Earthworks

An interview with the writer, artist and editor Robert Horvitz speaking about his early years writing for Artforum, his friendship with Alan Sonfist, his disagreement with Jack Burnham about separating nature from culture, his 14 years as arts editor for the Whole Earth magazines and his work for George Soros.  Published online in April 2022 by the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon, Portugal) as part of the exhibition "Visual Natures: The Politics and Culture of Environmentalism in the 20th and 21st Centuries" (30 March - 5 September 2022) - https://ext.maat.pt/longforms/rejecting-natureculture-dichotomy

Sítios formados por estruturas de terra na Amazônia são conhecidos desde muito por exploradores coloniais, viajantes, arqueólogos e demais pesquisadores. Na última década um tipo especial de sítio – conhecido amplamente como “geoglifos” – vem sendo alvo de número cada vez maior de pesquisas e tem despertado o interesse do público em geral. O presente trabalho traz uma caracterização geral de tais estruturas, seguida do histórico de pesquisas realizadas sobre as mesmas, por fim, algumas perspectivas de trabalho que são observadas na atualidade e que podem orientar pesquisas futuras.

«Осаждение разума: земляные проекты» (1968) – программное эссе Роберта Смитсона (1938–1973), американского художника, скульптора, теоретика искусства, одного из основоположников ленд-арта. В этом тексте Смитсон сопоставляет устройство человеческого разума со строением Земли, проводит параллели между когнитивными и геологическими процессами. Также он вводит важные понятия «места» (site) и «не-места» (non-site), которые станут основой практики ленд-арта – создания художественных произведений непосредственно в ландшафте, который служит источником не только вдохновения, но и материалов для работы. Эссе «Осаждение разума» впервые переводится на русский язык. // "A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects" (1968) is a major essay by Robert Smithson (1938–1973), American artist, sculptor, theorist, and one of the pioneers of Land Art. In this text, Smithson compares the organization of the human mind to the structure of the Earth, drawing parallels between cognitive and geological processes. Also, he introduces two key definitions-'site' and 'non-site', which will become fundamental for the practice of Land Art-that is, creation of artworks in the landscape that serves as a source for inspiration and materials alike. "A Sedimentation of the Mind" is translated into Russian for the first time.

O r i g i n a l l y p u b l i s h e d on-l i n e b y t h e O hio A r c h a e o l o g i c a l C o u n c i l , 2 0 0 8 , h t t p : / / w w w. o h i o a r c h a e o l o g y. o r g / 3 9-r e s o u r c e s / r e s e a r c h / a r t i c l e sand a b s t r a c t s-2 0 0 8 / 2 6 0-l i d a r-i m a g i n g-of-t h e-g r e a t-h o p e w e l l-r o a d a c c e s s e d A p r i l 4 , 2 0 1 6 .

The following essay provides a brief historic overview of the tendencies of the 1960s and 70s that have challenged ideas associated with art making, aesthetic categories and location. It was first conceived as a keynote address at the inaugural symposium opening the international summer school Alps Art Academy and its resulting exhibition Art Safiental in the heart of Swiss Alps.Together with newly founded Institute for Land Art and Environmental Art (ILEA), they aspire to revisit the question of what it means, in the cultural-political landscape of today, to make and to encounter Land art.

This paper appeared in: Johannes M. Hedinger and Hanna B. Hölling, eds., Landscape: Institute for Land and Environmental Art, Berlin: Vexer Verlag, 2019.

In various disciplines, particularly those that utilise techniques developed in the geosciences, the display, analysis and interpretation of three-dimensional (3D) data is very important. This is also the case in archaeology. Irrespective of a site- or landscape-centred point of focus, archaeology deals with very complex surfaces and always examines traces of past human presence in three geometrical dimensions. Visualising these detailed geometric environments is not that much of an issue anymore; however, interactively interpreting and mapping them is still problematic. Despite the steady increase in technologies to create 3D models, there is still a serious lack of tools that allow for easy interaction with these models in a metrical and coordinate system-aware environment. As a result, most—if not all—interpretation workflows will first downscale 3D data to two-and-a-half-dimensional (2.5D) or 2D data sets, thus effectively discarding up to one geometrical dimension. To enable or enhance the perception of topographic characteristics in these geometrically compromised datasets, various visualisation techniques have been developed to artificially restore and enhance the data that was initially discarded. While these techniques work very well to enhance the remaining pertinent features present in such data sets, data downscaling can nevertheless irrevocably eliminate significant amounts of important archaeological information. Therefore, this paper outlines a new processing and interpretation pipeline for complex archaeological 3D surfaces that do not rely on downscaling of data, while also discussing several 3D-related concepts and issues along the way. More specifically, this article focusses on the generation of intelligently decimated, two-manifold triangular meshes and the subsequent geo-referenced 3D interpretative mapping of these surfaces. Furthermore, all applications can be considered low- and even no-cost, making this a readily implemented processing and interpretation workflow. Additionally, all software packages are easy to learn and flexible enough for implementation in any existing mixed software pipeline.

