The concept of solid and void in the described city attempts to portray consciousness as the creator of space, in which one’s perception gives form to a moment and thus forms “solids”, whereas “voids” are the untouchable and unseen.

Space is formed by senses and perception, and the space that is formed through this manner is unrestricted by corners, edges or time. There are no physical boundaries to the city formed by senses, and to each the perceived is their own. 

I am a traveller finding myself in a city brand new to me. To me, for a very brief glimpse, at a very certain moment, something happens, and sets the city alive.

It might be when the pigeons set flight upon the plane of George Square, when the little boy laughs, so delighted by the sight, and the people around, standing or sitting, smiles while watching on.

It might be when the smell of hot coffee and warm bread wafts through the air, when the elderly man sitting at the table beside mine flips through a page on his newspaper.

It might be when the musician plays the bagpipes on Argyle Street, when the group of laughing teenagers stop by for a listen, and the hassled mother looking after her rowdy children slows down her steps at the sound of music.

It might be the way the contour of the architecture frames the blue sky, or the way the unpredictable rain falls when I look out of Waterstones bookstore, the sunlight making it look like feathers of snow.

Or it might be, when the random stranger turns around and talks to me, and we part on High Street as the traffic light turns green.

In balance there is the voids, all that I am not aware of, all there is for me to learn, some hidden and locked away by the expanses of wasted land, some locked away in the old buildings that the people can no longer enter, some lost due to the flow of time, some far in the future waiting to be created.

There are roads yet for me to travel in Glasgow, waiting for a spark from someone or something, for its turn to exist. 

And throughout history and time we continue to observe as the pulse of Glasgow grows, dies, and come to life. I imagine that it would be a beautiful sight, as if stars glimmering upon a night sky. Each of the people make up a part of the city, individual as they are, they become beacons to one another, and the flame is passed from candle to candle.