In reply to gilliesp:
> I agree. The word wilderness is relative... Humans have an innate need to daub pictures on walls and make works of art wherever the go.
'Need', no. Desire, yes.
Desires are often selfish.
The tag 'wilderness' may be relative. The fact that the majority of visitors drive as close as they can to this 'wilderness' does not detract from the reason they undertake their journeys.
An entry in the bothy book is sufficient to mark the passage of most visitors.
I am willing to stand corrected, but it seems to me that most man made structures in remote areas, if they are seen as picturesque or aesthetically pleasing, derive part of that quality from stories, real or imagined, to do with their construction.
Generally they are embedded in the link that local communities, workers, and proprietors had with that land. The structures are often utilitarian but not always (e.g. Glenfinnan).
The Fisherfield impositions serve no useful purpose. To paraphrase the man on 'Grand Designs', they have no integrity.
Where I live, in the slate quarrying district of N.Wales, there are structures in the landscape called 'rock cannon' (see wikipedia).
On one level, these structures made by the quarrymen of the 19th century seem like a reworking of the ancient cup and ring markings. Whatever the story, the construction required an in depth understanding of the geology by people who occupied the land over many years. There is a huge chunk of social history behind them.
The Fisherfield stuff, if it says anything, it is probably ' I got a grant to do this' .
Underlying them is the crassness of their installation.
Hmmm, thousands of years of land use have shaped this spot of land. In today's crowded world, such a place is a rare commodity. People come from across the globe to experience it. Apart from internet trip reports and path erosion you wouldn't know they'd been. But I'm going to change all that... I'll start by fecking up a shoreline that's been formed over millenia. Right, what else can I impose?