PRESENTATIONS

"Dimensional Paradigms - Cognitive Mapping And Cartesian Sensibilities"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Dimensional Paradigms - Cognitive Mapping And Cartesian Sensibilities"

International Society For Literature, Science, And The Artschicago, IL - November 2005

Cognitive mapping is the map we carry in our heads. It is the map we use when we know where we are and know where we want to go. Or, at least, when we think we have a handle on the familiar. This map is so deeply imbedded that we are completely unaware of it, even though we all use it all the time. It is cognitive mapping that transports us from the departure gate, to the washroom, and back again. It is truly our sense of direction, our internal compass, our perception and understanding of our surroundings interwoven with the will and desire to move around.

Cartesian mapping refers to the axial construct that blankets the earth, reducing the complexity of our surroundings to a simple matter of x and y. It is the grid applied unilaterally and without exception across landscapes, oceans, interstates and small towns. It is the backbone of many of our cities, the tropic of Capricorn, and the cardinal directions. It is rise over run.

In this world, our lived experience is a negotiation between the cognitive and the cartesian. We move forward, backwards, laterally, asking and answering the questions where am i? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Sometimes the answers come from within. Sometimes the landscape provides valuable clues. Sometimes the map is held in our hand sometimes, it all exists in our heads.

Artists such as Richard Long, Kathy Prendergast, Stephen Chalmers, myself, and many others navigate the space between cognitive mapping and Cartesian coordinates to consider mapping in terms of permanence, impermanence locational identity, human emotion and creative expression.

Richard Long explores the cognitive and the Cartesian through the act of walking, believing that walking - as art - provides an ideal means to explore relationships between time, distance, geography and measurement. In his own words, “I create walks and land-based sculptures as a way of inhabiting the rich territory between two ideological positions, namely that of making 'monuments' or conversely, of 'leaving only footprints'.”

Kathy Prendergast
At first glance Kathy Prendergast’s “HYPERLINK Map” appears to be a straightforward map of the United States with the familiar topographical patterning of mountain ranges, lakes, and state borders. If we could examine this work closer we would see that all of the names of places have been removed from the map except for those that begin and end with the word lost (e.g., Lost Creek, Lost Island, and Lost Canyon).
In describing “Lost Map” Prendergast writes: “For the last few years I have been researching place-names with the idea of producing an “Emotional Atlas of the World.” This atlas would show all the places in the world which have names connected with emotions, i.e., Lost Bay, Lonely Island, Hearts Desire, etc., rather than the conventional atlas which shows places of importance. “Lost Map” is a variation on this theme. Through Prendergast’s work, we may come to know every “lost” place in North America.

Stephen Chalmers
Over the past five years photographer Stephen Chalmers has formed a compendium of human suffering through documenting roadside memorials and researching the story behind each one. Chalmers has photographed 300 memorials in the continental US and Hawaii since the summer of 2001. Chalmers first photographs each memorial. Then, using a GPS receiver, he records the latitude and longitude of the location and uses that data, with mapping software to locate business owners nearby, who he then contacts to see if they know anything about the memorial. The stories are enduring and tragic, though the memorials themselves are quite temporary. Interstate road crews are instructed not to dismantle, alter, or remove roadside memorials, though most deteriorate within ten years of being sited. Some are maintained, most are not.

I asked Stephen why he records the lat. and long….why is that important to the work as a whole? In response he offered that using Cartesian coordinates creates a map of human suffering across the country. It reveals a known network of discrete locations where a human spirit has separated from a human body. The work brings all-encompassing grief to a single point on the planet experienced as a fleeting blur by passersby and a point of enduring sorrow for those closer to the tragedy. Chalmers is currently publishing this work as a monograph, titled “ In Memorium: Roadside Memorials and Public Grieving in America”.

PKCL

My recent investigations on cognition and the Cartesian have been focused on navigation and mapping with regard to order, chaos and our relationship to land, climate, and natural phenomena.

In 2001 I mounted an exhibition in Seattle, titled Precisely Known Completely Lost. Describe…

I was attracted to the implied permanence of these radically terrestrial objects. And began documenting them through photographs and audio recordings. As it turns out, survey stations are only slightly more permanent than roadside memorials, as they are regularly paved over, turned under or otherwise obliterated by new construction and housing developments. My goal is to document as many as possible before they disappear. Places are people…

FLOATING DATUM
I began this series of work titled floating datum as a way to explore what it means to bring a fixed matrix to dynamic circumstances. The oceans are navigable but the waters can be quite rough. Forests can be mapped, but trees decompose. Land can be sectioned into squares, but sometimes the wind blows in circles. That sort of thing The first work in this series is a broad-based exploration of the disconnect between navigation and survival. I was looking at the history of shipping, oceanic exploration, and wars fought at sea. After a while of comparing histories, it seemed that sailors were equally susceptible to dying of boredom and bad behavior brought on by boredom as by ships running aground, cannon fire, or being eaten by great white whales. This work explores in image and sound the listless state of being becalmed in the middle of nowhere, with very few external references, relying not on a map, but on a single song to keep one sane. This work asks the question “when are we gonna get there”

FLOATING DATUM: FIXED GRID – explores land management, more specifically, our often failed attempts at mitigating natural forces and environmental disasters. This work is located at a superfund site on Bainbridge Island…

CONCLUSION
We navigate by stories….says the writier Rebecca Solnit. This place won’t be found on any map says Herman Melville, true places never are. We all possess a basic human need to explore and a need to make sense of our world. Without a Cartesian system of navigation, we would all be lost. Without cognitive maps, we may very well end up becalmed and adrift. Sense of place does not exist in the physical word. It is not universal and it is not permanent. It shifts relative to our bodies, our memories, external information and what we choose to pay attention to. The artwork shown here explores mapping relative to human emotion, navigation, and intuition. locates and illuminates that which often goes overlooked and unheard. Where am I? Where did I come from? Where am I Going? With more attention towards our surroundings we all may derive a deeper sense of place. Thank you very much.