A while ago I posted some first thoughts on personal psychogeography, including the germ of a project involving photography and writing. I’m grateful to comments (from Martha and Lucy) for pointing me to significant related work by Richard Long, Hamish Fulton (beware annoying Flash), and Francesco Careri. These have been helpful to me in formulating my own project, which is, in fact, very different. I am approaching the idea — call it a psychogeographic study — primarily as a photographer, i.e. one interested in making photographs. In contrast, Long and Fulton (and the architect Careri, from the little I know) consider their photographs quite secondary: the walk itself is the artwork.
The photos in Long’s A Walk Across England serve to document sights along his way. They are often of the road or path itself, or of a bird dropping, rain puddle, or dead animal on it. There are also views of scenery alongside: an expanse of fields or stretch of river, or a more intimate close-up of a flower, a sign, a building detail, or his tent. Though none in isolation seems much more than a snapshot, the photographer’s eye is consistent, and together the pictures tell a story of a fine ramble told with a sense of humor. Context or coloring is added with uppercase captions such as LISTENING TO THE SCREECH OF YOUNG BUZZARDS IN THE MORNING, CROSSING A STATION BRIDGE, or JUICY APPLES. Long’s practice also involves making simple sculptures of materials at hand along the way, such as lines of stones, which I tend to like (though I wish they didn’t have to “inhabit the rich territory between two ideological positions”).
Fulton, to judge from his Walking Journey, uses photography quite differently. He normally chooses one image to stand for an entire walk, printed with superimposed uppercase text (again). Typical is “A 21 DAY WANDERING WALK 20 NIGHTS CAMPING IN THE BEARTOOTH MOUNTAINS OF MONTANA ENDING WITH THE SEPTEMBER FULL MOON 1997,” which runs across the top of a view down a stony valley of lakes and streams, mountains rising behind, and a large foreground rock with the word “BOULDER” in a very large font. Personally, I find Fulton’s photographs much more evocative than Long’s, but with only one per walk the net effect is not greater. Fulton also does gallery wall installations, often with text, to represent his activities.
Though I’ve not seen Careri’s book, Walkscapes: Walking as an aesthetic practice, he is clearly more rigorously postmodern about it all. Translating from elsewhere, he writes
Modifying the sense of the space traversed, walking becomes the first aesthetic act of man, who, penetrating into chaos, constructs his own order, situates objects.
I have to say that I find the concept of a walk as a work of art very appealing. But what that conjures up for me appears to have little relation to what Long, Fulton, and Careri do. As far as I can tell (or guess) from their actual productions (photos, installations, a few words), it all seems quite ordinary. Perhaps the point is that an “ordinary” walk is a work of art, but if so the term seems to have lost much of its meaning. I am quite willing to grant that a walk can be an extraordinary, creative experience. But I do think it depends on the state of mind of the walker, and the artist has to convince me the term is deserved. I believe that’s possible, but it doesn’t happen for me in the work I’ve seen so far. (Incidentally, I’m not the only one unimpressed: a New York Times review called a 2000 Fulton show “too formulaic to stir the imagination.”)
Am I being too hard on these guys? Am I just not getting it? Or do I just need to see some actual installations in order to better appreciate the work? Help me out here!
From your description
it appears that these three guys are more guru than artist. They try to remind us, more or less successfully, of the pleasures of walking – fragrance of air; sensitivity to changes in incline; time to notice little things; primal, symmetrical movement of the body to straighten out kinks introduced by holding a cell phone to the ear.
Am I being too hard on these guys? Steve, so far, you have made the impression of being a conciliatory person.
Looking at picture one, first broadly viewing and then scrutinizing it for trails gave different impressions. At first, there was a large X laid out in the landscape and us elves (weird, of course) were streaming towards the clump of trees in the center to discuss the frailty of a people allowing themselves to be entertained by expensive technology blowing out political soap bubbles.
Looking more closely, noticing the spiraling paths around the stands of trees toward the lower right lightened this first impression. There must be some sensible creatures around that still engage in simple pleasures like cross country skiing?
What a marvelous picture. The reddish hues help define the wealth of angles in the landscape.
The second photo shows where normal people attempted to reside. No coming and going here. Homesteading on flat land, appealing to a farmer. Even the horizontal clouds in the sky resonate with this narrow stripe (or strip?) of life.
Birgit,
The trails you noticed in the first picture are actually made by animals (elk, deer, bison, pronghorn, and wild horses) passing through this part of Teddy Roosevelt National Park (in North Dakota near the Montana border). I watched a coyote walking along the main trail from right to left, then later going through the trees toward the upper left. I did get pictures of the horses later, but this one is my favorite from that morning because of those interesting traces on the land.
The second picture happens to be on the Crow reservation, but similar abandoned buildings are found everywhere across the state.
I like the trails even more now that I know they are made by animals.
