability

come from larger, global issues like terrorism, energy security and

environmental and climate change. With globalization and the spread of

technology, threats have also globalised and now span borders. These are

issues that will impact directly on India’s ability to grow and expand our

strategic autonomy. It is also obvious that no single country can deal with

these issues alone. They require global solutions.

International Terrorism

Among these global threats, international terrorism remains a major

threat to peace and stability. We in India have directly suffered the

consequences of the linkages and relationships among terrorist

organizations, support structures and funding mechanisms, centered upon

our immediate neighborhood, and transcending national borders. Any

compromise with such forces, howsoever pragmatic or opportune it might

appear momentarily, only encourages the forces responsible for terrorism.

Large areas abutting India to the west have seen the collapse of state

structures and the absence of governance or the writ of the state, with the

emergence of multiple centres of power. The results, in the form of

terrorism, extremism and radicalism are felt by us all in India.

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Energy Security

As for energy security, this is one issue which combines an ethical

challenge to all societies with an opportunity to provide for the energy so

necessary for development. For India, clean, convenient and affordable

energy is a critical necessity if we are to improve the lives of our people.

Today, India’s per-capita energy consumption is less than a third of the

global average. (Our per capita consumption is only 500 kgoe compared to

a global average of nearly 1800 kgoe). For India a rapid increase in energy

use per capita is imperative to realize our national development goals.

Global warming and climate change require all societies to work

together. While the major responsibility for the accumulation of green

house gasses in the atmosphere lies with the developed countries, its

adverse affects are felt most severely by developing countries like India.

When we speak of ‘shared responsibility’, it must include the international

community’s shared responsibility to ensure the right to development of the

developing countries. Development is the best form of adaptation to climate

change.

What we seek is equitable burden-sharing. We have made it clear

that India will not exceed the average of per capita GHG emissions by the

industrialized countries, as we continue to pursue the growth and

development that our people need.

Also, the transfer and access to clean technologies by developing

countries, as global public goods on the lines of what was done for

retrovirals to fight AIDS, is essential to effectively limit future GHG

emissions. The IPR regime should include collaborative R&D and the

sharing of the resulting IPRs.

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The Future

I have tried to show you how great the change and flux in India’s

foreign policy has been within my own lifetime. In 1948, waving expansively

at a map of the world, Nehru exclaimed to a young Indian Foreign Service

officer, “We will have forty missions around the world!”. Today we have one

hundred and sixteen Embassies abroad.

If our foreign policy experience teaches us one thing it is that change

is inevitable and rapid. There is hardly an international boundary between

two states that is where it was two hundred years ago. The speed of the

rise of China and India in the last quarter of the twentieth century is proof of

the rapidity of change. Since the balance of power is relative, small shifts

have exaggerated effects on the international system.

India’s foreign policy today no longer deals only with existential

threats to our security or with subsistence issues. Today our future will be

determined by how effectively we adapt to change, and how we deal with

cross-cutting global issues, with questions of energy security, water, low

carbon growth, technology issues and so on. An open rule-based trading

system is in our interest now that we have sizeable equities in international

trade. We have moved from statements alone to working for and crafting

desirable outcomes.

After several centuries, once again the state is not the sole or

necessarily the predominant actor in the international system. In some

cases, like technology, for instance, it is businesses and individuals who

now determine the future, and it is these units that a successful foreign

policy must now increasingly deal with.

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If we are to deal with this new world and new issues, it is essential

that we begin to develop our own culture and tradition of strategic thought.

So long as India’s situation and needs are unique, it becomes essential that

we develop our own strategic culture, vocabulary and doctrine. Fortunately

for us, there is no isolationist streak in our strategic thought so far. As I

have said before, India’s best periods in history have been when we were

most connected to the world. Ironically, the greater our capabilities, the

more we need the world and are integrated into it. So if anything, the joys

and challenges of Indian foreign policy will only grow with time.

Thank you,

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