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Ghost Geographies I

11.7 " X 8.3 " Photographic-Map
2023

 

Ghost-Geographies I - VII

Reading time is 10 minutes

As all Situationists know, mapping starts within the artistry of drifting ... one July afternoon, I found myself wayfaring through the streets of Kirkwall. Perhaps limping might be a more truthful description, as a pebble had become lodged in my trekking boot. A welcomed distraction of the sonorous bell chimes of St. Magnus Cathedral could be heard in the distance. Alas, this would be a place of respite and a chance to dislodge the piercing offender. I hobbled up its entrance path and quickly slid inside its great Romanesque doorway to take refuge. This giant, twelfth-century ‘lith’ of sandstone became a momentary repository of my story and, in doing so, was adding to its own biography. Discreetly, I removed the pebble, a microcosm of the cosmos, probably displaced from the Inganess shoreline earlier that morning. I sat silently, allowing the indentation in the sole of my foot to heal. Little did I know, I would be left with a permanent scar, an embodied trace-line of my time in Orkney. As I sat recuperating, I reached for my visitor’s guide to St. Magnus Cathedral. Once read, I put it aside and thought of all who have passed through this sacred space, both living and dead. 

 

 Almost a decade later I am revisiting Kirkwall through a series, of what I have coined as ‘photography-maps’, entitled Ghost-Geographies I – VII. On reading Tim Ingold’s discourse on the interconnection between the church, its environs and its dwellers in Pieter Bruegel’s painting The Harvesters (1565) (Ingold 1993), I suddenly had an eureka moment! Memories of that summer’s day in Orkney came flooding back. The photography-maps are an archaeological inquiry into traces of the unseen, embodied through me, which together represent a site-specific biography and temporality of St. Magnus Cathedral. The unseen includes the taskscape, soundscape and mindscape. This all denotes a geography. These unseen facets are made visible through mark-making and my imagination. Six of the seven photographs measure 11.7 × 8.3 inches and are representative of a biography. The seventh photograph is slightly bigger, as it is indicative of temporality and thus measures 15 × 10 inches. It is expressed as a superimposition of all six previous photographs. The tattered photographs have a sepia-like quality to highlight their spectral traces (Derrida 1995). These traces are hauntings of the past in the present. My photography-maps challenge traditional heritage presentation by pushing the modernist limits, respectively, of the static image and illustrative function of archaeological photography and maps. Ghost-Geographies proposes an alternative heritage understanding through the use of digital art that emancipates the intangible in photographs and maps, in favour of palimpsest representation that transcends time and space. Ghost-Geographies also forms an innovative approach to heritage understanding by making it applicable as a modality for public participation through, what I refer to as the 'temporality-map'. This map beckons public engagement by orchestrating a metamorphosis of the past into a participatory spectacle.

 

 By relating my innate creative expression (which includes the use of line and a surreal-like imagination) to relevant theories and artistic approaches, I embarked on a quest to express the concealed facets of my experience of the cathedral. I quantified the unseen through kinaesthetic, sensory, emotional and imaginal responses

  

 But first, what is the taskscape, and how is it relevant to a biography of St. Magnus Cathedral? Ingold defines the taskscape as ‘the pattern of dwelling activities’ (1993: 153) in the landscape by human and more-than-human activity. The current definition also includes non-living phenomena (Gruppuso and Whitehouse 2016). The cathedral and its surrounding landscape are one because they both occupy the taskscape. Movement is fundamental to the cathedral’s taskscape as it is a place of dwelling. The taskscape continuously occurs within the cathedral and, as a result, adds to its biography. Ghost-Geographies also uses Ingold’s concept of the typology of lines (2016) in order to visualise the taskscape through his line type – the thread. Threads, or, in other words, the taskscape, create traces of movement, and ‘it is through the transformation of threads into traces that surfaces are brought into being’ (2007: 52). Ingold’s taskscape has indeed brought the surface plane of the photography-maps into being as geographies of human presence, more-than-human presence and non-living phenomena dance and navigate from one map to the next. They are swaying in time through threads of mark-making to the rhythm of the soundscape. These intangible presences are materialised in my artwork through digital creative techniques. By embracing the concept of the taskscape and engaging the typology of lines, Ghost-Geographies emerges as a visual and conceptual exploration that encapsulates the fluid, interconnected narratives of human and non-human within the biography of the cathedral. The threads, as both metaphor and visual elements, become the conduits through which the richness of the taskscape is brought to life in a digital tapestry of temporal and spatial dimensions.

