Place

I’m interested in how my project investigating the experience of the train journey from Marden to London could be interpreted if I read it from Marc Augé’s perspectives on non-places:

For Augé, our modern-day environment has undergone such drastic changes that non-spaces are proliferating; that is, places concerned with transport, transit, commerce and leisure. Seen from this perspective, the train itself and the railway stations of my project seem to readily fit with the idea of non-place; they’re sites of supermodernity that feel relatively unconnected to witnessed accounts of anthropological place and which make no attempt to integrate earlier places.

My particular journey does feel like it takes place in some sort of parallel universe – a kind of liminal space where I step outside of my normal life into somewhere ‘other’ that, as Augé describes it, has its own self-contained world of structure and rules. Certainly the journey I’m exploring feels less about the organically social aspects connected to place and more about the solitary individuality and contractuality linked to non-place. One could definitely say the experience is about the fleeting, the temporary and the ephemeral.

However, as Augé points out, nothing is black and white; there’s always at least a trace of place remaining in non-place and vice versa.

Reference: Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity, trans. by John Howe, 2nd ed., (London: Verso, 2008 [Non-Lieux, Introduction a une anthropologie de la surmodernite, 1992]). 1st ed. published 1995, p.7, pp.63:64, p.76

The next test projects a section of film through a transparent line drawing of a still taken from the footage itself. It forces the gaze to oscillate between the background scenery as it rushes past and the fixed outline. This outline remains static but every now and then it seems to become animated by the passing view.

Link to film

I’m not sure this experiment does anything interesting in its own right but it does highlight the layers within an image – train window, foreground trees, background landscape – which offer rich possibilities to be further exploited.

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My other blogs: project survey – the alternative gallery – inspiration

I’m interested in how my project investigating the experience of the train journey from Marden to London could be interpreted if I read it from the perspective of Marc Augé’s Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. Here’s what he says about landmarks:

The train flies through the countryside.

The scenery is peppered with landmarks. Different views from the imagination, from history and from various periods of time proliferate in apparent disorder, arranged around a central core of ‘ancient places and rhythms’ – sites of long-standing ritual, rites and ceremonies. Modernity doesn’t obliterate the pull of these traditional places but forces it into the background, distancing the observer from the place itself. These spaces survive – preserved – as gauges ‘indicating the passage and continuation of time’. ‘The specialized words of the liturgy, of ‘ancient ritual’’ underline the entire structure, contrasting with the ‘song and chatter’ of everyday life.

‘Place is completed through the word, through the allusive exchange of a few passwords’ between those who speak the same language and connive ‘in private complicity’.

This perspective from Augé paints the journey in a rather more romantic light than I have been seeing it in. Evocative subterfuge or a truth that eludes me?

Reference: Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity, trans. by John Howe, 2nd ed., (London: Verso, 2008 [Non-Lieux, Introduction a une anthropologie de la surmodernite, 1992]). 1st ed. published 1995, pp.61:63, p.74)

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The next test is about the still itself; drawing it and exploring how it can be combined with the original imagery:

The still on the right has no gap between the print and glass whereas the one on the left does and so gives a slightly more 3-D effect even more noticeable in real life.

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Tactics: take 30 seconds of film either side of the still. Play it at normal speed, freezing it every 1 second to draw the skyline.

I don’t like the mark-making in this – too controlled – lacks expression

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Similar tactics as before: use a new still shot, take 30 seconds of film either side of it, play this at 25% speed and draw the results. Repeat this four times, quickly, one after the other. These are the results:

Draw, erase, draw, erase, draw, erase, draw…
Until one loses something of oneself in the moment
The purposefully drawn line stronger…
Than a rushed (failed) attempt to capture everything that speeds past

The nature of the marks made feel similar to those achieved when drawing the previous still but their placement has shifted. This could be accidental but the repeat drawings indicate not. There’s a pattern to the marks made that remains consistent across multiple drawings of the same footage. The drawing may not capture much real – accurate – but does trap something of the essence of the thing in terms of horizontal / vertical planes and density.

If I assemble the final results – glass over print – with a slight gap between them, the results are subtly 3-dimensional. There’s a push / pull effect in terms of the original image, drawing on the surface of the glass and the way reflections from the surroundings interfere with the act of viewing.

What happens if the process is reversed – film footage is projected through a drawn still?

Note, print size reduced from 28 x 50 cm to 24.5 x 43.5 cm – a better, more modest scale that still allows free drawing.

More about my work: my website – twitter feed

My other blogs: project survey – the alternative gallery – inspiration

The third drawing in this set of experiments:

Bought new pens – Staedtler Permanent Lumocolor fine and superfine refillable nibs – and used the fine one for this drawing.

Summary

This feels like a step forward

Pen thickness ideal – more subtle mark-making

Less uniform placement of marks allows more of the still print to emerge

I drew in a more relaxed way, connecting me with the seismic, biorhythm drawings of a few months ago

Drawing unconsciously – making one’s body part of the drawing tool – needs practice but success allows something of one’s state of mind to emerge

Test next if changing the still materially alters the feel of the resulting drawing

More about my work: my website – twitter feed

My other blogs: project survey – the alternative gallery – inspiration