Process: Motivated aimlessness

Since I was working in Ottawa, I was able to attend le Centre national des Arts for the unveiling of Le Théâtre français’ 2010-2011 season by artistic director Wajdi Mouawad. Winnipeg artist Diana Thorneycroft’s work was selected to accompany a new roster of programming centered around the idea of kitsch as a "normalization" process — Le kitsch nous mange. The next day I attended Rencontres du midi, a discussion between Mouawad and the Théâtre français’ previous artistic director Denis Marleau (2000-2007). Felt privileged to be able to listen in, as I only knew Marleau’s work by reputation, particularly Théâtre Ubu and Les aveugles (2002). As of yet, I still had not seen his work in representation.

It was a very generous exchange and at one point, keeping to the idea which underlines the 2009-2010 season (Nous sommes en manque), Wajdi asked Marleau « qu'est-ce qui lui manque? »

Loosely paraphrased:

Marleau a répondu qu’il y a un manque d’intercesseurs. Il y a un sentiment dans le monde occidental que nous sommes isolés, laissés à soi-même. Il y a un manque de rencontre, de dialogue sur la création. Nous sommes dans un monde axé sur la performance, hypermédiatisé et qui valorise la communication, mais qui révèle en même temps un manque de véritable dialogue.

Il lamente la primauté des gestes productifs (en ce qui concerne la rentabilité) aux dépens de la liberté du geste créatif. Il déplore le manque de la valorisation de la recherche en ce moment.

Marleau cherche à vivre une expérience à travers les répétitions, il n’est déjà plus là lors de la représentation. L’œuvre théâtrale ne lui appartient plus. Il valorise le travail de fabrication avec les acteurs.

I took notes during the discussion; his thoughts aligned with my interest in the creative process. That state of not necessarily knowing where you are going, that initial exploratory stage. In a capitalist society, this could indeed be seen as "unproductive time" as you cannot easily make a profit with aimlessness.

It came to me in a flash why I was not satisfied with the Tongue Rug mock-up that I had created in a previous post, as it was too illustrative, more like a theatrical object in a scenic decor. It will serve a specific purpose in the overall project, but if I want to track time, I need more abstract symbols like the Path Map. Lev Manovich’s words in The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art (2002) came to mind.

“For me, the real challenge of data art is not about how to map some abstract and impersonal data into something meaningful and beautiful – economists, graphic designers, and scientists are already doing this quite well. The more interesting and at the end maybe more important challenge is how to represent the personal subjective experience of a person living in a data society. If daily interaction with volumes of data and numerous messages is part of our new “data-subjectivity,” how can we represent the experience in new ways?” (13)

I realized that two previous documentation attempts were more suited to animating the sladdakavring: Tongue Rug I (Google Map) and Tongue Rug I (Blog Posts Table). Though I could easily automate this tracking process, doing the animations by hand is more in tune with the project. I want a slower, more ritualized process as repetitive tasks offers time to reflect. Si je suis en train de documenter mon emploi du temps, il est nécessaire que le rituel lui-même prenne du temps pour aboutir à quelque chose.

Tongue Rug I (Google Map) While this map would track waypoints (tongues) in time, it would also represent the tension between two states (control/lost) — what Manovich termed « arbitrary versus motivated choices in mapping ». (10) My motivated choices include the selection of placenames and my efforts to reach their physical locations; the arbitrary quotient is the haphazard reunification of these names through the process of adoption (Lapalme/Legault/Angerbauer), their random sampling in the landscape and my mishaps in trying to reach their physical locations. And of course, this map is upside down.

Tongue Rug II (Blog Posts Table) While this table would track the posts (tongues) in time, it would also represent the tension between between two states (control/unknown). The rhythm and subject matter of my blog postings reveal my motivated choices, but I have no control over the arbitrary nature of commenting. Potential public interaction becomes the unknown factor.

Is this blogging exercise indicative of Manovich's "data society" or just my feeble attempts to reach some beautiful ideal, to make meaningful representations of my emploi du temps? Or is my aim with Tongue Rug closer to what Marleau talked about in regards to his creative process? An excuse to live an experience. The disquieting but necessary process of not knowing — to tentatively feel my way around through the process of exploration and let the project shape itself. Un processus de découverte au fil de l’eau, en parcourant fleuves, rivières, lacs et ruisseaux.

