untitled heterotopias

“I WISH TO SPEAK a word for nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and Culture merely civil, — to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society….

…the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea…For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit (in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels)… At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only— when fences shall be multiplied, and man traps and other engines in- vented to confine men to the public road; and walking over the surface of God’s earth, shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is com- monly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities then before the evil days come.” -Henry David Thoreau, “Walking”

THE ACT OF EXPLORING the landscape by foot, freely, without express permission, is still common to many rural territories. When Thoreau wrote “Walking,” most land was uninhabited public space. Today, this isn’t so. But, unlike urban and suburban landscapes, the be-ginnings and endings of private property are not always marked in the countryside, and through a shared ethos, the Saunterer may still call such a place home.

12-1 “…no place remains unknown, untouched, no matter how distant.” (Chi 111)

“untitled heterotopias” grapples with the notion of claimed/unclaimed space. The videos are essentially walking tours of rural sites left to deteriorate through the course of hard weather over time. Located in Lewis County, New York, these sites are meaningful because they relate to my per-sonal narrative, to notions of memory and place, but also because they are portraits of deteriorating spaces in the rural North Country of northern New York State; they portray a very common sight in the area. For these reasons, I describe the work as documentary, but they are poetic in that they are subjective interpretations of the space. And as Bill Nichols describes the poetic mode of documentary, they utilize “associations and patterns that involve tempo-ral rhythms and spatial juxtapositions” in order to lend affect to my exploration of the space. (Nic 102)

Interior corner of a church window.

I think the notion of meandering works nicely as a meta-phor for the process of creation itself. Such process evokes a certain freedom, an act of searching; For myself, it con-jures Thoreau’s image of the Saunterer as she traces her steps along the riverbanks, unsure of her path except to know that these waterways, whether they run dry or flow freely, will eventually lead to the complete and infinite abyss of the ocean.

To Not Know :

Rethinking what we already think we know requires that we ask the hard questions, that we engage critically in a real way; as a result, we make mistakes, missteps, errors in judgment. This is good. It describes an approach that I think is crucial to process – as it may be understood within the context of “research-creation.” Further, it’s an essential part of what I gleaned from making “untitled heterotopias.” For myself, process requires a certain degree of transgression in the name of experimentation and the art of exploration. I mean this in an understated way, transgression simply as an “act or process of overstepping a limit” even at the risk of bewilderment – my own and perhaps others.

12-2 S P A C E : for some reason I’ve latched onto the concept. Not only the idea, but its actual mate-rial reality. Concrete space. Why do certain concepts/theories speak to one person, but not another? What is it that we identify with? It’s easy to understand why we identify with a particular story, a narrative. . . but a theory? It’s weirdly idiosyncratic to identify with abstractions of thought.

Heidegger wrote that poetry “reveals” being. Does this suggest why poetics is such a diverse and complex field?

In facing ethical issues throughout the creation of “unti-tled heterotopias,” I stumbled upon broader questions deal-ing with space – in particular the making and claiming of it. This was an uncomfortable process, but also insightful; it pushed me to realize the contexts of the questions I was asking, and to ground them within a creative and theoreti-cal framework – I was able to map out a territory of inter-est, a conceptual landscape involving the contestation of real space, as well as “the oppositions we regard as simple givens” such as notions of public/private space, which are “still nurtured by the hidden presence of the sacred” (FOU 23).

12-3 Heterotopology perhaps refers to a contesta-tion of space, both real and at once mythic. Despite our “techniques for appropriating space…and whole networks of knowledge that enable us to delimit or formalize it…contemporary space is not entirely desanctified.” (Fou 23) We fail to move beyond the theoretical desanctification of space toward a more practical realization of it. This failure is, in part, derived from a structure of entrenched oppositions (i.e., public/private) which govern our lives insofar as they have defined our space for hundreds of years. (FOU 23)

The ethical quandary that I encountered during the course of my research-creation had to do with whether I should be intervening in a particular space, which was perhaps abandoned, but not necessarily unclaimed. Having a direct relationship with this space/place over the course of years—a site woven into my own personal narrative—I felt compelled to protect it. But through my process, the “duty” I felt to preserve and to document the site and its contents was called into question.

12-3 Foucault describes the epoch of space, unveiled in the twentieth century, as a space imbued with a sense of collective anxiety, a space both aligned and misaligned in “a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein.” (FOU 22)

Was the act of removing items, damaged, or not, to display and then return, an unethical decision? Perhaps it was, I realized in retrospect. I don’t regret salvaging what I did and returning it, in protective plastic that would allow it to last through winter. But it wasn’t an act to be taken lightly; I had to assume responsibility for taking something that wasn’t mine. This could be con-strued as stealing.

