If You Go Down to the Woods Today...

Craig Coulthard is a man of many trades: by day an artist and staff member of Edinburgh College of Art and at night one quarter of quirky band Randan Discotheque. His latest accolade is a £460,000 lottery-funded commission for Forest Pitch, a "sped up, miniature, private Olympics" set to take place in a forest clearing. It is Scotland’s sole artistic contribution to Artists Taking The Lead, the name given to 2012’s Cultural Olympiad, but Craig is taking it all in his stride. Speaking to The Journal in the Wee Red Lounge at ECA is all just another day at the office for a man becoming increasingly ubiquitous on Scotland’s cultural scene.

Q. If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?
A. Yeah.
Q. Can you explain Forest Pitch?
A. The idea is that there will be one day of events on the pitch. And that there will be two games: one between male amateurs and one between female amateurs. There will be possibly up to 1,000 people attending; from people who have been involved, the players and their families and the local community. Hopefully a certain ratio of the tickets will be available to people who just want to go.
Q. You've received criticism from journalists about the cost. How do you respond to that?
A. Well, a certain amount of money has been put aside by the different arts councils in Britain for a specific project. It's a lot of money, and I can understand people who don't know or haven't bothered to find out the full extent of how it works saying 'what a waste of money' and thinking I’m going to be a half-millionaire or something. But, I think it's an exciting idea to have these massive projects all over Britain and for somebody like myself to just decide that I’m going to try and apply for it through an open submission; that £460,000 was there to be had by somebody.
Q. The present issues facing society are economic and environmental; can there be a narrow reading of Forest Pitch, with its cost and cutting down of trees?
A. I mean, it's unfortunate; it would be a lot of money at any time but because the situation now is worse, it's a waste to a lot of people but I think these things as issues are exciting, and if people want to talk about the environment and how what I'm trying to do might effect it, it may give people a better understanding of how what you do to the landscape may affect it positively and negatively.
Q. From the use of heraldry to the sounds of alarm clocks in your music, there is a lot of ritual. How do you respond to that?
A. That's quite interesting actually. I hadn't thought of ritual being something in my work before. I'm quite interested in trying to assert a certain amount of respect for something that might otherwise be left and forgotten. It's not ritual in itself. I have quite a strong sense of time running out. I am going to die, and between this point and me dying, I want to try and do stuff. So the death of other things interests me because I can empathize with it in a sense. I can see it has, he has, she has died, and I'm going to go through that and I feel for that thing or that person.
Q. In terms of death, Auden talks about opportunity being presented to the artist through trauma or loss: is your awareness of death your opportunity?
A. Yeah, I think so. I wouldn't say that I personally have gone through any more trauma than anyone else, but I am perhaps, particularly, overly sensitive, so I became very aware that I was going to die at some point. I think that's constantly at the back of my mind when I do things and when I feel that I have too many things to do and time's going to run out at some point. That awareness has created an opportunity for creativity.
Q. Forest Pitch is inspired by a childhood memory, while the Olympics evolved from ancient procession and will have the attention of the world. Is Forest Pitch a parallel?
A. Yeah. I have looked at it in many ways as being a miniature of the Olympics in a lot of ways. The history and mythology of the Olympics has been replaced with my own memories and experiences. The amount of construction has been reduced and the speed at which the usefulness of that specific site for the Olympics or the game has been sped up. Almost as soon as the game is finished, the pitch has a new life. Whereas the Olympics is so many millions of Pounds, so many people, so much reconstruction and things like that. I kind of wanted to make a mini-one that was more personal to me but could also include people who wouldn't have the opportunity to be involved in something like that. It's a sped-up, miniature, private Olympics.
Q. So can I ask the question again, if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?
A. Yeah, definitely. And we'll be there watching it as they come down.