Here are some notes from Place (Dean, Millar) – Room Six: Territories’, pages 146 & 147
‘Gers’ and other textile-based shelters/homes, such as Wigwams, Tipis and Tents
Mette Tronvoll’s 2004 Mongolia project consists of images of landscapes, portraits of the nomads outdoors and inside their gers and portraits of the gers in the landscape.
A ger is a round, white tent and is the home of the nomads living on the steppes in Mongolia.
For almost 3000 years the shapes and function of the ger has remained the same
Also known as a Jurte – originally a Turkish name, also used in the Russian and the German language
‘I travelled for six weeks in a rented Jeep through Mongolia, from the Gobi Desert in the South to the Khenti region in the North, the area where Genghis Khan was born 800 years ago’ – Mette Tronvoll
‘The nomad moves, but he is always at the centre of the desert, and the centre of the steppe’ – Gaston Bachelard
Yurts, Gers, Tipis are used by Nomadic cultures because they are lightweight, portable and comfortable in harsh conditions, usually made of wood and textiles. They are simple in structure but often decorated. These types of shelters are now popular at festivals like Glastonbury.
Signified – the concept it refers to or represents
Example: A Crown is a signifier of royalty, power or heritage (the signified). Signs operate within systems of other signs, the crown may be shown in contrast to other signs representing headwear & relative associated status.
Magritte’s ‘Ceci n’est pas une pomme’ (This is not an apple) from The Treacher of Images
Presents a contradiction between visual and written meanings
Image of apple signifies presence but text signifies non-existence
The painting consists of two contradictory and arbitrary signs from different linguistic structures (visual and written)
Both present concept of an apple (one present, one absent)
Research point
I was asked to refer to ‘Room Three: Fantastic’ (pages 80-82) of Place by Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar and to consider the sign of a crop circle.
Cereologist – Someone who studies crop circles, often believing they are not man-made or formed by other terrestrial processes.
Signifer – flattened crop in designed pattern
Signified – relationship between the land, unknown and possibly unknowable forces
most found in Wiltshire – traditionally home of English paganism & New Age mythology
more recently used within advertising and the manufacture of large scale designs to promote corporate brands – represent a form of supra-individual power (one wedded to capital rather than the occult)
British artist, Rod Dickinson – makes crop circles with friends and other artists, since 1999. He works at nights with simple materials – surveyor tape measure, wooden boards and rope to produce complex patterns in Southern England.
Looking further into the essay: Place – The First of All Things by Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar, here is a list of some artists referenced and a few pieces that I found links to the theme and concept of place.
Vitaly Komar
Alex Melmaid
Jacob van Ruisdael
William Blake
Caspar David Friedrich
John Constable
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Douglas Huebler
Robert Smithson
Dan Graham
Joachim Koester
Doug Aitken
Jane and Louise Wilson
Roni Horn
Alexander and Susan Maris
Graham Gussin
Mette Tronvoll
Marine Hugonnier
Guy Moreton
Wave Rock, Ian Hamilton Finlay, 1966
Finlay was often inspired by the sea, boats and fishing and this piece represents the movement of waves crashing against rocks. In a way, this provides a sense of place by allowing the viewer to imagine this process and bring it to life in their mind.
Riot, Doug Aitken, 2011
Here is an example of how we have certain views of particular places. This piece depicts an image of a beach within an LED light box. We associate a beach landscape with being calm and peaceful, yet the word riot juxtaposes this with connotations of chaos and often violence.
Thicket No. 1, Roni Horn, 1989-90
This piece is all about perspective, from the top you simply see black lines, however, from one side you can read ‘to see a landscape as it is’ and the other reads ‘when I am not there’. This promotes the idea of looking at things differently, something that can help you understand place better.
I read over ‘Place – The First of All Things’, an essay by Tacita Dean and Jeremy Millar in full and then went a read back certain bits that stuck out to me in more detail. Here are some notes I made on the piece:
Place is difficult to locate or define and has been throughout time
It’s not just simply geographical
Importance recognised in anthropology, architecture, ecology, feminism, globalism, literature, mathematics, music, psychology, urbanism and art
We would be lost without it
Often used as a synonym for ‘space’, ‘location’, ‘site’ or ‘territory’
‘Place is to landscape as identity is to portraiture
Term landscape didn’t exist in Dark and Middle Ages, typical features of landscape were but weren’t looked at collectively
Landschaft – Landschap – Landskip (cultivated land surrounded by unknown wilderness, eventually recognised as views of rural scenery)
Does landscape exist if there is no one to look at it?
