Category Archives: Landscape

Rachel Reupke, “Infrastructure” 2002

video still of road in mountains

Rachel Reupke

video stills of road in mountains

Rachel Reupke

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“Rachel Reupke’s video ‘Infrastructure’ sees a lone heroine, and a pair of heroic runaways, struggle on foot through what initially appears as a militarized landscape. The figures seem to desperately flee from the scene towards an airport, past a railway, next to a serpentine motorway that nestles inside a forested Alpine landscape, and a ferry port.

Reupke’s early work is structured as a journey in four parts, or four miniature journeys. The work is set in an Alpine landscape, in which the four sections reflect the four modern means of escape. Each landscape seems to insist on our need for speed and efficiency. But these modern means of travel avoid the need to experience the world directly.

The miniature human figures are contrasted to both the sublime landscape – a walker’s paradise – and to the sublime technological achievements of keeping humanity in perpetual motion by road, rail, sea, and air. In contrast to the commanding views experienced by, say, Caspar David Friedrich’s lone heroes, the figures here are pedestrians who seem fragile or lost. Their stories are all but lost amongst an endless flow of traffic.

We might speculatively imagine that, given their evident desperation, these figures are wilful escapees from the modern world and its obsession with vehicles. Have they been prisoners of technology and unilaterally elected to flee in order to return to feeling the weight of earth underfoot? Reupke leaves it to us to decide which has more romance: the lure of sleek vehicles skimming over seas and skies, or locomotion conducted solely through the power of our own muscles.”

Brian Thompson, various sculptures 2012

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“Brian Thompson has described his work as being “topographical in nature” – concerned with how places become known, understood, named and described. He is interested in the different ways in which we measure, describe and figure the land, and how his experience of walking through a landscape can be re-imagined through sculpture.

He uses a mixture of traditional craft skills allied to new technologies. His works ask us to imagine the formation of landscapes over a long timescale and explores the two- and three-dimensional forms and shapes associated with (amongst other things) walking through a site in order to map it and to unearth its history.

Thompson’s walks, recorded through GPS tracking or tracings from maps and aerial photographs, become the ‘line’ of the walks and the starting point of the sculptures and prints. These ‘lines’ are cut usually by hand and often in wood, with each layer becoming the template for the succeeding layer. Through small increments of size the sculptures evolve, tapering downward from top to base, incorporating errors and corrections; marking layer upon layer, in geological fashion, the history of their making. Sometimes these become ‘patterns’ for fabrication in materials and colors directly relevant to the location or simply have ‘come to mind’ when he makes the walks.

The work seen here combines forms alluding to archaeological and geological understandings of place, and to the imagined objectivity provided by Ordnance Survey mapping. Thompson notes of his three-dimensional works that “the sculptures serve as diaries, records, memories, souvenirs or trophies – celebrations of experiences of particular places”.”

Carey Young “Body Techniques (after A Line in Ireland, Richard Long, 1974)” 2007

woman walking on materials in the desert

Carey Young

“Carey Young‘s series ‘Body Techniques‘ recreates several works from the canon of performance art from the late 1960s and early 1970s, including pieces by Richard Long, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, and Valie Export. Many of these earlier-generation artists undertook their projects by walking into a public space to create a kind of experiment (or, in Nauman’s case, conducting an experiment by walking around the space of his studio).

Long’s ‘Line in Ireland’ offers the viewer a point of entry into a quintessentially romantic wilderness, free of people. The art of the late 1960s often negated the idea of the art object as a luxury commodity by focusing on performance or the artist’s own body, on process rather than product, or on using natural or basic materials. Carey’s image inverts such binary terms, with some ironies.

Her work, like Long’s, shows a place that seems uninhabited. Yet Young’s work also inverts the attitudes associating walking with unfettered liberty, heroic (male) creativity and boundless natural landscapes. She suggests that such concepts are escapist fictions: her uniform of a business suit implies that the world we live in is one where art, money, and big business are more entangled than ever. Creativity and capital are unavoidably intertwined, rather than separable: we cannot ‘walk out’ of either. In her work, no space – conceptual or physical – escapes the process of commodification. ‘Body Techniques’ is accordingly set in Dubai: a place seemingly emblematic of twenty-first century capitalism where almost nobody travels by foot. The gargantuan tower blocks in the background, created with petro-dollars, ensure that walking, and the pleasures and chance encounters of perambulation, have been abolished.” [credit]

“Body Techniques (2007) is a series of eight photographs that considers the interrelationships between art and globalized commerce. The title of the series refers to a phrase originally coined by Marcel Mauss and developed by Pierre Bourdieu as habitus, which describes how an operational context or behavior can be affected by institutions or ideologies.