Process: Filling in the spaces

Blogger's Labels feature sorts the Tongue Rug dynamically: the tongues with the most postings feature at the top of the list. Based on this ordering, I created a table that documents the posts in time. I then created a second table where I omitted the tongues with only one posting — all undocumented waypoints. Though some of the tongues that have not been documented have many postings, it is because they surface through fictional accounts, they exist only in the imaginary. For instance, as I most likely will not travel to the Swedish bodies of water, these tongues become somewhat mythic.

	2001	2002	2003	2005	2009	2010	#
PA-1		(4)			(3)		(7)
A-10		(1)	(2)		(2)		(5)
A-3	(1)	(1)	(2)		(1)		(5)
LA-5		(1)			(4)		(5)
LE-4		(1)			(4)		(5)
A-11		(1)	(2)		(1)		(4)
A-13		(1)	(2)		(1)		(4)
A-2		(1)	(2)		(1)		(4)
A-9		(3)			(1)		(4)
LA-3		(1)			(3)		(4)
LA-4		(1)	(2)		(1)		(4)
LA-6		(3)			(1)		(4)
LE-1		(1)		(2)	(1)		(4)
LE-10		(1)		(2)	(1)		(4)
LE-3		(3)			(1)		(4)
LE-6		(1)		(2)	(1)		(4)
LE-8		(1)		(2)	(1)		(4)
LE-9		(3)			(1)		(4)
MO-1		(1)			(2)	(1)	(4)
S-1		(1)			(2)	(1)	(4)
S-2		(1)			(2)	(1)	(4)
S-3		(1)			(2)	(1)	(4)
LA-1		(1)	(1)				(2)

As I have not yet posted my map tracings (threads), there is a block of time with undocumented activity. The painstaking tracing of my passage. Yet this is precisely what I like about the blog structure — that you can post back in time. Filling in the spaces.

I'll need to update this table through time. Though there is certainly an automatic way of doing this by tracking the feeds, it is more à propos to adopt a more manual process of tracking data. Central to the craftmanship of creating an object — an patchwork rug in this case — is human error and fancy; the unpredictability of the choices one makes throughout the creative process that can alter the final form.

I am surprised at how regulated these tongues are once isolated from the table, though of course they are constrained by a grid of rows and columns. The diagram also indicates that I work in spurts. This Tongue Rug Table is quite the opposite of the traditional sladdakavring whose essence is slightly chaotic with its overlapping tongues.

Process: Barthes and the Tongue Box

Remember studying Barthes' Le Plaisir du texte (1973) in grad school. The professor asked the class which section of the book was their favourite. I answered that the table of contents at the end of the book was the section that pleased me the most, consisting of a mere list of words: Affirmation, Babel, Babil, Bords, Brio, Clivage, Communauté, Corps... Each of his fragmented texts seemed almost self-sustaining yet linked by overarching themes.

This index could serve in a sort as a hypertext with the reader making the relational links through her choices: the fragments that she selects, and the order in which she reads them. Like the web, one could enter and leave at any node in the book, and the reader is not obligated to start at the beginning but could very well choose to start at the end. Choose a word in the index, and "navigate" to the associated page.

Eve Tavor Bannet has described this open-ended and uncentered text succinctly:

“Each fragment thus becomes in effect a poem in prose: each fragment yields a plurality of significations and a number of possible relations between its diverse parts.” ("Barthes' Fictional Politics: Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes” Postscript 6, 1989, p. 23)

Tavor Bannet also emphasizes the active and performative aspect of reading. She points out how Barthes urges the reader to “imagine a discourse which could link [word fragments]” in Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (25); how he saw fragments and indexing as “a new cut out (a new mapping) of the real” (Le Grain 168) (24).

In terms of a writing project, I do see the Tongue Rug as an index, a table of contents that structures multiples tongues (texts) situated in time (blog) and in space — a map with geographic/genealogical markers. The web as my medium of choice rather than the printed page means that I can track the writing progress, animate the Tongue Rug. The sladdakavring as a work in progress.

Process: Pehr Kalm

Reading a book by Yvon Desloges (À table en Nouvelle-France, Les éditions du Septentrion, 2009) on the diet and culinary traditions of First Nations people and French and English colonists in the Laurentian valley from 1608-1791. It is a fascinating read: with ties to religion, social mores, economic circumstances and geography, food can tell us much about the métissage of cultures. I was at first surprised to come across the name of the Swedish-Finnish botanist and explorer, Pehr Kalm in several texts.

