Place and NonPlace Lecture 3 Landscape is a

Place and Non-Place Lecture 3

Landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified. WJT Mitchell

GENIUS LOCI The unique spirit of place To be human is to live in a world that is filled with significant places: to be human is to have and know your place E Relph (Place and Placelessness)

Oliver Bomberg, Courtyard, 1997

Thomas Demand, Rolltreppe (escalator), 2000

Thomas Demand, Gate, 2004

People do not simply locate themselves, they define themselves through a sense of place. Michael Chang Cultural Geography Nathan Coley Villa Savoye 1997

MACDONALDLAND In its brightness and its suggestion of fantasy that is not realised, in its superficial gloss to disguise a very ordinary product, in its intimations of adventure and freedom that barely obscure a precise and rigid organisation, and especially in its obvious and seductive appeal for commercial ends. E Relph

Brent Cross, London

Oklahoma City

‘Little Italy’, New York, Las Vegas

What is ‘non-place’? Can ‘non-place’ be a place?

Marc Augé, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, 1995 Willie Doherty 2000

Hong Kong Airpor

Heathrow Airport

Stuttgart Airport Germany Kansai Airport, Osaka Japan I suspect that the airport will be the true city of the 21 st century. The great airports of the planet are already suburbs of an invisible world capital … a centripetal city whose population forever circles its notional centre, and will never need to gain access to its dark heart JG Ballard

Untitled (Tokyo) Peter Fischli / David Weiss, 1990/2003

Placelessness Carol Rhodes Service Station, 1998

Oliver Bomberg, Concrete Bridge, 1997 Willie Doherty 2000

Placelessness Oliver Bomberg, City Tunnel, 1998

Mass communication appears to result in a growing uniformity of landscape and a lessening diversity of places by encouraging and transmitting general and standardised tastes and fashions E Relph

Elvira Hufschmid Highway Poem, 2004

Jennie Pineus, Head Cocoons and Cocoonchair, 2000

Lucy Orta Refuge Wear, 2001

Perhaps all this movement blurs our surroundings, like a view from a train window, separating ‘us’ from ‘them’. …is place becoming increasingly dissolved by the developments of the modern world? Is the local vernacular being replaced by international conformity? Are we losing distinct places and places of distinction? Are our most powerful relationships with other places mediated by the screen? Tacita Dean / Jeremy Millar - Place

Map Rock Snake River, Idaho Artist and date unknown The real voyage of discovery consists in not seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes Marcel Proust

For the Seminar: • Choose an image which you feel represents the concept of ‘placelessness’ or ‘non-place’ • How does this image challenge ideas of ‘place’ discussed earlier in the programme? • Can ‘nowhere’ also be somewhere? Bring your Critical Notebook and come prepared to discuss your ideas for your essay!