Of the expedition as one of the fine arts
Alberto Baraya 2010
Hypothesis
The structure of The Expedition (derived from scientific formats) is a valid form for artistic creation.
The expedition as one of the fine arts
The concept of the expedition asone of the fine arts arises from paraphrasing the title of the British writer Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859) Of murder as one of the fine arts (On Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts, 1827). In his ironic essay, once the moral obstacles of atrocious and unfortunate events have been overcome, the author proposes to contemplate the act of murder from aesthetic considerations. In this hypothesis about the expedition I must, beforehand, discard the figure of irony and take a prudent distance with the considerations about "good taste" and about the particular events to which the author alludes in his writing. Above all, we are left with the extraordinary effectiveness of his statement to launch a hypothesis about artistic practice and an idea about the integral (total) work of art. The hypothesis of the expedition as one of the fine arts extends to two components:
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to. The journey as one of the fine arts
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b. The archive as one of the fine arts.
4 Concepts
By way of introduction, the followingfour concepts on which the hypothesis model revolves:
1.Trip
The trip as action, passion; their motivations, the structure of the trips, theapodemialgiaand nostalgia,1the consultation of the oracles, the concept of place, of home, of the other; conquest, colonization, migration, displacement
2.The expedition
Expedition may refer to:
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Action and effect of issuing (dispatching, extending certain documents, issuing an order or decree, proceeding with administrative or private causes and businesses, sending goods or telegrams, or procuring the release of something or someone).2
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Excursion (trip) to carry out a company in a distant place; The group of expedition members who carry it out also receives the name of expedition.
The expeditions have been enterprises in the sense of bringing together a large number of people with extensive knowledge in different subjects who, with the resources at their disposal, set out to explore a particular territory with the aim of expanding their knowledge and, therefore, being able to , about the same.
The expeditions have different characters depending on the objectives and resources: we are talking about military expeditions, in which knowledge of the place allows the positioning of troops and the warrior domain over the territory; of religious expeditions, in which the mission projects the indoctrination or dissemination of beliefs on the populations of the traveled territory, or of scientific expeditions, where the tools of knowledge of the territory are aimed at obtaining assessment data in the fields of different sciences, be it zoology, mineralogy, botany, physics, geography, mathematics.
The cultural aspects involved in an expedition almost always develop parallel to the statements in the mentioned expeditions, in which the explorer or traveler writes down, collects, hoards, "exotic" items and, as a compiler, documents, repeats and “writes” the cultural tradition of the territories. In turn, the explorer also generates documents: stories and stories, whether they are about his experience or from the oral tradition heard.
The ideology behind which the expedition moves is the axis around which the route segments are composed, decisions and directions are made. The financing of the company will direct the decisions from which the final result and the results are composed. objectives of the same.
The expedition also generates maps
The expedition involves planning and setting criteria, objectives and methodologies for a study on a given territory. A place of origin, a place of destination and, inre them, a displacement and some routes. A trip.
The proposal contemplates the use of this structure as a method for artistic practice. The documentation is intended as a form of landscape experience.
3. The File
The file is a set of documents produced by an individual or an institution in the exercise of its functions, at a certain time and place.
A file is a structure. This structure is the base scenario for the performance of thought. What allows me to think is worth as a structure. The file therefore allows methink.
Unlike the archive, the collection is a set of individual documents, grouped according to a previous intention, poetics, project or sensibility. The collection has a particular intention, the archive is sheltered by an institutional intention.3
The collection has a character similar to that of the exhibition. What is a collection?
Collection: Set of things of the same type that have something in common and that are usually grouped by hobby. The hobby of grouping objects belonging to a collection thus defined, is called collecting.
In the exercise of the expedition, a file of documents is produced, a fundamental product of the experience of the trip, of the meetings. collect or collectready made?) as a way of approaching the space, the places and the different contexts in which the experience takes place, leading to the generation of documentation and works.
The documents themselves as the essence of the proposition-work. This archive will also be the beginning from which to formulate artistic propositions. An artistic proposal can start from a file. This proposal will be consolidated in the forms and criteria that we choose to access said file. But an artistic proposal can also be an archive.
The archive as a work: in the case of theartificial plant herbariumThe generation of an archive is implicit from its conception. The field of action of the Herbarium of artificial plants generates a file and later creates documents from it.
4. The desire
Reflection is proposed from the termdesire, to ask ourselves where to direct our interests, our work... A spontaneous approach on this matter will allow everyone to reflect on what motivates them.
A list of expectations, to then do. Making, in the practice of photography, of the image, of the collection; ultimately, in the practice of art.
Conclusions
After carrying out the experiences under the figure of The expedition: [Exp. Putumayo (2004), Exp. Acre (Pry. Rubber tree, 2006), Exp. Venecia (2009), Exp. N. Zelandia (2009), Exp. Bucaramanga (August 2009), Exp. CTG (May 2010) and Exp. Nova Brasi-liensis (March 2010)], the effective application of this format is verified as a possible structure of creation. The structure of the expedition is a complex figure that entails multidisciplinary work. Both the classic forms of creation and representation such as drawing, painting, sculpture... or contemporary forms of creation such as installation,object found(ready made), performance, photography or video, as well as other areas of cultural creation such as music or words.
All these forms of creation are at the service of a "form of creation that encompasses them all" that could in this specific case be designated as:
The expedition as one of the fine arts
The development of the Herbarium of artificial plants project has constantly come up against the tradition of mimesis, with the tradition of trompe l'oeil (tromp d'oeil) and, therefore, with the traditions of substitution and deception typical of the culture of representation.
The collection of artificial specimens and their incorporation into the project touches on issues associated with copyright and appropriation (who designed these flowers?). The very object of this project moves ambiguously between the "fidelity" of the plant representation exercised by the creators of these plants and the Duchampian operation of appropriation as the conceptual structure and axis of the archive.
Some of the specimens have been produced expressly for the Herbarium (this is the case of the project of therubber tree—Latex tree Project—and the drunkards for aglass botany). The production of these pieces constitutes a kind of "betrayal" of the supposed methodological objectivity in the study of an artificial nature that the beginning of this project implied. This objectivity is replaced by a subjective process of creating pieces.
This project is an ironic commentary on the scientific paradigm as a form of knowledge, and at the same time a reflection on our daily aesthetic behaviors.
The In Situ Archive makes a comment on the ways of assuming our reality.
Many collaborators have reported having sharpened their own vision and aesthetic contemplation in the exercise of the daily comparison between the natural and the artificial.
Although the images can be considered as individual works, the set of images in the Herbarium constitutes afile-work.
An archive can be a source for the creative act, but the archive is also considered here as a form of art.
The premise of the operation of this herbarium seeks the consolidation of a form of knowledge generated from the exercise of art.
The "knowledge" thus generated pretends not to be governed by single code laws; its "laws" are different from those of other forms of knowledge.
Grades
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These two terms, apodemialgia and nostalgia, originate from the Greek words apodemia “trip abroad, outside the homeland”, algos “pain” and nostos “return”. Greek dictionary: http://www.filol.csic.es/dge/. Higher Council for Scientific Research, Madrid.
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Source: https://meetlogistics.com/inventario-almacen/la-expedicion-mercancias/
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Jorge Blasco (professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia) in a conference on art and archives. Luis Ángel Arango Library, Bogotá, September 2010. Also at www.archive.org and "culturasdearchivo.org"