 

Born in Ångermanland, Sweden (1716 –1779), Pehr Kalm was a student of Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), the Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist who invented a new system for naming species — binomial nomenclature. 

“He could not believe his good fortune in becoming one of Linnaeus’s disciples. He had lost his father [the pastor Gabriel Kalm] before he was born, but God has given him Linnaeus and Bielke instead.” Pehr Kalm to Carl Linnaeus, 24 January 1744, The Linnaean correspondence, linnaeus.c18.net, letter L0528 (consulted 13 February 2010).

Sten Carl Bielke (1709-1753) was a Swedish Baron and one of the founders of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He financially supported Kalm’s voyage to America. While it was Bielke who first had the idea of collecting specimens from other northern climates like Iceland and Siberia, it was Linnaeus who suggested an expedition to North America, as the continent was little known at the time. Nancy Pick writes of their hope to start a silk industry in Scandinavia, describing how Linnaeus urged Kalm to expedite plant and seed specimens from the New World so they could be classified into his Species Plantarum, a plant encyclopedia. Of particular interest was the red mulberry, Morus rubra, a plant that was speculated to be able to survive harsh winters. (“Linnaeus Canadensis”, The Walrus Magazine, 2007). There is presently a move to preserve what remains of Kalm’s experimental botanical garden in Sipsalo, near Turku (Åbo), Finland.

Kalm is also remembered today for his journal, En Resa til Norra America. His daily writings reveal a richly detailed account of fauna and flora, colonial life, religion, politics, and architecture. Voyage de Pehr Kalm au Canada en 1749 is also of interest for the sociological accounts of settlers during the final years of the French Regime. I wasn’t able to find the French translation online, as it is out of print. Decided to take a walk to the Maison Saint-Gabriel in Pointe-Saint Charles to visit their boutique. The woman in charge informed me that they were sold out. She had received two calls that very week about the same book. She was kind enough to let me leave my contact info in case they found second hand copies. I had found a PDF version online, but it’s not the same. I wanted the object. In fact, she told me it was the perfect “livre de chevet”, as one could read his daily logs more than two hundred and fifty years after his passage.

I did find two amazing on-line resources. The Linnaean Correspondence by The centre international d’étude du XVIIIe siècle is a database with all the surviving letters written to and by Linnaeus. An avid letter writer, there were 40 letters from Kalm to Linnaeus alone. Thankfully, some of them have summaries for those who do not read Swedish. The Linnean Society of London’s Linnean Collections also has an extensive database with a zoomable image of the actual letter written to Linnaeus by Kalm in 1749 from Quebec.

I transcribed the letter and tried to translate it from the Swedish using GoogleTranslate and my Engelsk-Svensk dictionary. I could only surmise it was about plants, with a curious line about wanting to “order and plant my trees, herbs and children [!]”. An amusing exercise until I find the French translation.

P.S. I have been 12 Swedish miles N. of Quebec (…) Thuya, together with several spruce, pine and Larix vulgar. I find it nor needful, at becoming a year more in America, for PEHR KALM could well be more an observer, but on several relatively new tree for answers, and useful herbs, know PEHR KALM; new and curious PEHR KALM could well be.

In the preface to the English translation by John Reinhold Forster (Travels into North America, 1773), Forster describes Kalm's writing style:

“He gives you his observations as they occurred day after day, which makes him a faithful relater, notwithstanding it takes away all elegance of style, and often occasions him to make very sudden transitions from subjects very foreign to one another.”

It will be interesting to think of the blog structure and how it affects how one writes when reading Kalm's journal. In fact, if I think of the Tongue Rug as a writing project, the blog structures itself does accentuate "very sudden transitions from subjects very foreign to one another" by way of hyperlinks and cloud tags. Each tongue has a narrative (lake, placename) in a larger narrative (tongue rug).

Progress: January 24, 2010

I think I prefer the Tongue Rug sketch to this mock up. The sladdakavring looks lifeless. Perhaps it needs to be animated slightly? Or are the labels too stiff? I'll have to keep playing at it. J'aime la façon dont les langues se chevauchent, le tracé de mon parcours qui ressemble à des bouts de fils éparpillés.

