An analysis of the backbone of the coastal defenses of the Maritime Department of Northern Spain in the eighteenth century. Illusory impregnability

The election of Ferrol as the headquarters of the Maritime Department of Northern Spain in 1726 converted this small fishing village in Galicia into mainland Spain’s principal arsenal and shipyard. In order to guarantee its protection, a permanent concern for the Crown, engineers and seamen performed surveys and studies of the Galician coast with a view to establishing a system of coastal defenses. This was then followed by the construction of castles and batteries, in addition to watchtowers from which to monitor the coast and keep Ferrol informed of any developments by means of beacons. In the following pages, this system will be examined in order to determine its quality, efficiency, and state of repair during the eighteenth century, thus revealing the huge disparity between theory and practice. For, as with the rest of the Galician coast, Ferrol was continuously at the mercy of Spain’s enemies throughout the century.

Lois Patiño

This is the first extensive, career interview in English with Lois Patiño. After several years making films and installation work about mental illness and the moment of death, Patiño found his métier as a landscape artist, focusing on landscape as a spiritual entity. Patiño works in the tradition of place-oriented cinema pioneered by Larry Gottheim, James Benning, Sharon Lockhart, and Peter Hutton. In Patiño’s films human beings are seen as parts of the landscape, sometimes in a more literal sense, as in Costa da morte (2013) his feature about the Galician coast of Spain, and at other times in more mythic senses. Patiño’s films are stunningly beautiful and demonstrate that digital filmmaking can compete with even the most visually remarkable celluloid works.