A Less Remote Place: Art Ecology, Dalziel + Scullion

and David Blyth

Dr. Judith Findlay

• The concepts of ‘distance’ and ‘marginality’ - the home-life of Dalziel and Scullion - have always seemed relevant for an understanding of their practice, even as their practice has provided a way of understanding the concept of ‘not being central’.

• Dalziel and Scullion’s remoteness had an exotic appeal.

• St Combs, Aberdeenshire, south of Fraserburgh on the north east coast of Scotland.

• Lived there for approximately ten years and then moved to Dundee in 2000.

• The geography in which Dalziel and Scullion chose to locate themselves became their reference.

• Intrinsic to their work…

• Landscape• Seascape• Rural• ‘Outside’ art• Combinations of the natural and the

man made, the ancient and the modern…

• ‘Edward Hopper’ light…

• Long deserted beaches and white light houses…

• Strange, modern installations related to oil, gas, farming, fishing and national defence…

• ‘The Bathers’• ‘Sargassum’• ‘The Gifted Child’• ‘The Most Beautiful Thing’• ‘Wing’• ‘The Horn’

• Rattray Head• Macduff• The Loch of Strathbeg• St. Fergus• Crimond Airfield• Cruden Bay…

• The ‘lure of the local’…

• ‘To name a place is to allow that place its being.’ Jonathan Bate, The Song of the Earth, Picador: London, 2000, p.175.

• ‘Every place name is a story, an outcropping of the shared tales that form the bedrock of community. Untold land is unknown land.’ Lucy Lippard, The Lure of the Local, The New Press: New York, 1997, 46.

• ‘Remoteness’ is relative…

• Remote: 1. Distantly related or connected…2. Aloof or abstracted…

• Yet…

• …for all Dalziel and Scullion’s remoteness, they were (and are) very well connected indeed

• …rooted - in touch with and sensitive to the material, the concrete, the practical and the personal…

• …not concerned with obtaining a picturesque view of things so much as involving themselves in ‘an exploration of the inter-relatedness of perception and creation [and engaging in] a meditation on the networks which link mental and environmental space.’ Jonathan Bate

• …even if the attraction of the artists’ work may be to do with how they see a particular place, the value of their research lies in their enquiry into, and interpretation of places as ‘hybrids’ - ‘amalgams’ of many different places…

• ‘…it seems that you can sense the simultaneous presence of everywhere in the place where you are standing. Conceptualised in terms of the geography of social relations, what is happening is that the social relations which constitute a locality increasingly stretch beyond its borders; less and less of these relations are contained within the place itself.’ Doreen Massey, ‘A Place Called Home’, New

Formations, no. 17 (summer, 1992)

• ‘…the very notion of remoteness…is itself a polarity, inseparable from its counterpart, because it is defined by its relationship to something characterised as its centre…So we should be careful with this interesting concept of the edge and keep in mind that one person’s margin may be another’s heartland.’ Francois Matarasso, ‘On the Edge: Art, Culture and Rural Communities’, conference paper, Duff House, Aberdeenshire, 31 May, 2001 (unpublished)

• …if ‘connections’ and ‘social relations’ are the concepts we need to hold on to…

• Then we need a new term…

• Art Ecology

• ‘…ecology…emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things.’

• ‘…the intricacy and precision of…interconnected working parts - winds, currents, rocks, plants, animals, weathers…’

• Ecology: 1.The study of the relationships between living organisms and their environment. 2. The set of relationships of a particular organism with its environment.

• ‘…the structure and texture of the environment itself is a necessary determinant of what is perceived.’ Paul Rodaway, Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place, London and New York: Routledge, 1994, p. 19.

• Ecology implies a connection with home-life (with dwelling and how one lives in the world).

• The word ‘ecology’ - the prefix ‘eco’ - is derived from Greek oikos, meaning ‘home or place of dwelling’.

• The brewing of coffee, an orange held up against a bright, blue sky, perfume, the eating of an apple, a family photograph, an electric fire, the lighting of a candle, a drive in a car, a recipe, a walk, a thought or a memory can become art…or design…

• Domesticity is worth mentioning - in terms of art and design it is significant.

• The boundaries between home and non-home are leaky.’ Rita Felski, ‘The Invention of Everyday Life’, New Formations, no. 39, p. 24.

• A ‘narrative of artistic interaction’…

• Artistic descriptions should be apt rather than true. An inapt description is evidence of artistic misunderstanding…

• ‘…description here is something like an actor’s or director’s interpretation of a dramatic role: each artistic description may be personal, but it can nevertheless, be used as evidence of whether someone has understood the work (in this respect describing a piece of art or exhibition is analogous to making it)’…

• ‘Now I think of my writing as being like a microwave oven. It’s like some invisible process of transforming the object…And I think it entertains the audience too…People want to read about the world, and theoretically informed writing, in the guise of fairy tales, Mills and Boon style love romances, and good old fashioned success stories, is the way to give it to them…The critic of tomorrow, I believe, will be a combination of the tailor of the emperor’s new clothes, and the person who narrates the story.’ Paul Taylor, ‘Cumulus From America’, Parkett, no. 35, 1993, p.158.

• Valentina Tereshkova• Lambing and sheep farming• Textiles• Space• Shepherds• Birth• Earth

• A mixture of listening, seeing, research, imagination, memory, fact and fiction…

Tomorrow - Tuesday 27 Feb:

• Seminars, A34m, Gray’s School of Art:• Group 1 - 9.30 am• Group 2 - 10.30 am• Group 3 - 12.00 pm

• Go and see David Blyth, Dalziel + Scullion and Ross Sinclair v. Edwin Landseer at Aberdeen Art Gallery!

Assignment Hand-in!

• Tuesday 13th February, 2007• By 2.00 p.m. at the latest.• Outside CCS Office, GP20

(Portacabin)• Sign the ‘assignment sign-in’

sheet!• One Critical Notebook and one

essay each.

Tuesday 20 March

• Research Seminars with Jim Fiddes in Room 434, Library:

• Group 1 - 11.00 am• Group 2 - 12.00 pm• Group 3 - 10.00 am