 

 The maps within Ghost-Geographies unfold intricate narratives. Traces of my own movements through the cathedral and also my emotional and sensory responses to certain spaces are suggested in the maps through phenomenological gestural lines, especially in relation to sound. These gesture lines capture the immediacy of my movements and can be used to make visible the movements of both present and past individuals within the cathedral - a thawing of the ridged confines of the modernist archaeological taskscape. I remember vividly where I paced and paused. I remember feeling different emotions and sensations in various aspects of the interior and exterior - much like Iris Garrelfs’ Listening Wall (2017). The maps have become a canvas for articulating emotions and responses to the spatial dynamics of the cathedral. I found myself, during the making of the photographs, reaching for various colours with my stylus pen to express associated emotions such as awe induced by the sheer height of the interior and its consequential anthrophonic reverberations. I remember refreshing sensations from an Orcadian summer’s breeze as I explored the burial ground whilst a geophony of rustling leaves accompanied by a biophony of birdsong played on in the background. I’m reminded of sound artist Ian Stonehouse’s remark, ‘Our bodies are self-aware portable recording devices that gather and carry and discuss sensory information about the world we inhabit’ (Sverakova 2018: par 15). This sonic dimension contributes to a multi-layered understanding of the space, encapsulating my encounters and the ambient sounds that define St. Magnus Cathedral. On charting human life, Hans Ulrich Obrist states, ‘all aspects of human existence can be plotted and followed, from a single person’s habits or emotions … or connections between elements of society both past and present’ (2014: 57). I would like to add soundmapping to this statement. As phenomenological mark-making is so intrinsically linked to the soundscape, it can also be used to reimagine an archaeoacoustic sound-map of St. Magnus Cathedral. Ghost-Geographies is alive with traces of polyphony, both past and present.  

 

 Ghost-Geographies is radical cartography. This cartography produces more-than-representational (Lorimer 2005:83) maps. As Ghost-Geographies is a trace of the cathedral as it is embodied through me, it therefore includes my mindscape. I have truly placed the deepest part of me, my imagination, in a biography of the cathedral – as George Mackay Brown has stated, ‘the imagination is not an escape, but a return to the richness of our true selves, a return to reality’ (n.d.). Thus, I have responded intuitively to artist Emma McNally’s maps as they have derived from her imagination. Her maps allude to everything from the cosmos to musical scores. Art director Stephanie Rosenthal, commenting on McNally’s drawings, stated, ‘if they were charts, they would map a mindscape’ (n.d. par 1). From a personally driven investigation into radical cartography, it has become clear to me that the mindscape, and in particular, the imagination, is an integral aspect. Situationist Guy Debord’s dérive (1958) is at the heart of this cartography. I propose Debord's dérive is also an imaginative-drifting. The dérive is more than a wandering that allows for a radical psychogeographical map of St. Magnus Cathedral in the form of mark-making alone. As Obrist points out, ‘the dérive is not merely a spatio-temporal drift through urban landscapes, but a drift through the spaces of the imagination in order to arrive at an invention of reality’ (2014: 233). Ghost-Geographies is an imaginative-dérive as it includes surreal-like and cosmological map layers where apples, teacups, atoms and the heavens float on the surface plane.  It became imperative to me (in keeping with revealing the true artist) that I should also make visible the creative process of making. Thus, traces of the digital guiding angle-coordinates used during the making process punctuate the maps. They have inadvertently crossed boundaries into a sepia-toned world, and, in doing so, have blurred the division between past and present. This departure from a strict temporal delineation aligns with Obrist's observation of Robert Walker’s writing style, (which probably sums up the entire meaning of the photography-maps), when he states characters move between presence and absence, experience and imagination (2014: 233). 

