Anchor Chains (Iona)

Tobias M. Schiel5 Comments

“Das Zeug hat seinen Platz, oder aber es ‘liegt herum’, was von einem puren Vorkommen an einer beliebigen Raumstelle grundsätzlich zu unterscheiden ist. Der jeweilige Platz bestimmt sich als Platz dieses Zeugs zu… aus einem Ganzen der aufeinander ausgerichteten Plätze des umweltlich zuhandenen Zeugzusammenhangs.” (Martin Heidegger)

Neist Point (Isle of Skye)

Tobias M. Schiel2 Comments

“My father was not an ‘inspector’ of lighthouses; he, two of my uncles, my grandfather, and my great grandfather in succession, have been engineers to the Scottish Lighthouse service, all the sea lights in Scotland are signed with our name; and my father’s services to lighthouse optics have been distinguished indeed. I might write books till 1900 and not serve humanity so well,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson to his American publishers (quoted from Bella Bathurst, The Lighthouse Stevensons. London: Harper, 2005). Neist Point Lighthouse was designed by Louis’ cousin, David A. Stevenson.

Ardvergnish, near Pennyghael (Isle of Mull)

Tobias M. Schiel2 Comments

Hills and glens, rivers and lochs: Whenever I heard these words, a distinctive picture would form in my head and I knew that I had to travel Scotland one day. When this dream finally began to come true, we were quite sure about our destination: the Inner Hebrides. But I was not so sure what kind of pictures I would bring home. Would I seek confirmation of what I thought I already knew about Scotland – its nature, its climate, its topography, and maybe its picturesque-ness? Or would I rather follow up on recent thoughts about landscapes and maps, trying to see the abstract potential, as I would at home?

As much as we might think that abstract pictures could be made everywhere, they would not exist without a very specific ‘there’ (with a bow to Gertrude Stein, you may say that in a photo, there is a there there). They inevitably denote a location, probably transforming space into place … I do wonder if a photograph adds some kind of human scale to any given, nondescript space. By turning natural space into pictorial space, don’t we add some sort of meaning it would not have per se?

In the end, I found myself combining two angles: I took photos that would serve narrative ends and establish an account of our trip, and I made pictures in which I find a more or less abstract quality.

My introduction to the Inner Hebrides is a photo that represents what I came to see as a characteristic landscape: We found these white builings scattered through the Highlands and islands, a particular type of house that has its chimneys built into both gable ends.

Stand There!

Tobias M. Schiel2 Comments

Photographs serve the illusion of realism, of showing the Eiffel Tower or the bombing of a Vietnamese village as it really was. Perspective strongly supports this illusion. It denotes three-dimensional space on the basis of construction rules that have been derived from optics. A camera basically follows the same optical laws we find at work in the Renaissance theory and practice of perspective. It is a machine for making central perspectives, very much like the devices contrived by Dürer and others to facilitate the drawing of perspectives.

Perspective does not only denote space. It also positions the spectator: Central perspective works best if you stand right in front of the picture’s vantage point. You are thus made part of the geometrical arrangement; your (ideal) position, your eye is inscribed into the picture. For the image to captivate you and work its illusion, you have to cooperate, positioning yourself accordingly. Illusion comes at the price of a loss of freedom for the spectator.

Would absence of perspective, emphasizing the picture‘s flatness, then mean that spectators regain a certain amount of freedom, being allowed to stand wherever they like, without missing anything?

If this were the case, speaking of Informel paintings as ‘democratic’ may not only cover the picture elements (which are all equal) but also the ‘positioning’ of spectators. Confronted with a painting by, say, K. H. Sonderborg, spectators can position themselves freely, they can pick any spot in front of the picture they like. There is a certain openness to this, some kind of laissez-faire a Renaissance painting following the rules of central perspective might lack.

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Sources

Hans Belting, Florenz und Bagdad. Eine westöstliche Geschichte des Blicks. München: Beck, 2008.

Willi Kemp, “Das deutsche Informel”, Le grand geste! Informel und Abstrakter Expressionismus 1946 – 1964. Hg. v. museum kunst palast. Köln: DuMont, 2010.