Steve,
The first photo made me a wee bit teary-eyed. That’s _my_ landscape, only done much better. It resonates with me and the design elements work it to perfection.
Someone said (about Hopper’s work) “Places that are both empty and haunted.” Both these photos evoke that for me, although the first is a personal haunting and the second perhaps a cultural/social one.
And re: the concepts. Perhaps sometimes, I think the public purveyors and visualizers of a concept are a trifle banal. Their idea may be to bring back into view things we tend to forget, like the fact that we see most landscape from a metal capsule (I’m merely paraphrasing Birgit about fragrance of air, etc). So they remind us of what we already have seen. It will take extensions of the idea to move it beyond the banal — or what we labeled “truisms” back in the dark ages. But don’t ask me how to provide the extensions.
I am thinking of a comment D. made about some downspouts seen in the photo of a building, downspouts that I failed to paint. Now there is the kind of extension that I seek (even if I sometimes don’t see it).
I was reminded today, as I painted along one of the main boulevards on Portland’s east side and got all the usual surprised looks and comments, that people don’t paint in their neighborhoods, at least not sitting on a stool on the sidewalk. They drive to the scenic view or use photos. So my presence was “blessed” by a passing spiritual type and “made my day” for another more earthy sort. The canvas was even declared “sweet” by a young man who sneaked around to take a look.
I fear in this role I am like the concept — a reminder to people of the art of the street — rather than like the artist — the rendering of new views of old experiences. But maybe in time…..
June,
I agree that the ability to bring an idea to our attention is very important, and that may well be better accomplished using conventional means of the artist, rather than, say, of the academic or the journalist. It’s probably pointless to debate whether using artistic means makes one an artist, but at any rate my own expectations for what an artist might convey have not been met so far. I am not saying that those mentioned are not artists or that their work is not art. And in fact, the more I think and learn, the more I appreciate them. Still, I’m disappointed.
The observation about the downspout is a nice example of a detail that, by how it’s rendered and it’s relation to the rest of the picture, could suggest all kinds of ideas about local customs and neighbor relationships as well as serving a pictorial purpose. On the other hand, that might have distracted from the atmosphere of a sparse, straggly Main street running smack into the mountain that your painting emphasizes. It takes a masterpiece to contain it all. Now that you’re back in Portland, are you seeing things differently for having been in Basin?
Steve,
Now that I have seen your first photo on a decent monitor, not just my laptop, I appreciate it even more. I would love to have a copy of it.
Steve:
I want to go back to an earlier post on this general subject. For some reason I can’t seem to resurrect it but do remember that you asked about our itineraries. The one I have in mind has been experienced primarily in drive-through mode, but the feeling comes up every time I pass through.
For whatever reason my hot spot is the city of Akron. I might experience this feeling when downstream from the air docks where helium may be leaking from the Goodyear blimps, but so much of the city, for me, is enveloped in a subtle gauze of specialness. I have no particular affinity for Akron as such, but I often experience a tingle in the base in my spine, especially when in the northern part of town. I ran across the assertion that there are mystical nodes to be found about the planet: places that people seek out for what they feel there. Perhaps these spots around Akron are of that nature. As far as I know, this quality cannot be picked up in photographs, and otherwise, I haven’t a clue, except to go down there and catch the vibes.
Jay,
There may be “power places,” as my karate instructor used to call them when we trained on a bluff over the ocean, that have broad appeal, but your Akron appears to be more an individual resonance. I don’t think it’s only for places where you have direct experience; you may feel it in a place you’ve never been before. Perhaps some aspects could come across in a photograph (which might not be the one you’d expect), more in words, and many, no doubt, can’t really be communicated.
Back to the “mystical nodes”: I do think there are sorts of places that are subliminally recognized, perhaps for evolutionary reasons. Those usually cited as giving rise to a strong sense of the sublime are an example. I read an article about finding the perfect spot in an outdoor cafe, I’ll see if I can track it down.
Jay, Found the piece about the cafe, among other things: Six Good Places by David Oates in the magazine High Country News.
By the way, many of the original articles by the Situationists have been translated from the French by Ken Knabb (who appears to be deeply into radical theory and history) on his web site Bureau of Public Secrets.
Steve:
Thank you. I hit the internet after saying my bit about Akron and found that, in that context at least, I’m more or less alone. Off to look at your suggestions.
Steve,
I appreciate artists that Get Around and are… spontaneous to more random situations.
Like: http://www.tuckernichols.com (click Refresh if you want More).
D.,
Yes, I think one of the strongest effects an artist can have is in helping us notice things differently. And seeing humor where you might not have expected it has real value in my book. Maybe it’s just me–others would respond differently–but Long’s noticings did not seem especially memorable, and I couldn’t really say what Fulton saw or thought about.
