By pure chance our visit to Castle Howard coincided with the duration of an art installation in the Temple of the Four Winds. By artist Es Devlin and appropriately entitled the Library of the Four Winds, it took up most of the space in the tall folly to the west of the house. A high arched bookcase, reaching up into the domed roof, rotated on a reflective black revolving plinth, which provided a disconcerting perspective looking down. The bookshelves were stacked with paperbacks inserted with their spines innermost so showing only page edges to the world. Projected onto the revolving structure was text, extracts from some of the books weaved into a stream of consciousness, the words matched by a soundtrack that voiced them.
Impressive, but the words were hard to make out on the
moving uneven surface, and the voice was ethereally quiet and underlaid by a
droning dirge. So, while odd words, phrases, and the drift of meaning could be
made out, I was left wanting a
transcript, which was not available.
[Authentic selfie - 20 August 2026]
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