Perhaps I let my weird affinity for the space cloud my judgment; I have, after all, forged some sort of imag-ined mystical bond to the man’s ghost. Ed was himself a salvager of things, an “outsider artist,” a WWII pilot; he was from my grandfather’s generation. My grandfa-ther, alive at 91 years old, also fought in WWII, the 1st Infantry division, “The Big Red One”; he still tells war stories at Christmas Eve dinner. I often wonder what Ed saw over the course of his life.

I visit his gravesite regularly. No one seems to keep it up. In the summer, the grass just grows and grows.

12/4 While not divorced from temporality, space relieves the role of time as the defining structure of our lives. Thus, while the internal spaces play out the inward, the fantasmatic, seemingly intrinsic impuls-es of our primary perceptions, Foucault explores the external spaces, in connection, which draw us outside of ourselves into a complex web of relations. Through clusters and networks of lived spaces, we encounter such relations in their capacity to relate and at once render each site irreducible to any other. (FOU 23)

Where’s the body in space? Where’s the flesh?

These are lived spaces. But, are there other eyes? Like animals in the thicket; she can hear but can’t see. Are there ghosts in here?

She says “the quality of the ‘sacred’ has declined in Western culture.” (Chi 114) What does she mean by the word quality? Is it the character? Or is it the worth, the value?

The concept of algorithm is also used to define the notion of decidability.

“And then, as if by magic, I could see the fiddleheads unfurl like the curled-up paper trumpets one blew into at parties, taking a second or two for what, in real time, took a couple of days...Slowing down mo-tion was not so easy as speeding it up.” (Sac 60)

A sacred space behind the church pulpit..

An open page of a book found in the church; the words are uncanny. They describe the dilapitated churches of a small Greek village.

QuickTime™ and aPhoto - JPEG decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

When interviewed for the local paper, Ed once said, “I feel it’s God’s gift that lets me work, that I can do these things.”… “I feel that the accomplishment there is beyond my abilities, that I’ve had God’s help. I look at it and I know I couldn’t do it myself”… “It’s a privilege to be able to physically do it. It’s sort of like the last thing I could do in my life, really” (Gol 1).

I felt compelled to salvage objects from Ed’s church because the thought of letting them fall to pieces seemed wrong. The snowfall on Tug Hill is significant; they say we get the most snow east of the Rocky Mountains. I had this im-age in my mind – of snowdrifts, of icy banks encroaching upon the church’s interior where the door had fallen off its hinges.

In the end, I made the decision to let it be, at least until I could find a better solution. One step was to make a Kor-sakov film—my attempt at archiving the space and the objects in it.

12-5 She describes structure over content, the question of access in reference to the digital. The digital as a “con-ceptual device… a mapping to create meaning… a space in order to reconstitute time”(Chi 111) In OF OTHER SPACES, Foucault articulates “the site” in terms of stor-age, data, results of calculation, the circulation of dis-crete elements (Fou 23)

I wanted to make an archive of these spaces for the lo-cal historical society.

“Archives today are public and private, official and un-official, non-commercial and commercial, institutional and individual, tangible or digital…” (Wil 183)

Foucault wrote specifically of archives as an example of heterotopias.

Heterotopias are similar in their capacity to juxtapose in a single place several spaces otherwise incompatible; such sites exist both inside and outside of the accumu-lation of time.

The other two spaces that I explore in “untitled het-erotopias” are a closed paper mill and the family barn where I used to play during my childhood. Both are lo-cated within a few miles of each other and Ed’s church.

12-8 Across cultures and continents, heterotopias have reserved their place through time. Yet, as Foucault ar-ticulates, they command no universal form or particu-lar function. Nevertheless, heterotopias are distinct in their capacity to relate unequivocally to all other sites. Despite having a unique and precise purpose in society, heterotopias may simultaneously function in different ways at different times, particularly over the course of history. (FOU 24)

Ed’s artist’s dwelling. It overlooks one of countless local waterfalls.

The paper mill first opened in 1895; it wasn’t shut down permanently until 2000. It now sits at an impasse on the Black River and Moose River junction. Both rivers are significant to the historical landscape and local culture.

Farming is another important aspect of local culture. But the family farms that once dominated the area are be-coming increasingly obsolete. The bones of old barns are visible all across the North Country. My family barn, over one hundred years old, is likely bound to a similar fate.

12-6 When I think of heterotopias I see gardens—their oldest form. I see Eve plucking the apple from the tree: an act of transgression. They say this is the act that made us ashamed of our nakedness. Was this the fall of Utopia? Was this the moment when the original placeless spaces were transformed into heterotopology?

Heterotopias entail the approximation or impression of a utopia, but as a parallel space of displacement. Both “absolutely real” in material form and “abso-lutely unreal” as a point of passage into the concep-tual, heterotopia evoke a sense of reprieve, however illusory. (FOU 24)

“Grass produces neither flower nor sermon on the mountain, nor airplane carrier, but in the end it’s al-ways grass that has the last word. It fills emptiness, grows between, and amongst other things. The flow-er is beautiful, the cabbage useful, the poppy makes us mad, but grass is overflow.” - Henry Miller

The literary text that accompanies the videos as an audio component is all that remains of my original idea for the project, at least so far. My intention was to create a book, a meta=fictional narrative that would be accompanied by an experimental video. I wanted to write a story from a child’s perspective, weaving together the voices of Ed and Opal Whitely with my own.