Viewing the Tucker Nichols site is a bit like an uncontrolled urban wandering. I imagine I’m led blindfolded from spot to spot to see what’s on the wall here or there. Sometimes you randomly get back to a spot you’ve seen already.
Steve, I looked at this a day or so ago when my keyboard was inoperable because I sloshed coffee in it (not on purpose) and came back because I wanted to check out some things — but it seems as though some of the photos and references are missing! Am I crazy??
I love these two evocative images, esp. the first one, which is very much “buckskin, drumhead land.” But where did that juniper in the rock cleft go??
Prairie Mary
Mary,
That juniper was a rather experimental image from an earlier post with my first musings and ideas on encountering the concept of psychogeography. It somewhat fit the subject of the post in that it was what felt like a new type of image that I suddenly decided to make while out wandering above the Madison River. I even went so far as to put the image file in a new folder called “Landscape Nouveau,” long before I read of the French Lettrists and Situationists (no, I don’t use French names anywhere else). The technique has somewhat obvious possibilities as a way of highlighting what I might notice in a scene (thinking of the two comments above yours), though that wasn’t the intention. In fact the choice of what’s in and what’s out of focus involves not so much narrative reasons, but aesthetic and gut-level unexplainable reasons. But the approach might serve well in the sort of photographic part of a psychogeographic study, which I’m thinking about despite how pretentious it sounds.
Steve:
Don Juan Mateus always reminded Carlos to seek out and occupy his power place in a given environment. Is this what you have in mind?
I once discussed with Jerry Underwood a plan that may or may not pertain here. I proposed locating the most distant visible object to be seen east of a plane running north and south – Mt.Hood in this case. The task, then, would be to ascend Mt. Hood and seek the most distant object visible eastward from there. It might be advisable to wait for a clear day as one otherwise could step from one adjacent rock and hummock to the next all the way down the hill until one broke the overcast. Otherwise it would be off to the Palouse perhaps, and from there zig-zagging across the country from peak to rooftop until one stood at the most easterly point on the continent; islands optional. Could take a lifetime to do.
Jay,
I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what little Castaneda I’ve read, but don’t believe in power places in any mystical sense. That said, I readily grant that there are special places all over, including ones that might be recognized as such by many.
If I look east from the mountains around here, I’d have to look down to see anything before the Alps. But height alone is no criterion, and I would happily explore every inch along that line if I had the time.
Steve:
Castaneda’s power places were presented as matter-of-fact with no mysticism involved. Such outlandishness was as much part of the fabric in that realm as quantum physics may be in our understandings. Should there be a formative outcome stemming from the effects of consciousness in both cases is not mine to say.
The Alps?
There’s an immense amount of literature on power places, nodes of energy, etc. I still like the basic set: the highest, the lowest, the entrance, the crossing, the edge of water or a change in vegetation or terrain, transition points, fork in a path. That’s not very pretentious, I suppose, but what’s wrong with pretentious if it captures something useful?
Prairie Mary
Mary,
It seems there might be a distinction between “power places” and places of comfort. For example, a crossing or entrance would generally be a significant and powerful point, but it might not be where you’d most like to station yourself for observation or sense of connection. I love to climb peaks, and it’s always exhilarating, but it’s not where I feel most “at home.”
I think Birgit hit the nail on the head when she said these three were gurus. In a sense when meditation teachers say “focus on the breath”, these guys are saying “focus on the walk”.
As to the mystical nature of power places, I think each of us is on their own path with recognizing or denying that one, and in ten years each of us would probably say something different.
From “Northwest Passage”, photos by Robert Glenn Ketchum, (Aperture Press, 1996) quote from Barry Lopez (taken from “Arctic Dreams”):
“Whatever evaluation we finally make of a stretch of land…no matter how profound or accurate, we will find it inadequate. The land retains an identity of its own, still deeper and more subtle than we can know. Our obligation toward it then becomes simple: to approach with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard. To try to sense the range and variety of its expression–its weather and colors and animals. To intend from the beginning to preserve some of the mystery within it as a kind of wisdom to be experienced, not questioned. And to be alert for its openings, for that moment when something sacred reveals itself within the mundane, and you know the land knows you are there.”
Martha,
Thank you for the fine Lopez quote. I have a yellowed and worn copy of Arctic Dreams on my bookshelf, which you induced me to pull down. I especially like the evocation of a sense of mystery, which I think is really a kind of humility, a recognition that there is much we don’t know. What Lopez writes finds echoes in many an artist’s statement, though it always seems a bit hokey and trite when I write it.
Oh my gosh…I feel so inarticulate about all this, and here I’ve stumbled into a bunch of smart, thoughtful people who care about what and how they see.
Found you via some random searches focused on Minor White. Since I find myself very surprised that my use of a camera to catch light is moving people, I thought I’d better do more thinking about these things.
Maybe what I should do is get a cup of coffee first…
;-)