place
Text on a information post
59.427560, 27.507553
119 × 79 cm
2015
“Place can be defined in a variety of ways. Among them is this: place is whatever stable object catches our attention. As we look at a panoramic scene our eyes pause at points of interest. Each pause is time enough to create an image of place that looms large momentarily in our view. The pause may be of such short duration and the interest so fleeting that we may not be fully aware of having focused on any particular object; we believe we have simply been looking at the general scene. Nonetheless these pauses have occurred. It is not possible to look at a scene in general; our eyes keep searching for points of rest. We may be deliberately searching for a landmark, or a feature on the horizon may be so prominent that it compels attention. As we gaze and admire a famous mountain peak on the horizon, it looms so large in our consciousness that the picture we take of it with a camera is likely to disappoint us, revealing a midget where we would expect to find a giant.”
Yi-Fu Tuan, 2001: 161
“Kohta võib defineerida mitmel erineval moel. Nende hulgas näiteks nii: koht on mistahes stabiilne objekt, mis meie tähelepanu köidab. Kui jälgime avarat vaadet, siis meie silmad peatuvad huvitavamatel punktidel. Iga selline peatus annab piisavalt aega, et luua kujutlus kohast, mis hetkel vaateväljas tähelepanu tõmbab. Peatus võib olla kestuselt väga lühike ja meie huvi nii mööduv, et me ei pruugi olla isegi teadlikud sellest, et keskendusime hetkeks kindlale objektile; me usume, et oleme jälginud lihtsalt üldist vaadet. Sellegipoolest leidsid need peatused aset. Võimatu on heita pilku vaid üldisele vaatele; meie silmad otsivad punkte, kuhu pidama jääda. Me võime teadlikult otsida mõnda orientiiri või on midagi horisondil terendavat nii esileküündiv, et äratab tahes-tahtmata tähelepanu. Kui me silmitseme ja imetleme kuulsat mäetippu silmapiiril, kangastub see meie teadvuses nii suurena, et sellest kaameraga tehtud pilt valmistab meile tõenäoliselt pettumuse, paljastades kääbuse seal, kus lootsime leida hiiglast.“
Yi-Fu Tuan, 2001: 161
restoration
one channel projection, stage
2015
“Environment may not be the direct cause of topophilia but environment provides the sensory stimuli, which as perceived images lend shape to our joys and ideals. Sensory stimuli are potentially infinite: that which we choose to attend (value or love) is an accident of individual temperament, purpose, and of the cultural forces at work at a particular time.”
Yi-Fu Tuan, 1990:113
“When one’s interactions are primarily mediated by the contribution of imagery, the image-as-hypermedia object becomes one’s presence. Posting infrequently amounts to absence, and becomes an existential threat, particularly within communities of practice that are electronically mediated and distributed across time and space”
Aaron Frey, 2012: 30
“In the past, discontent with reality expressed itself as a longing for another world. In modern society, a discontent with reality expresses itself forcefully and most hauntingly by the longing to reproduce this one.”
Susan Sontag 1977: 81
effectively enacted utopias
This exhibition took place in Toila parish, which is a small village on the coast of the Baltic sea and the place where I grew up. The project analysed my early photography which mostly consisted of scenic landscape photos of the Oru park and seashore of Toila. I began to experiment with photography in my adolescent years and the process of hiking and photographing became a necessary escapist act. The exhibition took place in two locations which were connected through a walk. These places proposed a possible narrative that had two approaches— phenomenological and social theoretical. The first approach, influenced by the writings of human geographer Yi-Fu Tuan focused on the geographical features of Toila parish. The second approach was a self-reflection which analysed different personal reasons and social influences that might have influenced my photography and its motifs, and took into account potential nostalgic reasons behind my interests in the subject matter of this exhibition. These two approaches were further developed in the following projects "Restorative Nostalgia of Photo Filters" and "Phonographic Composition of Toila Parish's Seashore".
The selection of images exhibited are part of my personal archive and frame a very decisive period of my life. The act of stepping into the park and taking images made it possible to experience time and space in a new way. These experiences took place in real environments but layered with escapism, influences from the society and nostalgia—gave this ritual a sense of otherness.
"First there are the utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place. They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces. There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places—places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society—which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias."
Michel Foucault
"Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias", 1984
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