The text was the first real “thing” that I made. Although I wasn’t sure whether to include it in the final product, I chose to because there are important thematic elements within it, which I think speak to the project as a whole.

12-6 With the opening of infinite space in the 17th century, Foucault writes, we began to define our reality not through the space of emplacement, but through a sense of extension. Today, the site, “defined by relations of proximity between points and ele-ments,” is substituted for extension. (FOU 23)

The text directly alludes to three other pieces of literature: Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petite Prince, and Opal Whitley’s Diary. These particular writings all involve a certain existential realization of space; similarly, my text includes, for exam-ple, a description of an enduring childhood memory: the sensation of being inside a planetarium at school, looking up, and suddenly experiencing a sense of resignation and awareness of infinite space. My text also depicts memories of a childhood spent meandering across the very land-scapes in which these “unknown heterotopias” are situated

12-7 “Dear Composition,” ..... we went out in the pasture..... while I was on the hill, ..... it looking at me, ... light brown; it looked liked... I looked at it.... homes, they being very pretty... feet and long hair on it’s body.. saw it, he started to the timber, .... of sight. -opal whitley, fragments from a diary early 20th century

Inside twig and thistle; bird’s eggs she kept and crushed to bits in her hands. It was there they would bury every animal…

Church exterior from Milkhouse Road.

As an audio component, the text is used for different ends in each video. In the Part One, the video of the church, the text is used in a manner that allows the viewer to layer the voices with each click of the cursor; it was in-tended to produce the (perhaps obsessive) effect of recita-tion and prayer. In Part Two, the video of the barn and paper mill, the text is used more traditionally as an audio soundtrack, although I intended for it to be muted so as not to dominate the piece. I also recorded myself playing the violin, which I included to enhance the texture of the audio. (In part alluding to a video animation without audio, where years ago I played the violin to an audience of pigeons, in the same barn loft,)

12-9 Heterotopias presuppose a sense of opening and closing, which evokes a certain duality of accessi-bility and isolation. (FOU 25) Indeed, heterotopias function in a sense of unfolding between extremes. The effect is a space of illusion. For within the het-erotopia, the real remains exposed while “human life is partitioned as still more illusory” (FOU 26)

IN CONCLUSION

Through the making of this project, I explored Foucault’s concept of heterotopias, as well as both digital and mate-rial notions of the archive. Although I didn’t investigate these ideas through completion, this process did enable me to experiment with these theories by applying them to a specific geographical area. Further study could be done to explore other sites in this location. A full investigation might include multiple components, subject interviews, and collaborations, which could be exhibited and submit-ted to the local historical society to be archived.

If I were to bring this project to completion, I would construct a crafted artist’s book, which would further imagine the three spaces of “untitled heterotopias,” plac-ing them more explicitly within their geographical and historical context; I would also include DVD versions of the videos inside the book itself.

According to Chapman & Sawchuk, the intention of research-creation as a “practice” is to “act as a method-ological and epistemelogical challenge to the objective, argumentative form of much scholarship.” (Cha-Saw 1) Furthermore, they articulate this practice “as an epistem-elogical intervention into (Foucault’s) “Regime of Truth.” (Chaw-Saw 2)

It is on this note that I’d like to return to the excerpt from Thoreau’s essay, “Walking,” which began my self-evalua-tion of “untitled heterotopias.”

The pursuit of freedom that Thoreau describes resonates not only in our ability to explore the geographical land-scape, but further, toward the exploration of more concep-tual territories.

To conclude, I’d like to suggest that the practice of pro-cess and creation be imagined not only as a challenge and intervention, but perhaps as a realization, however tongue-in-cheek, of “civil disobedience” within the (traditional) university system.

-emilie allen December 2011

Bibliography

Chapman, O. & Sawchuk, K. “Research-Creation: Inter-vention, Analysis, and “Family Resemblances.” December 2011. (Draft)

Child, A. (2007). “Handcrank that Globalism: A digi-dia-logue.” In Marchessault, J & Lord, S. (Eds.) Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 111-125.

Foucault, M. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16 1, pp 22-27.

Sacks, O. (2004). “Speed: Aberrations of Time and Move-ment.” The New Yorker. August 23rd.

Thoreau, D. (1861). “Walking.” (online) Thoreau Reader. (http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking.html).

Wilson, P. (2009). “Stalking the Wild Evidence: Capturing Media History through Elusive and Ephemeral Archives.” In Staiger, J. & Hake, S. (Eds.) Convergence Media His-tory. New York: Routledge, pp. 182-191.