Basta

“Non c’è niente da capire, basta guardare.” (Goffredo Parise)

Volans

Many years ago I read Bruce Chatwin’s “The Songlines”. The Aboriginal people’s practice of imposing a symbolic topography – a complex set of stories – onto a real landscape so as to at once keep the memory alive and securely navigate over long distances I found captivating. A few years later I picked up a CD with an eponymous string quartet, written by the South African composer Kevin Volans (now resident in Ireland). Volans’ chamber works have given me a lot of listening pleasure since and recently I felt the urge to reacquaint myself thoroughly with these and other works.

On Volans’ website (www.kevinvolans.com) I found a short and very articulate essay about his musical practice (“Dancing in the Dark”) which offered me a lot of food for thought in relation to my own practice of photography. With the emergence of the Hölderlin-project, the key question I have been asking me is how to photograph conceptually (“about Hölderlin”) in a non-conceptual way (“without falling into the trappings of particular techniques, ideas and templates”).

For Volans, something interesting arises out of an “indescribable” relationship between the method and what he calls “musical image”. For him, composition is not about processing musical ideas in a well-defined way. The “something interesting” that takes shape in his mind or on the score paper cannot be described independently from the materials and the method. Complexity theorists would say that Volans would try to bring something to life with emergent properties. What these properties exactly are, is impossible to predict, also for the artist that is struggling with the method and the material. In that sense, “real composition begins when you do not actually understand why you are doing something, because you are attempting to reach beyond your own vocabulary.” This assessment perfectly echoes Emmett Gowin’s beautiful dictum that “we cannot know what we are doing when we are being creative.”

So Volans warns against mapping a set of values from an extra-musical model onto an aspect of the music in order to find a rationale for the music. That is exactly what the temptation is when one approaches a photographic project around an overwhelmingly rich datum such as Hölderlin. I could easily find ten different conceptual angles to approach this work. Just to give two examples: I could start from Hölderlin’s troubled psyche (“clinical schizophrenia”) and try to mirror that photographically in whatever way deemed suitable (unsharpness would probably be a good start; I know photographers who have been working in this vein). Or I could try to emulate the early Romantic pictorial aesthetics in photography (taking my cue, for instance, from Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), an almost exact contemporary of Hölderlin (1770-1843)).

What Volans is saying is that this kind of mapping of one medium to another amounts to confining oneself to manipulating cliché. What matters is “not a method of composition, but an attitude towards music … involving a feeling (love) for material (“know thy instrument”), an awereness that everything depends on the context (no universal rules for all situations), and a sensitivity to image.” Volans refers to traditional African music to make his point. African musicians are much less obsessed with formal characteristics (“concepts”) than their Western counterparts. For them, music is more like a natural event: “like birdsong it can be neither too long or too short, like the clouds, neither well or badly proportioned.” It is characterised by effortlessness and unpredictability: “nothing is forced, nothing is demonstrated, everything is affirmed.”

This kind of stuff will help me to wriggle out of the conceptual straightjacket I may have maneuvred myself in over the last couple of years.

Wanderlust

Recently I have written a little Amazon-review of Rebecca Solnit’s “Wanderlust – A History of Walking”. Although this book primarily offers a political perspective on the last 300 years of walking, Solnit also writes intelligently about the phenomenology of bipedal propulsion. And this is also valuable for photographers, at least for those who like to exercise their craft on foot.

According to Solnit, walking leads to a productive alignment between mind, body and world. Indeed, the link between thinking and walking goes way back. Philosophers, poets and healers have been travelling on foot since the dawn of our cultural history. Extrapolating Solnit's hypothesis to the photographic era one could add a variable to the equation and say that walking leads to an alignment between mind, body, world and the lens of our camera.

I believe that a walking photographer is not the same as the stationary photographer. The "walking photographer" forms a indissoluble complex with the "camera". It is a whole that subjects itself to the vagaries and unpredictabilities of the journey. The element of chance is crucial. And whoever has spent a couple of days on the trail will know that once the rhythm has settled, one becomes much more alert to all kinds of sensory inputs. Also this alertness is crucial. So, openness to chance and alertness reinforce one another, disclosing an ever shifting photographic opportunity space.

