Jim Carruth’s collection, Rider at the Crossing, provides a fairly different style of writing from the Renfrewshire farmer’s usual pastoral concerns. Although not his most recent work, the poems compiled here represent the ever-changing, yet compelling style of Glasgow’s 2014 Laureate. In Rider at the Crossing, the poet examines a darker, more unsettling set of Read More
Whether they aim to make us laugh, to shock or to inspire, we are constantly bombarded with images that promise to improve our lives. This exhibition, however, presents us with images that actually changed lives and offers a visual diary that bookmarks significant social and political moments during the past hundred years. Over seventy original Read More
The phrase “night crawler” evokes nothing pretty – a slang term for a burglar, perhaps, or a prostitute. The only formal definition of its portmanteau version refers to a species of large earthworm, so called for its habit of surfacing at sundown. Fittingly, Nightcrawler the film is something of a creepy-crawly affair as well – Read More
Christopher Nolan’s latest feature is not so much a cinematic blockbuster as it is a meditation on the future of the human race. The director of Inception and The Dark Knight Trilogy delivers a celluloid love letter to grand impossible dreams and ideas, coupled with a pioneering spirit. Interstellar is not, however, without its flaws. Read More
It is hard to know where to start with Mortals, as it is a book of epic proportions. Set in Botswana, in the early 1990s as the Cold War is drawing to a close, the novel traverses the innermost thoughts of Ray Finch, a Milton Scholar, secondary school teacher, and bit part CIA operative. Norman Read More
A ghost moon… “You traced its outline, hardly daring to press your fingertip on the chill glass, afraid the sliver of unexpected light might melt to nothing at your touch.” Ron Butlin’s latest novel,Ghost Moon, takes its title from the phenomenon of the daytime moon, first observed by central character Maggie as she pushes her son, Read More
Computer generated art has the ability to leave spectators feeling disconnected with its cold and logical production. The connotations commonly associated with it are bound up in algorithms and technical jargon. William Latham’s exhibition, titled Mutator 2 challenges these stereotypes by combining the human body and the machine in an interactive approach. The VRC’s Centerspace, Read More
The Privilege of Rain tracks the year David Swann spent as Writer in Residence at HMP Nottingham in three parts: “Seed”, “Sap” and “Stump”. The irony of the prison’s setting, on land that once bore part of the wilds of Sherwood Forest, is utilised throughout as myriad themes associated with the prison system are addressed. Read More
Hebridean pastorale and tribute to the democratic nature of the Scottish state education system, wartime memoir and plea for the liberalisation of the Free Presbyterian Church, this story of a boy born in 1914 begins on an isolated croft in the Bays of Harris and ends with his appointment to the Chair of Practical Theology Read More
Think of your closest circle of friends. Think of how much time you spend in one another’s company. Think of how long you have been friends and how well you all get along. Now imagine that this group has cut you off. Completely. Without any explanation. You can’t think of any possible reasons as to Read More