Process: Placenames

Found a great book on Quebec family names by Roland Jacob, Votre nom et son histoire. Les noms de familles au Québec (Montréal, Les Éditions de l’Homme, 2006).

I already knew that the Legault family name meant one who dwells by the forest, but did not know of its origin. Jacob forwards two explanations. Either gault/gaud is from the Germanic root Waldo (to govern), or it is from the Germanic root wald (forest, woods). He believes the second to be the origin of the name, which would make Legault similar to the Laforest family name. (55) Though Gault placenames still exist in Eastern France (Marne, Loir-et-Cher and Eure-et-Loire), the French ancestor of all Legaults in North America, Noël Legault dit Deslauriers, was of Breton origin (Irvillac in Finistère). (142)

I had thought Lapalme was a nickname for a stone carver (one who uses his palm to mesure stone). It could be rather that it was a nickname associated to the practice of pilgrimages. Lapalme, like Palmer in English, was a name to designate the pilgrim who brought back palms to prove that he had undergone a long journey. (296)

Anger (angier) comes from the Germanic root Ansgari, a composite name formed by the root ans- (name of a pagan god) and the root –gari (to be ready). However Angers is a family name attributed to a person from the city of Angers in Anjou. (66) There seems to be many hypotheses on the origin of Anger.

Process: Vargtimmen

Addicted to Scandinavian crime novels by the Icelandic Arnaldur Indridason and the Swedish Åke Edwardson. Currently reading the Edwardson series translated into French: riveting stories that are beautifully written and translated. In Chambre numéro 10 (Rum Nummer 10, 2005), Detective Winter mentions the hour of the wolf whenever he is reflecting on a case in the wee hours — a reference perhaps to the 1968 gothic horror film by Bergman, Vargtimmen. The hour between night and dawn is thought to be a transition time in Scandinavian folklore with more babies being born and more people dying at this time than at any other time.

I often find myself wide-awake at 4:00 a.m. Instead of getting upset over the sleeplessness, I've started taking advantage of this lucid time: I read or write, work on art projects. I have a long list of ‘to do’ items for the Tongue Rug project. My problem is finding the time after the full-time job. Perhaps the insomnia is a blessing?

Most of the novels take place in Göteborg, but I pay close attention to placenames as I have three waypoints in Sweden.

Ången Lake (S-1)
Nyköping municipality in Södermanland län on the south east coast

Ängesån River (S-2)
Överkalix municipality in Norrbottens län
in the extreme north (Swedish Lapland)

Ängesån River (S-3)
Hofors municipality in Gävleborgs län on the Baltic Sea coast

Though I am partly of Swedish ancestry, I know little about Sweden. Until I visit in person, I have to rely on my own imaginings of place based on fictional points of reference. Looking forward to that unsettling confrontation between fantasy and reality when I finally do make it to those waypoints.

Process: Time Sculpture

On a stop-over in Toronto, I visited the AGO. Bypassed the KingTut exhibit in favour of Beautiful Fictions, an engrossing photography exhibit. Highlights amongst others were Arnaud Maggs' Hotel series and Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Watertowers (Typology), 1980. Anyone who has been to Sudbury would appreciate this series of industrial architecture. Taken out of context and aligned together, the structures are quite otherworldly.

Gazed out over the city from Gehry's light-filled staircases, and explored the Vivian and David Campbell Centre for Contemporary Art on the 4th and 5th floors. I particularly enjoyed the “land art” room. Remembered Ian Hamilton Finlay from my Scotland days. Responded to Robert Fones’ (b. London, CA, 1949) woodcut, Natural Range of Canada Plum, 1984.

Completely intrigued by Cycling Sculpture, 1-3 Dec. 1967 by Richard Long (b. Bristol, UK, 1945) — the simplicity of his documentation (a photo, a typed page with instructions, and a map with waypoints). His work has often been cast as “romantic” yet the artist always referred to his objective method of documentation. Perhaps it is because his photographs, devoid of human presense, are often strikingly beautiful.

I too tend to favour the rural scenes in my own project, conscious of how my documentation of placenames veer from an objective method in my reach for beauty. Finding the right vantage point to witness the play of light on water for instance. The gold of a swaying field. They are empty landscapes with no direct human intervention like cars or people walking, though the occasional house does figure in the background. To be fair, most of my genealogical/geographical waypoints have been in rural settings as they are related to waterways. Urban waterways are habitually underground.