The cover of Solnit's book shows a fascinating photograph by Roger Fenton, dated 1858: "The Long Road to Windsor".

Capitals complete

The Bucharest series has finally been added to the EU Capitals site. It's a fairly homogeneous set. Less quirky then Sofia, for sure. But I think it captures the atmosphere. The site is now complete. Thanks to Johan for it's scrupulous maintainance.

Picture above was taken with the Mamiya 6 on Rollei IR film @ 100 asa, Scala development.

Winter memories

Whilst winter (?) is already taking its leave here in the Low Countries, I had the pleasure to recapture some of the superb atmosphere during our ski holidays when looking through a set of b&w medium format chromes (Rollei IR film developed by the Scala process). I'm happy they are well exposed which is not so easy in snowy landscapes. Remarkably, the Mamiya 6 75mm lens seems to show some vignetting. I never noticed that before, but the transparencies show it very clearly. This makes them not so easy to scan. Nevertheless they are glorious to look at. I'll post some more images in the next couple of days.

Versione Italiane

I have been taking Italian lessons for a while, over the phone (in fact, it's skype). This is a little text I wrote as a subject for a recent lesson. My Italian teacher (who is in Torino) and I corrected it during the session. All remaining errors are my own responsibility, of course. On the lefthand side a tongue-in-cheek reference to Empedocles' nature philosophy ...

"Fino Aprile partiro per le Isole Eolie. Forse sarà l’inizio d’un nuovo progetto fotografico. Dopo il mio giro delle 27 capitale Europee, ho cercato un nuovo punto di partenza per la mia creatività fotografica. L’ho trovato nella figura e nell’arte del poeta lirico tedesco Friedrich Hölderlin.

Mi sono gia da lungo tempo interessato al lavoro di Hölderlin. L’ho scoperto 20 anni fa quando era affascinato dal Romanticismo tedesco. E un episodo particolare che mi affascina – e probabilmente tutti gli amanti del poeta: il suo viaggio di Bordeaux a Stoccardo nell’anno 1802. In Francia, Hölderlin occupava il suo posto come precettore solo per qualche mese. Gia in Maggio cominciava il suo ritorno in Germania. Non e certo il suo percorso, tantomeno le avventure che ha vissuto. Hölderlin stesso ha parlato di un’esperienza profonda, ha testimoniato dell’ “elemento immenso, il fuoco al cielo” e che era stato colpito da Apollo. Dopo il suo arrivo a Stoccardo, i suoi amici erano sconcertati di vedere che il poeta soffriva di uno squilibrio mentale. Era l’inizio di un lungo declino nella demenza.

Vorrei ritracciare i passi del poeta e fare un viaggio analogo a piedi. E un percorso di circa 850 km attraverso le zone montagnose del’Auvergne, Vosgi e il Schwarzwald. Avro bisogno di circa 40 giorni per coprire la distanza. Non sara una ricostruzione “autentica” perche non conosciamo il percorso preciso di Hölderlin. Ma non è cosi importante. E semplicemente un' occasione di riflettere sul progetto poetico di Hölderlin e di sondare il mondo con la macchina fotografica da un punto di vista estremamente ricca.

Ritorniamo alle Isole Eolie. Certo non si trovano fra Bordeaux e Stoccardo! Allora, perche potrebbe essere l’inizio di quel progetto? La Sicilia, e piu generalmente il mare mediterraneo, e un concorso di diverse sfere d’interesse. Hölderlin non ha mai visto il mondo antico che cosi ammirava. Ma, partendo da un visione interiore, ha molto cantato d’un mondo greco che era ancora abitato da un'alleanza di uomini e dei. Ha anche scritto un dramma rimasto frammento intitolato “La morte d’Empedocle”. Si tratta del filosofo-mistico greco che ha commesso suicidio buttandosi nel cratere dell’Etna. E cosi arriviamo in Sicilia, dove spero di potere visualizzare un poco lo spirito del mondo antico che Hölderlin a cantato magnificamente."

