| Non-Places of Travel in Visual Art |
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May 6th, 2009 // Essay by Edita Pecotic
 In this essay I will explore the anthropological notion of “non-places”, with reference to the related essay by Marc Auge 'Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity'. I will apply this notion specifically to the theme of travel, and how this is engaged within the selected works of art by contemporary visual artists.
As a vessel for this exploration I will use one story from Italo Calvino’s collection of surreal short stories Invisible Cities : CONTINUOUS CITIES - 2 “ If on arriving at Trude I had not read the city’s name written in big letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from which I had taken off. The suburbs they drove me through were no different from the other, with the same little garnish and yellowish houses. Following he same signs we swung around the same flower beds in the same squares. The downtown streets displayed goods, packages, signs that had no changed at all. This was the first time I had come to Trude, but I already know the hotel where I happened to be lodged; I had already heard and spoken my dialogues with the buyers and seller of hardware; I had ended the days identically, looking through the same goblets at the same swaying navels. Why come to Trude? I asked myself. And I already wanted to leave. “ You can resume your flight whenever you like, “ they said to me, “ but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail. The world is covered by the sole Trude, which does not begin, nor end. Only the name of the airport changes.” (Italo Calvino “Invisible Cities”) About Continuous Cities:This collection of short stories is written in the form of dialogue between Marco Polo, one of the iconic figures of travel, and Kublai Khan, the famous emperor. Each time Marco Polo returns from his travels, Kublai Khan invites him to describe the cities he has visited. Marco Polo is delighted with this task and describes the various cities he has passed through, all of them unique as well as similar to each other. The story I have chosen to employ for this essay is Marco Polo’s story of city of Trude titled Continuous Cities-2. Italo Calvino’s story depicts a world of continuous uniformity. Despite the sense of movement in the story, and the prominence of travel, which might usually suggest a process of discovery, wonder and insights in new places or ways of life, we are left with an overall mood of stagnation, rather than such a productive and fulfilling activity. The sense of familiarity in the city of Trude is negative and far from comforting; it is almost oppressive. Instead of the excitement of new sensations through change, we are left with a numbness of repetition. This disillusionment of travel, leading to a very bleak view of the world we inhabit, a world devoid of variety and inspiration, may seem extreme or exaggerated, but it is nevertheless an idea so powerfully presented that it is difficult to ignore. To say the least, there is an undeniable sense of recognition, in the haunting sentence “The world is covered by a sole Trude, which does not begin, nor end. Only the name of the airport changes”. This core idea of 'Continuous Cities 2' is described by Calvino as his own observation of a common contemporary lifestyle characterised by continuous speed and movement, so much so that “cities are turning into one single city; a single endless city where the differences which once characterized each of them are disappearing. This idea…came to me from the way that many of us now live: we continually move from one airport to another, to enjoy a life that is almost identical no matter what city you find yourself in.” Calvino is, of course suggesting, that the easy capacity of movement makes for a neglect of activity and identity within the grounding of a single, once individual place, precisely because this is more difficult that travelling between such places. He exemplifies this with an observation of Paris, the city he once lived in.
“You could say that at the rush hour when the city
streets are blocked by traffic, I can get to Italy more
quickly than, say, to the Champs Elysees. I could almost
commute; we are now close to a time when it will be possible
to live in Europe as though it were one single city. The following conclusion Calvino makes, on the current nature of travelling internationally, addressing the common cliché` that the world is getting smaller through modern technology and ease of movement, conveys an increasing sense of limbo in the defining notions of ‘place’. “That's it: international journeys as much as short journeys in the city are no longer an exploration of a series of different places; they are simply movements from one point to another between which there is an empty interval, a discontinuity, a parenthesis above the clouds if it as air trip, and a parenthesis beneath the earth it is a city journey.” This sense of limbo, suggests a homogeneity of cities; cities reduced to mere templates of cities, which leave little room for individual recognition. This is the indeterminate state, which is addressed and defined by Mark Auge. ABOUT NON-PLACES:‘If place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which can not be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.’ Marc Auge in his book 'Non Places – Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity' argues that supermodernity creates non-places. The main characteristic of supermodernity is excess, so non-places are results or perhaps some kind of side effects of the excess of time, excess of space and excess of ego. Hence supermodernity is created through the logic of excess. Excess of time, Auge argues, is result of the extension of life expectancy which has brought social changes so that the coexistence of three generations changed into the possible coexistence of four generations. Similarly, the excess of space is correlative with the shrinking of the planet and its change of scale, caused by technological advances set off by rapid means of transport and communication such as flying, satellite communication and the internet - the means that offer fast and sometimes even instant access to information or events. Excess of ego is the result of both of the other two excesses. It is particularly enhanced by the contemporary liberal political language of individual freedoms as well as by advertising apparatus. Furthermore, Marc Auge defines non-places as having no identity, no history and no urban relationships. Non-places are temporary spaces for passage, communication and consumption; the motorways seen from car interiors, motorway restaurants/service/petrol stations, large supermarkets, duty-free shops and the passenger transit lounges of world airports.