Like time, we are familiar with place and engage with it every day but don’t understand it properly
‘A place for everything and everything in it’s place’ – Samuel Smiles and ‘a sense of place’
‘When space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place’ – Yi-Fu Tuan
Place can be personal and interpreted differently to each person (like art)
‘places remember events’ – James Joyce
Historical events often known by place they occurred (Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Auschwitz)
Many places within a place, many regions – each with own identities
If something is in a certain place it ‘occupies such a position relative to other things’ – Descartes
Reduced to position/site or simple location
We have a strong sense of place and a strong sense of belonging (place as a concept)
Common to fight to protect places of importance (subjective)
Art and place hold similarities – both down to interpretation, much more to it than what we first see, many types of art and place
both need ‘a little time, a little patience, and no little sensitivity’ to be aware and open to what else it is
This was a complex essay that covers various aspects of the concept of place but I definitely think it’s a useful piece of text as an introductory to the subject. There are certainly aspects that I agree with – for instance I do think it’s true that when somewhere becomes familiar to us and hold memories we regard it as place. Also, I think it definitely links to both time and art, just with our struggle to define them as concepts alone. I’ll most likely come back to this essay throughout this section as I’m sure it will prove useful to the exploration into place and with academic texts like these, you will often read them multiple times and focus on different aspects.
Screenshots from Still Life, Sam Taylor-Wood, 2001 – pinterest.com
Initial Reaction
Sam Taylor Wood’s Still Life is a video time-lapse that depicts a bowl of fruit decaying. My first reaction to it was mostly one of disgust since mouldy fruit isn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing, however, it’s also weirdly fascinating. I do wonder where this was done as it’s not something you’d want in your house that’s for sure.
Media and Form
Fruit is often used in art, though this is a different take on it – I think the fact that she chose something natural reflects how we can’t control the decaying process and in a way, this also links to the inevitability of death.
Still life art is usually a stationary piece of art like a painting and this could have been done in a series of paintings too. The decision to do this as a time-lapse in video form allows you to physically see the decaying process and how time affects it, which I feel prompts more of a reaction.
Context
This piece resembles a Vanitas painting since fruit is a common symbol for the pleasures of life. Similarly, the decaying process links to the theme of death and mortality that is significant to Vanitas art. The juxtaposition against the natural fruit decaying and the plastic pen remaining in good condition is a reflection of the environment and world. These artificial items will be the things left when we are no longer here since no living thing can escape the inevitability of death.
Taylor-Wood also has another time-lapse piece that shows a dead hare that gradually decomposes alongside a peach. Again, this shows how fleeting biological life is and forces the idea of death on us. I immediately think of Damien Hirst’s work with regards to this theme – the shark in particular as he also puts death on show like this and forces the audience to contemplate the control it has over living things. Tacita Dean is another artist that physically shows the passing of time with the use of nature (mosquito, birds, baby crying).
Time
This piece links to time since the choice to use video means you can literally see time passing and how it causes the fruit to decay. In a wider sense, this conveys how short biological life actually is in regards to how much time passes within the universe.
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I wasn’t overwhelmed by the time-lapse, without knowing it’s a ‘piece of art’, I wouldn’t call it one – a similar reaction I had to Hirst’s shark. I think Taylor-Wood wants us to contemplate complex themes like death, decay and time, rather than being as direct with a dead shark she uses something delicious and aesthetic. You can’t help but watch the decaying and essentially death of the fruit alongside the mould taking over and coming to life, showing the effects of time and how living things can’t withstand it. The pen seems random but when watching the video it’s condition doesn’t deteriorate and you face the reality of our environment and how these artificial objects that we control are what will remain when time and death takes control of us.
It’s interesting to see how the fruits decay at various rates which is much like other forms of biological life. As humans, we all meet an inevitable death but have no control over the time it takes. Sometimes you see people’s health deteriorate (like the fruit) but often this isn’t the case and we’re reminded of our mortality and how fleeting life can be.
With contextual information, I do have a better understanding of it. By choosing to declare this as a work of art, it makes you stop and question why and what it’s representing which is powerful and the purpose of all art – the artist wants you to experience and have a reaction to something, what that is, depends on the viewer.
Lorna Cole: Creative Arts 