 

 It must be noted, as Ghost-Geographies boldly embraces the criteria of radical cartography, the series also adheres to the tenets of traditional modernist mapping. The photography-maps have all the hallmarks of maphood because they are grounded in mapicity – they are useful, usable and persuasive (Denil 2011: 25). Respectively, they contribute to a deeper understanding of the cathedral by making visible the invisible, and they have an applicability that can guide a user to form a deeper connection with and gain meaning from the cathedral through their embodied experiences. From reflecting on Ghost-Geographies’ applicability, I have found a possibility for communal engagement by replicating photograph VII as a potential model for public participation. Photograph VII is a temporality of the cathedral and as aforementioned, I have named it a temporality-map. It is a map charged with a Bakthin’s chronotype (Ingold 1993: 169) whose radius far exceeds the sounding of the bell chimes and the shore of Inganess beach. It is my belief that a temporality-map is also an ‘inefficient map’, a term derived by Denis Wood (2015: par 16). This inefficiency aligns with Linda Knight's assertion that maps, by design, focus on specific aspects rather than attempting  to encompass everything (n.d. par 4). An inefficient map also befits what Ingold refers to as ‘a temporality of the landscape’ (1993:  157). This type of temporality is always in the making, as Ingold’s taskscape is always in a state of becoming (1993: 164). As both map types are always in the making, so, too, by default, is photograph VII. Therefore, it is an open-ended, inefficient map with a far-reaching audience. The public can keep it alive by continuously adding to it! 

 

 Ghost-Geographies has illuminated my quest for an interdisciplinary approach to art and archaeology through photography and mapping. It has helped to make amends for often distancing, sterilising and objectifying the past as is evident at times in traditional archaeological representation. Relating to, embodying, and understanding a place through imaginative art is an area I look forward to investigating further. Indeed, this pursuit resonates with the work of Knight, who, in Risky Citizenship (2015) creates imaginative sketches as data in a new era of post-qualitative inquiry that explores creative ways of knowing and understanding. This is exciting as it reveals that both mark-making and the imagination can be used together in heritage education to help participants express their biography of place. Ghost-Geographies has universal applications too and can be used in other site-specific settings. It amazes me how initiating a process of inquiry (the trace) can lead to the formation of a research methodology. The inquiry process becomes a dynamic journey that intertwines art and archaeology to unfold a temporality-map that will forever keep the past in the present. And it all began with drifting.

 

   

As all Situationists’ know, mapping starts with drifting ... One July afternoon, I found myself wayfaring through the streets of Kirkwall. Perhaps limping might be a more truthful description, as a pebble had become lodged in my trekking boot. A welcomed distraction of the sonorous bell chimes of St. Magnus Cathedral could be heard in the distance. Alas, this would be a place of respite and a chance to dislodge the piercing offender. I hobbled up its entrance path and quickly slid inside its great Romanesque doorway to take refuge. This giant, twelfth-century ‘lith’ of sandstone became a momentary repository of my story and, in doing so, was adding to its own biography. Discreetly, I removed the pebble, a microcosm of the cosmos, probably displaced from the Inganess shoreline earlier that morning. I sat silently, allowing the indentation in the sole of my foot to heal. Little did I know, I would be left with a permanent scar, a trace-line of my time in Orkney. As I sat recuperating, I reached for my visitor’s guide to St. Magnus Cathedral. Once read, I put it aside and thought of all who have passed through this sdance and navigate from one map to the next. They are swaying inpace, both living and dead. 