I also try and shy away from direct self-representation in my photos. My rule is to not represent the figure, but to allow the trace of the artist through a stand-in: the growing “path-map” — the tracing of my passage on the Quebec landscape or the occasional glimpse of my bike in the panoramas. The bike is much like the artist’s knapsack in Long's photo A Night of Rain Sleeping Place An 8 Day Mountain Walk in Sobaeksan Korea Spring 1993. It is possible to completely erase the artist? Without this human impulse to leave a trace, would the artist be driven to create work? Is ego a necessary part of the creative process?

Where I do respond to Long’s work is the aspect of “discovery” of a space — not in a colonial fashion (claiming something as one’s own in conqueror mode), but more on an intimate level through simple movements in time and space. The act of searching and being uncertain of where I am going (both physically and conceptually) is a necessary part of my art practice. There is an element of risk in the unknown. The subject emerges through time.

Looking forward to the Sculpture as Time exhibit coming up in March.

Progress: December 17, 2009

Gave a presentation of my work at Laboratoire NT2 at UQAM as part of FAIS TA VALISE!, a Montreal School Board project co-produced with the Fine Art faculty at Concordia and Hexagram. While I concentrated on the collaborative project Fugues, I briefly showed the Tongue Rug project to talk about process.

Trying to describe my project to a class of grade 6 students (age 10), I quickly realized that I needed to resort to plain everyday language. Vague art speak was not going to cut it. What was this project about?

Told them that I was cycling to different bodies of water with my family names and this was creating a path in the landscape. Each waypoint is represented by a tongue in the tongue rug. The structure is participative as the public can send their own stories about these placenames by commenting on the blog, filling out a form or simply through haphazard meetings. In this way, I do not know what the final tongue rug will look like. It will depend on my travels in space and in time, with my interactions with people.

They seemed to readily accept the logic (or whimsy) behind it. I loved that the kids didn’t focus on the “why” of the project but honed in on specific details: why were the tongues labeled so? I tried to explain that the tongue rug could have a different shape and be animated differently were we to travel to waypoints with their family names for example.

I showed them my dusty old Lake of the Woods Tongue Rug, that had initially served as my inspiration. (The back of the rug is made with burlap sack from Lake of the Woods Milling). Talked of objects that can be used as archives, both past (handicraft) and present (virtual). I truly enjoyed sharing my ideas and the creative process with them. Their spontaneous and uncluttered feedback was refreshing.

Progress: November 19, 2009

 

Getting ready to make an animated Tongue Rug that pieces together all the tongues (trips). The sladdakavring's shape will be determined by the dates when the trips were made and the number of tags for each tongue.

 

			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	LA3 09 06 2009
			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	LE4 07 29 2009 *
			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	LA5 07 29 2009 *
			...... ...... ...... ......	LE6 08 06 2005	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
			...... ...... ...... ......	LE10 06 19 2005	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
			...... ...... ...... ......	LE8 06 18 2005	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
			...... ...... ...... ......	LE1 06 18 2005	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
		LA4 08 09 2003		...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
		A3 07 24 2003 *		...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
		A2 07 24 2003		...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
		A10 07 07 2003		...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
		A13 07 05 2003		...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
		A11 07 04 2003		...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
	LE9 08 17 2002			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
	LA6 08 10 2002			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
	PA1 08 03 2002			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
	A9 07 28 2002			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
	LE3 07 20 2002			...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......
A3 11 2001 *				...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......	...... ...... ...... ......

* Indicates substitution of a waypoint

Making this table to document my progress was admittedly depressing at first. Reduced to a graph, my progress seems unimpressive. Telling in its inconsistency. The cycling trips were well on their way in the beginning and then I had a bike accident in 2004. Ran into a car door and was unable to ride for the rest of the summer. I then proceeded on a long academic detour. Four years worth. Had to shelve the project for months with little fits and starts here and there. The subsequent summers were spent working in Ottawa and trying to finish my thesis on the side.

But it's not fair to paint that whole period as a roadblock to my progress, as I did do considerable research. I just need to revisit those notes. As I am interested in process, all those pauses, jumps and starts are all part of the overall project. I also did document the waypoints along the Ottawa River. In fact, looking at the sketch, I managed to document enough tongues to give the rug a nice shape. I'm starting to visualize the tongues in time and space.