Darren Jenkins, Department of Art
I received the Research and Creative Works Grant Scholarship to pursue a project concerning our “sense of place” in the western United States. The concept was to travel to six major cities west of the Rockies (Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, Salt Lake, and Seattle) and collect an extensive amount of two types of images from each city. The two types of images to be collected were moving film images taken by actually being in a place, and mass media images representing that same place. I intended to keep in mind the differences between the attitudes I felt from these media representations and actually being there. I also looked for some kind of shared sense of place portrayed by the media of each place.
A week was spent in each city, and the tactic for filming took shape through the process of the first city arrived in, Los Angeles. I debated between plotting out where to go to film, or just wander through the place and film chance encounters. In Los Angeles there were certain locations designated as starting points, This had the advantage of being succinct in such a geographically large city. Two factors convinced me to shy away from a planned approach in favor of the more chance-directed approach. First, to experience a place with less personal control is more faithful to the original concept, and, second, the most exciting and representative encounters came about unexpectedly. So, the process for filming took the form of at least two full days (approximately 12 to 16 hours per day) of walking and recording images and sequences on Super 8 film. This was rather rigorous, but very effective in attaining a wide and distinctive collection of images from each city.
Super 8 film was selected for its portability during the filming process and the nature of the editing process involved. The film must be processed in a manner similar to photographic slide film, so that everything recorded is present. From this editing is achieved with a degree of selectiveness that on-site video editing does not allow. In other words, collected images could be viewed in their entirety from each city allowing decisions about which to include in what sequence.
The outcome of this image-collecting was a multi-media event. Selections of the film from each city were projected with slide images of the media ads. This event took place on April 12 at approximately 8:45p.m. The images were projected onto an outer wall of a building at 50 west I 00 south in Provo. For the event/product I prepared the following statement to be distributed:
The issue is sense of place versus commodification of place. By sense of place, I mean a sensitivity to the experience of living in your surroundings; the experience of the place you’re in. This sense of place is by nature visceral due substantially to two factors: first, your surroundings do not exist in front of and separate from you, but all around and connected to you, and, second, your surroundings are liquid and constantly changing. The motion and jumps of the film images seem to effectively communicate this. By commodification of place I mean the act of transforming place ( a Presence if not a Consciousness, and affecting us) into object (thing we affect). An object is something that can be possessed and controlled, not experienced. Mass media effectively does this by reducing place to a visual representation, and by presenting in a relatively small, well contained, static format. Thus, where we are, or where we can be, becomes an object we see in front of us instead of the surroundings. The knowledge of the category of place (the city of Provo) becomes more important than the sense of existence (the smell of mornings, textures of streets, harsh summer light … ). Through the abstract action of commodification not only are the images before us the commodity, but through our knowledge of the connection between represented and actual place also becomes an object to be manipulated. The postcards shown in these slides are examples of this, an entire city contained within a 3″ x 5″ image.
In other words; the difference is detail. What you see in the media metaphors (postcards) avoids details, while what you see in actual experience (as in the film footage) are details. In one you avoid the threat of garbage, graffiti, or even humanity – the other you encounter the fascination of these and more. Media is about control and safety from place, experience is about understanding and communion with place.
Here I will expand on that statement;
“The pursuit of “sense of place” is a concern with an extensive history. Due to such rapid transportation and quick dispersal of information over vast areas our perceptions of distance have been altered radically. It’s apparent that our measurements of distances have more to do with time (especially the time taken to span a distance) than a physical measurement such as mileage. For example, Los Angeles is approximately one hour and forty minutes away from Salt lake City by airplane. That’s a substantially shorter distance than the factual mileage.”
If the distance an individual can travel has expanded, then the boundaries of what that individual defines as his or her surroundings have broadened. The easy access to a much broader realm than even physical boundaries would allow. I conclude from this that an individual’s personal surroundings extend beyond a specific city to a region, and selected to concentrate on the Western U.S. region. This is the realm that we, in our area (Provo, Utah) are a part of, and we must gain a sense of place in this area.
There is a very real danger behind holding such a broad area as our immediate surrounding, however. It is a danger of easily losing or disregarding our sense of place; we can easily have a superficial access to places without gaining any knowledge of the presence or personality of any specific places. I’ve heard it trivialized by being termed as “local color” or “local flavor”, viewing it as a thing inconsequential to our “higher” reality. It seems that facets of mass media from the contained postcards to human interest segments on local news reinforce the evaluation of a place’s personality as only of trivially amusing interest; these( are aspects that supposedly have no direct effect on us. The intangible aspects of the presence or personality of place have immense effect upon us. The nature of surroundings affects our individual definitions of identity – how we fit in and relate to the things around us. The apartment !live in, how far the grocery store is, and what sort of neighborhood I have to walk through to get there all have effect on how I perceive myself (my capabilities, resources, and sense of accomplishment among many things). What I have established here is a conflict between these two different experiences of a place; one is associated with personal experience (the moving film) and the other with a mass or shared experience (the media images). In actuality the distinction is not so clear. Each of the two types of experience informs upon the other for each of us, but it becomes apparent that a conflict does exist – a conflict between the escapist desire in mass media and the existential pleasures and pains of personal experience. My intention in this work is to bring about a conscious distinction between these experiences in terms of place.
A typical postcard image implies just what I discussed about the mass media experience of place. An entire city, or a substantial amount of it is contained in a photograph often along with a caption identifying the city represented, all on card stock measuring about 3 1/2″ by 5″. These are handheld images; so, you can contain a place instead of a place containing you, at least abstractly and symbolically. This becomes a fetishization. But, symbols and abstractions of reality affect how we perceive and confront that reality. This fetishization, in a way, robs each place of its spirit and significance by packaging it as a consumable product. These cities are not products for our easy consumption and disposal. Of course these postcards aren’t the sole way a place is portrayed, but it is exemplary of a common practice of portraying a place. The same fetishization occurs in television commercials and newspaper article surrounded by other subjects and issues that complicate recognizing it. This is just stripped away in postcards. In order to maintain relative simplicity and clarity of concept in the final work, I narrowed the images down to strictly postcard images.
The final result was a balance between these theories and the pragmatic presentation; I had to get the point across, but I had to be effective about it. I chose to present the film images above the slide images in order to imply a hierarchy and place the emphasis of importance upon the sometimes confusing, sometimes very subtle moving film. The still images of postcards then became almost captions in contrast to the interest of the moving images. This both reinforced my concept and gave an effective structure of presentation. I set a limit at thirty minutes in order to avoid wearing on the interest of those who would view it from start to finish and still give a good idea of the issue involved. This allotted five minutes for each city, which is enough time to become involved in the individual nature of each sequence of images and how it differs from city to city. For each five minute sequence I projected three images of postcards to emphasize the stationary and contained nature of these images in contrast to the constantly moving film projection; more than three for each city seemed to emulate the constant motion of the film. I placed each sequence in the order in which I had experienced filming them: Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City. I felt that the choice of location for the final piece was the most crucial part of presentation. I chose to do it outdoors in an unconventional manner to emphasize the surprising, transitory, and fluctuating nature of place; for the duration of the piece, the wall it is projected on has a changed context and significance both for those expecting and even more for those who happened to pass by during the course of the piece.