Set in the vast building sites of Dubai and Sharjah’s futuristic corporate landscape, we see Carey Young alone and dressed in a suit, her actions reworking some of the classic performance-based works associated with Conceptual art, including pieces by Richard Long, Bruce Nauman, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Dennis Oppenheim and Valie Export.  In thus recasting earlier works centered around the physicality of the body in time and space, it is ambiguous whether the artist is molding herself to the landscape or exploring ways of resisting it.

The locations for Young’s photographs are a series of empty, uninhabited ‘new build’ developments reminiscent of Las Vegas, rising from the desert’s tabula rasa aimed at bombastic luxury and spectacle and intended for thousands of incoming Western corporate executives. The architectural style is consummate ‘global village’ – a business theme park composed of swathes of multinational HQs and Italianate McVillas. These non-places could eventually compose an entire world-view: a hyperreal, corporate vision of utopia. Half-constructed backdrops are used as a ‘stage’ for the action, with the artist appearing as one tiny individual, overwhelmed, dislocated from, or even belittled by the corporate surroundings, while dressed up to play a role within it.” [credit]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Peter Vandyke © National Portrait Gallery, London

Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Peter Vandyke © National Portrait Gallery, London

Information source from the British Library: “One of the most influential and controversial figures of the Romantic period, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772 the son of a clergyman in Ottery St Mary, Devon. His career as a poet and writer was established after he befriended Wordsworth and together they produced Lyrical Ballads in 1798.

For most of his adult life he suffered through addiction to laudanum and opium. His most famous works – ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner‘, ‘Kubla Khan‘ and ‘Christabel’ – all featured supernatural themes and exotic images, perhaps affected by his use of the drugs.

Coleridge was as much a prose and theoretical writer as he was a poet, as revealed in his major work, Biographia Literaria, published in 1817. Coleridge’s legacy has been tainted with accusations of plagiarism, both in his poetry and critical essays. He also had a propensity for leaving projects unfinished and suffered from large debts. But, such was the originality of his early work, that his place and influence within the Romantic period is undisputed.

Further information about the life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge can be found via the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.”

Sketch map & notes of the Lake District from Notebook (Vol II)

Sketch map & notes of the Lake District from Notebook (Vol II)

“In August 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge set out from his home at Greta Hall, Keswick, for a week’s solo walking-tour in the nearby Cumbrian mountains, a feat that required both daring and physical stamina. His circular route took in Scafell, England’s highest mountain. He kept detailed notes of the landscape around him, drawing rough sketches and maps as well as describing in words what he saw. These notes and sketches are in Notebook No 2, one of 64 notebooks Coleridge kept between 1794 and his death. 55 of them are now in the British Library. Together, these form a fascinating record of his random thoughts and observations, with drafts of poems and extracts from the books he was reading.” (credit)

More resources:

Blog post analyzing Coleridge’s walk(s), including maps, and photographs from present day.

Wiki post analyzing Coleridge’s friendship with Wordsworth, includes further links

Walkabout

desert

A landscape from the edge of the Simpson Desert / Photo credit

Historically speaking, the walkabout is a rite of passage in which young (adolescent) Aboriginal Australians undertake a journey that will help “transform” them into adults. The journey is usually made between the ages of 10 and 16. During this journey which can last for up to six months, the individual is required to live and survive all alone in the wilderness.

This is not an easy thing to do, especially not for teenagers. That is why only those who have proven themselves mentally and physically ready are allowed to proceed with the walkabout. Only the elders of the group decide whether it is time or not for the child to do it.

The children are not completely unprepared for the journey. During the years before the walkabout, the elders instruct them and give them advice about the ceremony and adult life in general; they have been passed the “secrets” of the tribe, the knowledge about their world.