Non-places are contrary to places. They represent the decline
of the public man and the rise of the self-obsessed man.
Non-places are such due to their solitary arrangement, shielded
by pin and credit-card numbers, as well as passwords that
create safety as well as solitude and alienation. I aim to explore the significance of such non-places in contemporary art, by addressing some of their artistic portrayals against selected examples that Auge identifies, in order to present a related view of a modern urban landscape and a sense of existence within such a landscape. The AIRPORT“ If on arriving at Trude I had not read the city’s name written in big letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from which I had taken off.” The airport is a distinctive non-place of travel. It is just a provisional space on the worldwide network of air travel. There is no history in the airport’s commercial identity at all. The memory in the airport lounges go back merely to the previous 24 hours of flight arrivals and departures, sometimes even less, depending on the frequencies of the flight and the availability of free airport runway slots. The car parks, access infrastructure and subways, which often surround large world airports, are all non-places too.
Despite its humour, Hirschhorn's work is sad, mourning the loss of identities through technological advance and globalisation as one of the results. This artwork is an allegorical reminder of the loss of identity in places like this and some kind of memorial and triumph of travel as a commodity, rather than a unique personal journey.
Another artist which work is connected with the world airport
is Julian Opie, whose work 'Imagine that You Are Moving' was
installed at Heathrow Airport. As transit passengers don’t actually ever enter Britain, but just use the airport as a convenience and the airport lounge to wait for their connecting flights, the title of the work addresses the viewer to make their waiting time easier, perhaps inviting the viewer to take this opportunity to see the British landscape which otherwise will not be seen, making it significant as public work as it aims to fill a void in a non-place, without claiming to be a realistic replacement of an actual place, as its stylised pictorial quality demonstrates. Video work 'Threshold to the Kingdom' by Mark Wallinger is again inspired by the airport, but this time it is the London City airport doors that automatically open and close and allow arriving travellers to gradually and weightlessly walk toward the camera and out of view followed by gaze of a suspicious airport official, sitting in the left corner of the lounge… The sound that accompanies the video is Giorgio Allegri’s 'Miserere mei' [Latin: have mercy (!)]. The sound draws the viewer’s attention to the allegory of arrival to Heaven, God’s Kingdom - in this case the United Kingdom (thus the title). "Every air traveller knows that behind the airport's doors are the beady eyes of the state's border controls and - a small step away, at least for the imagination - the apparatus that devises and manages the UK's immigration and asylum laws. The desperate people who don't make it across the threshold into the Promised Land (by air or any other means) are screened from view, literally and metaphorically. In most cases, one suspects, their sin is simply to have been unlucky." Mark Wallinger’s video of people walking through ‘International Arrivals’ door on the airport remind us also of strange and bizarre sensation one experiences at places like this – lost among numbers of other unknown and probably lost people, looking for the right door to enter while keeping your travel documents safe, as these documents are the only proof of one’s identity, rather than the place itself.
All three works raise the issue of travel both as a leisurely
and a non-leisurely activity, as some people travel for
leisure reasons, others for non-leisure and some even for
desperate purposes. The latter further emphasises the airport
as a non-place, an indication of possible displacement.
Although it essentially brings together a variety of travellers
and their purposes, 'Threshold to the Kingdom', leaves us
with a sense of the airport as a vast no-man’s land
as well as implying that it is nevertheless a place which
is a privilege to reach.
The Motorway:“ Following he same signs we swung around the same flower beds in the same squares.”
The Motorway is another typical non-place of travel; anonymous
and temporary. Along the motorway, places become the readings
of non-places and abstract direction signs. Large photographs
of motorways by Andreas Gursky, for example 'Ruhrtal', deal
with motorway as non-place of supermodernity. In these photographs
Gursky depicts the lost identity of the German idyllic landscape.
These monumental photographs show the huge fly-over of a
large motorway. On one of them it shows a fly-over that
diagonally wings over a tiny man that walks on calm and
tranquil green field underneath of it. Behind a giant post
of the fly-over, hides a leaf-less and seemingly small tree,
with only its outstretched branches visible, like two arms
gesturing surrender. The size of the man and the field compared
with the sheer size of the fly-over is unsettling. It is
addressing the issue of the size of the individual in comparison
with the gigantic products of technological development,
symbolising a sense of alienation.
Wim Wenders did numerous photographs of American motorways
such as his collection of Haiku Photos .
The only element that connects these painting is the road itself – each painting depicts a portion of the road along which the viewer is (apparently) travelling. Some of these paintings show trains and cars, some only trees, fields and mountains, but none of those could be recognised or identified. All of those are non-places too. Opie’s stylisation of the landscape, his uncomplicated outlines and block colours, are reminiscent of a children’s picture book (indeed, the features of cars, trees etc. provide subjects for the game “I spy”, a game famously played in transit, to pass the time and avoid cries of “Are we there yet?”) evokes the sense of travel as a detachment from a grounded reality. The Petrol ( Service ) Station:“ The downtown streets displayed goods, packages, signs that had no changed at all. “ Built as convenience stop along the motorway, the petrol/service station is just as provisional and temporary space on the global network of road travel, as airports lounges are. There is no history in the service stations or identity due to its solitary arrangement.