The Holderlin Project

It's sounds like the latest Dan Brown-clone, but it's actually the photo-project that currently is dwarfing everything else photography-related in my mind. The idea is to take an episode in the life of the early romantic German poet Friedrich Hölderlin as the starting point for both a conceptual and photographic exploration. I may turn this project into the basis for a Doctorate in the Arts. In the Anglo-Saxon academic world, a D.A. is already in existence for a longer time. The D.A. differs from the Ph.D. in its shift in emphasis from theoretical research (though research is required) to the advanced study or practice of a specific (artistic) discipline. In our country, D.As are very new. The first one was awarded at the KULeuven only last year to Martin Vanvolsem, who accidentally also worked on a photographic subject (“The experience of time in photographic images, see http://associatie.kuleuven.be/ivok/docindekunsten.htm#vanvolsem).

But the D.A. is obviously not the main thing. It is just another alibi to engage with a particular subject matter and an incentive to, metaphorically speaking, keep the focus over a longer period of time. I think the combination of conceptual thinking and practical engagement fits well with my intellectual temperament. In my professional life I am doing this all the time. However, I am curious to see how well the logic carries over to the photographical domain. At this point in time I have no clue how a Hölderlin-centered narrative and a Hölderlin-focused series of images can be meaningfully connected with one another. I see solving that particular problem as one of the main tasks in this whole endeavour.

But let’s start at the beginning. The beginning is a very specific episode in Hölderlin’s life. The year is 1802 and he has taken on an assignment as a house tutor for the children of the German consul in Bordeaux. Early in the year he makes the trip on foot to the southwest of France: a rough trip over the snowy Auvergne. But already after a few months, in May, he takes the decision to leave his posting and to make the return journey back to Germany. When in the early summer he emerges in Stuttgart, all his friends are shocked by his appearance: haggard, disheveled, confused. The journey seems to constitute a turning point in Hölderlin’s life. From then onwards his slide towards mental illness seems to be unstoppable. Nevertheless it is also a period of uncommon artistic productivity. Between 1802 and 1806 some of his greatest hymns and odes see the light. His language and imagery reach a poignant precariousness and intensity. Hölderlin’s symbolic universe is about to collapse under the weight of the Real.

This biographical episode is the starting point. However, it is a controversial episode with sources disagreeing about the actual trajectory and what really happened. Hölderlin himself reported about the journey as a tremendous experience. He spoke about having seen “die traurige einsame Erde”, about being deeply touched by “das gewaltige Element, das Feuer des Himmels”, about being transfixed by Apollo. But according Hölderlin scholar Pierre Bertaux it is unlikely that the outbound journey would have been done on foot. He claims the poet would have reached Bordeaux after an 18-day journey by coach. I don’t know how much evidence there is to back up Bertaux’ claims.

Also the journey back home remains clouded in mystery. The accepted version is that Hölderlin went north to Paris rather than northeast across the Auvergne. In Paris he visited the collection of antique sculptures – deftly supplied by an incessantly looting Napoleon – and went on to Strasbourg and further to Stuttgart. However, just a few days ago I was quite astonished to read in the Collected Works, (Sattler edition) that Hölderlin from Strasbourg would have followed the Rhine upstream, first towards the Bielersee (where JJ Rousseau spent some time writing his Confessions) and then further onwards to the Gotthard and the Lukmanierpasses in Central Switzerland. From the Lukmanier he descended southwards, ostensibly with a plan to go to Italy and beyond, to Greece. However, he quickly returned and made his way across the Adula Alps to the Rhine confluence again. From there it went more or less straight back to his starting point. In any case, this is a significant deviation from whatever other source I have consulted earlier on this matter and underlines that reconstructing the journey is already a focus for research in itself.

To the biographical I would then add an experiential layer to it by retracing Hölderlin’s steps in his return from Bordeaux. Given the uncertainties surrounding the actual journey, it doesn’t make sense to try and aim for an “authentic” reconstruction. A straight line between Bordeaux and Stuttgart goes across the Auvergne, the Morvan, the Vosges and the Schwarzwald. This looks like a very rewarding trip, roughly 850 km long, that could be done in about 40 days. Of course, it would be tempting to add the long detour over the Swiss Alps but that would amount to more than 1300 km and taken 2 months at least. Practically speaking this would take the whole venture into the realm of the impossible.