Those who are initiated in the walkabout are also decorated with body paint and ornaments. Sometimes they are marked with a permanent symbol on their bodies. In some cases, a tooth is removed from the mouth, or the nose or ears of the initiated are pierced. Traditional walkabout clothes include only a simple loin cloth and nothing more.

During a walkabout, a young person can sometimes travel a distance of over a 1,000 miles. In order to survive this long hike, the participant in the walkabout must be able to make their own shelter and must be capable of procuring food and water for themselves.

That means he needs to hunt, catch fish, and also recognize and utilize edible and healing plants. The initiated youngster must learn to identify plants such as bush tomatoes, Illawarra plums, quandongs, lilly-pillies, Muntari berries, wattle seeds, Kakadu plums, and bunya nuts.

Besides the obvious goal of the walkabout – to walk and survive, the initiate also has to devote his time to thinking and discovering himself.

The teenager needs to understand the concept of bravery and to get in touch with his spiritual guides. While moving across the land, the initiate sings so-called “songlines” – ancestral songs that serve as “spoken maps” that help him find his way. In the lack of modern instruments such as a compass or radio, it is believed that the young person is guided by some spiritual power.

In its essence, this important aboriginal ritual is the ultimate survival test that a young person should pass in order to enter adulthood. The person doing the walkabout should prove to the elders that he is capable of surviving the harsh environment of his native land.

The walkabout is also an excellent time for self-evaluation and reflection. One can say that the walkabout is both a journey across the land and a journey of the mind. (Credit)

Menhirs

menhir

Large menhir located between Millstreet and Ballinagree, County Cork, Ireland

Walking as an artistic practice has a long history. Scholars such as Francesco Careri trace this history back to early nomads and wanders. Careri calls out large stone markers called menhirs, erected in the Neolithic landscape throughout Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Western Europe. The menhirs have widely debated possible purposes connected to walking, such as “sacred paths, initiations, processions, games, contests, dances, theatrical and musical performances.” Careri specifically calls out menhirs as early architectural objects used by nomadic hunters and shepherds – people who relied heavily on walking. Art historians can spot material and scale-related connections between these rocky menhirs and Land Art walking practices of the 20th century.

 

SOURCE: Careri, Francesco. Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice. Culicidae Architectural Press: 2017.

Dorothy and William Wordsworth

a handwritten page

Dorothy Wordsworth’s “ambitious walking practices established women’s walking as an accepted practice in the Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey families [and beyond]. Robert Southey, for instance, describes the delight which his daughter, Edith, and niece, Sara Coleridge, took from a young age in scrambling about on the fells around their home in Keswick, and Sara herself – not without some self-mockery – labelled them ‘expert mountaineers’.” …

“Wordsworth’s account of the ascent of Scafell Pike was later included – without attribution, possibly at her own request – in William Wordsworth’s Guide to the District of the Lakes. The implication was that it was William who had undertaken the ascent. As a result, Wordsworth’s legacy in climbing Scafell Pike [on October 7, 1818] is blurred into William’s, and many of the people who followed in her footsteps were unaware that it was her they were emulating.”

“The letter in which Wordsworth describes this feat draws attention to different ways of reading the mountain. In one moment she describes a landscape that stretches out for miles from the summit on which she stands. But at the next, when she looks down, Dorothy realises that though the summit seemed lifeless at first glance, in fact beauty could be found clinging to the rocks if one looked closely enough:

I ought to have described the last part of our ascent to Scaw Fell pike. There, not a blade of grass was to be seen – hardly a cushion of moss, & that was parched & brown; and only growing rarely between the huge blocks & stones which cover the summit & lie in heaps all round to a great distance, like Skeletons or bones of the earth not wanted at the creation, & here left to be covered with never-dying lichens, which the Clouds and dews nourish; and adorn with colours of the most vivid and exquisite beauty, and endless in variety (quoted with permission from The Wordsworth Trust).

In focusing on these details close to hand, rather than rhapsodising on the distant prospect, Dorothy anticipates writers like Nan Shepherd: these women propose an alternative to more familiar accounts of mountaineering exploits that emphasise a victory over a feminised Mother Nature when the climber conquers the summit. Instead, Dorothy recognises that paying close attention reveals unexpected features even on a barren mountaintop.”