Almost a carhythmde later I am revisiting Kirkwall through a series, of what I like to call, ‘photographic-maps’ entitled Ghost-Geogra– V                movementsII. On reading Tim Ingold’s account of the significance of the church to its surrounding land    sfloatd its dwellers (Ingold 1993) in Pieter Bruegel’s painting The Harvesters (1565), I suddenly had an eureka moment. Memories of that summer’s day in Orkney came applicabilityoding back. The photographic-maps are an archaeological inquiry into traces of the unseen, embodied through me, paced and paused.ite-specific biography and temporality of St. Magnus Cathedral. The unseen includes the taskscape, soundscape and mindscape. This all denotes a geography. The unseen is made visible through mark-making and my imagination. Six of the sevedrifting imaginative-drifting.                                                               explored                 explored                punctuate

imaginative-dérive       By relating my innate creative expression (which includes the use of line and a surreal-like imagination) to rapproaches, I was able to quantify the unseen through kinaesthetic, sensory, emotional and imaginal responses                               But first, what is the crossed , and how is it relevant to a bioaainterdisciplinary gnus Cathedral? Ingold defines the taskscape as ‘the pattern of dwelling activities’ (1993: 153) in the landscape by human and more-than-human acThe current definition also includes non-living phdriftingenomena (Gruppuso and Whitehouse 2016). The cathedral and its surrounding landscape are one because they both occupy the taskscape. Movement is fundamental to the cathedral’s taskscape as it is a place of dwelling. The taskscape continuously occurs within the cathedral and, as a result, adds to its biography. Gh

                                                                                                 References 

 

 Brown Mackay, G. (n.d.) AZQuotes.com, Wind and Fly LTD, 2023. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/635849,  [03 May 2023] 

 

 Bruegel, P. (1565) The Harvesters [Oil on Canvas] held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

 

 Debord, G. (1958) ‘Theory of the Dérive’. International Situationniste [online] #2. Available from <http://www.bopsecrets.org> [11 March 2023] 

 

 Denil, M (2011) ‘The search for a Radical Cartography’. Cartographic Perspectives Number 68, Winter 2011 

 

 Derrida, J. (1995) ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression’. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. Diacritics [online] 25,(2) 9-63. Available from < https://www.jstor.org/stable/465144  >    [18 September 2022]   

 

 Garrelfs, I. (2017) The Listening Wall [online]. Available from <http://irisgarrelfs.com/listening-wall/htm> [2 April 2023] 

 

 Gruppuso, P and Whitehouse, A (2016) ‘Exploring Taskscape:An Introduction’. Social Anthropology [online] 28, (3) 588-597. Available from http://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12789.  28 [28 February 2023] 

 

 Ingold, T. (1993) ‘The Temporality of the Landscape’. World Archaeology 25, (2) 152-174 

 

 - - -. (2007) Lines: A Brief History 1st edition. London: Routledge  

 

 Knight, L. (n.d.) Inefficient Mapping [online]. Available from <https://Inefficient Mapping – Linda Knight>   [12 April 2023]      

 

 Lorimer, H. (2005) ‘Cultural Geography: The Busyness of being ‘more-than-representational. Progress in Human Geography [online] 29, (1) 83-94. Available from <https://doi.org/10.1191/0309132505ph531pr> [11 March 2023]    

   

 McNally, E. (n.d.) Quotes [online]. Available from      <https://Emma McNally London-based Artist Drawing (emmamcnallydrawing.co.uk) > [10 March 2023] 

 Obrist Ulrich, H. (2014) Mapping It Out: An Alternative Atlas of Contemporary Cartographies. London: Thames and Hudson 

 

 Stonehouse, I. (n.d.) Our Bodies are Portable Recording Devices. Cited in Sverokova, S. (2018) Iris Garrelfs Listening Wall (23 April 2018) <https://slavkasverakova.blogspot.com> [20 March 2023] 

 

 Wood, D. (2015) Mapping Deeply. Cited in Krygier, J. (2015) Making Maps: DIY Cartography (11 August 2015) <https://makingmaps.net/> [22 March 2023] 

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