This text is non-linear1 and is organised via a mind-map, which started as a page in a sketchbook and has been reimagined in digital form. The idea was borrowed from a mind-map called ‘The History of the World’ by Jeremy Deller, created to justify his ‘Acid Brass’ project in 19972. In it Deller makes a case for a social, musical, and cultural link between brass bands and acid house music, using the broader context of 20th century history in Britain. My mind-map uses aspects of UK history (but also international artists, writers and theorists) to find underlying links between some apparently disparate interests which form the background for my painting practice. The core terms are ‘landscape’ and ‘memory,' but they are linked through more specific interpretations. Through making this map, the most compelling idea for me has emerged as ‘landscape as a social document’. The words and phrases on the mind-map are linked to short texts and images which, taken as a whole, are a constellatory context for my paintings. I intend this to be expansive and speculative: there is no conclusion.
“This is not a program. This is a search. A Mad Garland of thoughts strung together. A thing that, since antiquity, keeps reoccurring with artists. An ongoing rite, a staging. The subject alone is no good. The object alone is no good. Only what happens, what they do together, kind of works.” - Jutta Koether, from Mad Garland3.
For ease of navigation, the pages with texts and images are listed below in a suggested reading order. The texts in bold are the most important ones, and together amount to approximately 5000 words. The ancilliary texts are shorter but contain further context and tangents. The text can be read by clicking on the links below, or you can return to the previous page and explore the mind-map as originally intended.
“This is not a program. This is a search. A Mad Garland of thoughts strung together. A thing that, since antiquity, keeps reoccurring with artists. An ongoing rite, a staging. The subject alone is no good. The object alone is no good. Only what happens, what they do together, kind of works.” - Jutta Koether, from Mad Garland3.
For ease of navigation, the pages with texts and images are listed below in a suggested reading order. The texts in bold are the most important ones, and together amount to approximately 5000 words. The ancilliary texts are shorter but contain further context and tangents. The text can be read by clicking on the links below, or you can return to the previous page and explore the mind-map as originally intended.
1. The non-linear text can also be referred to as a hypertext: a network of linked content. The hypertext has a conceptual history encompassing Jorge Luis Borges’ 1941 short story The Garden of Forking Paths, the World Wide Web, and the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics. The form of the texts thus reflects part of the concept - the many directional associations possible across boundaries of discipline and era.
2. Jeremy Deller, The History of the World, 1997. In Jeremy Deller[online] 2016 [cited 24 January 2020] Available from: <http://jeremydeller.org/TheHistoryOfTheWorld/TheHistoryOfTheWorld.php> .
3. Jutta Koether, ‘Mad Garland’ in Art & Subjecthood: The Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism, ed. By Isabelle Graw, Daniel Birnbaum and Nikolaus Hirsch (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011), p87.
2. Jeremy Deller, The History of the World, 1997. In Jeremy Deller[online] 2016 [cited 24 January 2020] Available from: <http://jeremydeller.org/TheHistoryOfTheWorld/TheHistoryOfTheWorld.php> .
3. Jutta Koether, ‘Mad Garland’ in Art & Subjecthood: The Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism, ed. By Isabelle Graw, Daniel Birnbaum and Nikolaus Hirsch (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2011), p87.
Texts
Nostalgia