I have been wanting to do a long distance walk for a very long time and the line Bordeaux-Stuttgart has been pencilled in my old Britannica atlas ever since I got interested in Hölderlin, twenty years ago. I want to experience the synchronisation of mind and body, the alignment of thinking with the rhythm of bipedal propulsion and how that colours my perception of the world. In her “Wanderlust”, Rebecca Solnit writes that “walking (...) is a state in which the mind, the body and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.” Hölderlin’s life can be read as a succession of “Gewaltmärsche”, both in the physical and in the symbolic world, and I am convinced that the experience of being immersed in a foot journey for weeks on end will significantly deepen my perspective on the poet’s state of mind in this fateful episode.

His work would add yet another element to this project. We need to draw in and read his work in our attempt to make sense. I would like to limit myself to one single poem from the period immediately following up on the journey. The one I would spontaneously zoom into, despite its problematic history (we don’t know when it was written), is “In lieblicher Blaüe”. In this hymn one seems to find clear echos of a journey, evoked by ravishing and lively images. Hölderlin also mysteriously refers to the notion of “Bild” and “Bildsamkeit des Menschen” which is tantalising when one has a photographic project in mind. Inevitably, the work breaks out of its northwestern European geographical orbit and spills over into Hölderlin’s deeply loved Mediterranean world.

In that sense it could make sense to expand the geographical scope of the photographic project beyond the foot journey proper. Hölderlin has only seen the Mediterranean basin before his mind’s eye but nothing would stop me to venture there and try to capture some of these mental images with my camera. Later this spring I will be joining a photo workhshop to the Eolian Islands, off Sicily’s north coast. This could be a good opportunity to photographically come to grips with the Hölderlin theme for the first time. This location is all the more interesting as it evokes the poet’s fragmentary drama “Der Tod des Empedokles”, taking its cue from the pre-Socratic philosopher who supposedly died by jumping into the crater of the Etna volcano. Exploring these linkages would also start to blur the boundaries between the Mediterranean project and the Hölderlin project. It is fascinating to see how these projects evolve and morph over time thereby mimicking the rhizomatic structure of our symbolic order.

So we have the biography, the journey and the work. Remains the image as the final cornerstone of the edifice to be erected. The challenge is not to become engulfed by the conceptual miasma surrounding this most mysterious of poets. The shadow of Heidegger weighs heavily (notably on “In lieblicher Blaüe ...”). Complete libraries have been written in a fruitless attempt to understand a splitter of the magic that is embedded in this work. Hölderlin is a monster. If you’re not careful, it chases you in a labyrinth from which you will never emerge. I need to find a natural way to produce meaningful photographic images from the confrontation between biography, journey and work. I need to find simple clues that guide me in making photographic choices. Trouble is I like to get things right from the beginning. I want to know from the very start what camera, format, emulsion I will use to shape my perspective. There are hardly any practical considerations: is it possible to do a 900 km trip with large format gear? Sure, if you really want to. So, basically everything’s open. I have been entertaining a lot of options. The simple, restful square; 4x5” pinhole; large format colour polaroid. Or similar to Depardon’s “Errance”: every image upright in a 6x9 format, reflecting the upward striving character of Hölderlin’s poetry. I need space to show “das Feuer des Himmels”! I haven’t taken any decisions yet. But maybe I need to get learn to keep my options open and let choices evolve, as we go? I hesitate. I love photographic projects which show a compelling coherence dictated by simple formal choices. Again, Depardon’s “Errance” is a very good example. Let’s see. Ideally, by the end of April, before my departure to Sicily, I’ll have more clarity (but I doubt it).

Dubruk XII

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure to spend a day photographing with Johan Doumont. Johan came over to my place and we jumped on a bicycle to photographically explore the area where I live (and where Johan also has spent some time in his early years). There a few places in Heverlee where I wanted to take a picture for quite a while. The result will be another chapter (long overdue) for our “Dubruk”-website (www.dubruk.net). The picture above has been taken on Rollei IR film @ 100 asa, reverse (positive) development (Scala process), Rolleiflex 3.5E.