Service station is a dehumanising place, where all are
reduced to the stereotypes of traveller and consumer, and
individuality holds no currency. Being on the road, choices
for travellers are limited by necessity, so one is very
often forced to use and consume whatever is on the offer:
low-cost and unhealthy food and drinks, often unclean toilets
etc. As most other Hopper paintings, Gas deal with the issue of isolation that is enhanced with the approaching shadows of the endless woodland in the background. Petrol stations are often located in remote, far away places, like the ones on motorways, which are part of service stations.
Anther work that deals with service stations is Hans Op
de Beeck in his installation 'Location 5'. This installation
is actually a reconstruction of a motorway service station. The Supermarket“I had ended the days identically, looking through the same goblets at the same swaying navels.”
Supermarkets are also defined as non-places of travelling,
as to reach the supermarket one has to travel, since supermarkets
are usually located away from the centres of the cities. Designers of supermarkets were obviously trying to create some kind of urban identity within these places. The intention was most probably to convince the people to use them not only for shopping purposes, but to socialise too. Most certainly, this would result in the increase of supermarket’s profit, as people, if socialising in the area, would also consume more therefore spend more too. Within supermarkets, the pedestrian areas and café’s are often also included. As these places have no identity of their own at all as they are as provisional as the other mentioned spaces. They are actually mostly used by the homeless or others who are perceived to be outcasts of society, sometimes hanging around or begging, while other people just come there, to buy their shopping and leave as soon as they can. Global chains of supermarkets are also the places where most of people recognises and often only buys the corporate brand logos. This particular issue is addressed in Andreas Gursky’s photograph 99 Cent - an extra large photo of interior of apparently American supermarket (I said American as prices are displayed in cents and $). This photo is digitally over saturated to accent the brightness and seduction of colours of supermarket’s displayed goods. Everything is so cheap that large posters of 99-cent prices are proudly displayed in the background.
“Gursky’s images seem unreal and yet true at the same time and this paradox between the familiar and hyper real makes Gursky’s work a treat and wonder to see.” The non-place depicted as a subject worthy of conscious artistic inspiration is an idea demonstrated by Wim Wenders’ Safeway. This photograph shows the back wall of an American Safeway supermarket. An image of such a high wall, dwarfing the small, single employee side door, may seem imposing or forbidding, were it not for the sense of warmth generated by the blue sky and the strong shadows of the Safeway letters created by the sun. Even the detail of the yellow doorstep of the side-door complements the warmth of the image. Although this is indeed a view of a non-place, Wenders has chosen it as a subject, not in order to convey a sense of alienation or displacement, but in order to note and emphasise a pleasing aesthetic and a meaningful quality. This is conveyed not only by the prominent primary colours (the blue sky, the red letters and the yellow doorstep), or the inviting and secure sense suggested by the words Safe Way, but also by the fact that this image was evocative to Wender’s haiku poem which accompanies it.
A few moments ago, Despite this being part of just another supermarket, another piece of anonymous architecture, Wenders has succeeded to breathe life into it, giving this piece of urban landscape its own character, bringing a different dimension by imagining a story behind the wall. This is an example of the sense of a subtle beauty that exists within the seemingly mundane or desolate non-places, alongside their alienating quality. This juxtaposition is what makes them interesting subjects for works of art, as Wenders himself has suggested: "The appearance of graphics and writing and hieroglyphs and type-face, both in the city and the desert landscape, is an enormous part of the American culture, and extraordinarily unique. Americans seem to look down on that. For me it's on a level with Rembrandt." Conclusion:Are all cities becoming the same as Trude in Calvino’s ‘Continuous Cities’? Do non-places diminish our sense of identity? Should this increasing sense of animosity be viewed as entirely negative? The artists I have selected to convey a presence of non-places all retain a sense of the alienation that these places generate. But at the same time, they portray them as visionary landscapes which create their own aesthetic, either through artistic adaptation; a sense of poetic license or simply in the act of choosing them as a subject for their art. These artists choose them as subjects because, despite their initial bleakness, these non-places have something to say to us. Although a non-place, a lack of place, may signify a loss of identity, it simultaneously creates its own unique experience of new and previously unexpected identities. I am leaving this journey through the non-paces of travel with one sentence on my mind: “ You can resume your flight whenever you like, “ they said to me, “ but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail. The world is covered by the sole Trude, which does not begin, nor end. Only the name of the airport changes.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Auge, Marc
Berger, John
Calvino, Italo
Cooper, Robert
De Botton, Alain
Goldberg, Vicki
Kwon, Miwon
Reimschneider, Burkhard and Grosenick,Uta
Wenders, Wim
Withers, Rachel            |