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Samuel Rowlett, Landscape Painting in the Expanded Field (2012)

Teri Rueb, Times Beach (2017)

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two panoramic landscapes

Teri Rueb, Times Beach (2017)

“Times Beach Nature Preserve is located in the Buffalo Outer Harbor, near the mouth of the Buffalo River.  Times Beach responds to the varied histories and futures of this unusual site, from its broad link to the ecosystem of the Great Lakes, to the role of these waters as a vital resource for Native Americans who have lived along the shores of Lake Erie and the Niagara River for thousands of years.  With waves of European settlement, the harbor became built up and eventually what was once open water became an urban beach.  Irish and Portuguese immigrants created a shantytown on “The Beach” in the mid-19th Century, but residents were ultimately evicted in the early years of the twentieth century due to increasing industry.  With the rise of the Parks movement and demand for public spaces for leisure, “Times Beach” was designated a recreational beach in 1931 and named after the newspaper that promoted this new use.   However, the beach was soon closed due to industrial contamination.  Through the mid-twentieth century the site was used as a contained disposal facility for river and harbor dredge.  Today it has been restored as a nature preserve that supports a remarkable number of migrating birds and butterflies, as well as wild urban plants and animals.  Times Beach is a sound walk that weaves together sonic traces of these different moments, building a palimpsest of voices, field recordings and resonances that evoke the various temporalities and textures of the site.  Delivered as a free downloadable app for iPhone and Android devices, visitors are invited to wear headphones and discover an aural overlay that responds to their movement as they wander the boardwalks, seawalls and blinds of the preserve.”

 

Carmen Papalia, Blind Field Shuttle (2010-)

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a blind man leading a row of walkers

Carmen Papalia, Blind Field Shuttle (2017)

In 2010–in response to the failures that I experienced as a recipient of disability support services–I started resisting support options that promoted ablest concepts of normalcy and self-identified as a nonvisual learner. The choice was in line with an effort to distance myself from marginalizing language like “blind” and “visually impaired”, and helped me realize the position that I occupied as a liberatory space. Using my nonvisual senses as a primary way of knowing the world lead to Blind Field Shuttle (BFS), an experience in which groups of up to 90 people line up behind me, link arms, and shut their eyes for the duration of a roughly hour-long walk through cities and rural landscapes.

Conducting BFS helped me exercise my nonvisual senses and find a community with whom I could develop a critical methodology for engaging nonvisual space. By 2012 I considered BFS a form of practice-based research and produced a series of nonvisual tours that aimed to uncover the unseen bodies of knowledge in fields influenced by visual primacy. One engagement–at the Guggenheim in 2013–was a touch tour that set a precedent for me to make further work about the potential for critical haptic engagement to become a viable practice within contemporary art and criticism.

Now I perform BFS as a way to demonstrate my proposal for Open Access (2015), a relational model for accessibility that centers considerations of agency and power in relation to the social, cultural, and political conditions in a given context. When performed as part of the Open Access movement building campaign–an ongoing tour across the US, UK, and Canada–BFS establishes an organizational space where participants model trust and mutual support while practicing new, process-based systems of access together.

sensory map

Blind Field Shuttle has been initiated in Portland OR in 2010, Blind Field Shuttle has taken place in: London UK, Sligo IE, Vancouver BC, Surrey BC, Kelowna BC, Ottawa ON, Regina SK, Oakland CA, San Francisco CA, Los Angeles CA, New York NY, Hudson NY, Beach Lake PA, Haverford PA, Greensboro NC, Louisville KY, Boston MA, Cambridge MA, Chattanooga TN, Ann Arbor MI, and Baltimore MD.)

The Blind Field Shuttle Walking Tour by Carmen Papalia on Vimeo
Practicing Accessibility by Jacqueline Bell in Field Journal
Creative Conciliations by David Garneau on Conciliations.ca
Blind Orientations: Walking, Stumbling, and turning Towards New Points of View by Amanda Cachia in catalog for “Long Time No See” by Carmen Papalia
Heightened Perception by Jennifer Van Evra in Forecast Public Art