What I wish to show in this presentation is how certain Hopewell sites may have been connected to each other through religion and mythology. The relevance of this to Chaco and the discussion at hand is not in the listing of specific attributes held in common; but rather, in the recognition of large-scale site entanglements and connections found in both cultures .

Much of the artwork that rose to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century took on novel forms—such as installation, performance, event, video, film, earthwork, and intermedia works with interactive and networked components—that pose a new set of questions about what art actually is, both physically and conceptually. For conservators, this raises an existential challenge when considering what elements of these artworks can and should be preserved.

This is an introduction to a provocative volume that revisits the traditional notions of conservation and museum collecting that developed over the centuries to suit a conception of art as static, fixed, and permanent objects. Conservators and museums increasingly struggle with issues of conservation for works created from the mid-twentieth to the twenty-first century that are unstable over time. The contributors ask what it means to conserve artworks that fundamentally address and embody the notion of change and, through this questioning, guide us to reevaluate the meaning of art, of objects, and of materiality itself. Object—Event—Performance considers a selection of post-1960s artworks that have all been chosen for their instability, changeability, performance elements, and processes that pose questions about their relationship to conservation practices. This volume will be a welcome resource on contemporary conservation for art historians, scholars of dance and theater studies, curators, and conservators.

The book's TOC:

Series Editor's Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Object—Event—Performance
Hanna Hölling

Introducing Fluxus with Tools
Hanna B. Higgins

Exhausting Conservation: Object, Event, Performance in Franz Erhard Walther’s Werkstücke
Hanna B. Hölling

Video Art’s Past and Present “Future Tense:” The Case of Nam June Paik’s Satellite Works
Gregory Zinman

Resurrecting Hannah Wilke’s Homage to a Large Red Lipstick
Andrea Gyorody

Mutable and Durable: The Performance Score after 1960
Alison D’Amato

Sometimes An Onion: Simone Forti and the Choreographic Logic of Objects and Institutions
Megan Metcalf

Views of Nature: Preserving Land (Art) with Collective Intent
Rebecca Uchill

Enlivened Pieces: Richard Tuttle at the Whitney Museum of American Art 1975
Susanne Neubauer

The Cheapness of Writing Paper, and Code: Materiality, Exhibiting and Audiences after New Media Art
Beryl Graham

The Propensity toward Openness: Bloch as Object, Event, and Performance
Johannes M. Hedinger and Hanna B. Hölling

Contributors

Index

Robert Smithson´s earthworks with spiral forms are sublime because they offer repeated simple forms, whereas his projects for realisations with tar are picturesque because they offer traces of past processes for narrative readings. Against one-sided interpretations of Smithson´s earthworks as either sublime or picturesque this critique proposes to differentiate between sublime and picturesque processes. 
URL: https://dreher.netzliteratur.net/6_LandArt_Smithson.pdf.
More illustrations in URL: http://dreher.netzliteratur.net/6_LandArt_Smithson_SpiralHill.html

Il saggio che segue prova a collezionare episodi, produrre documenti e testimoni, ricomporre storie disperse per giungere a una vicenda più ampia: l’affermazione prima, lo smarrimento poi di un progetto modernista con tratti identitari. Il titolo allude a una circostanza durevole, non sempre considerata con adeguato rilievo: la persistenza del motivo che oggi chiameremmo decoloniale nel modernismo italiano della prima metà del secolo.

Tra l’epoca risorgimentale e i primi anni Sessanta, questa la tesi, storia e critica d’arte hanno svolto un importante compito pedagogico e procurato, con le narrazioni congiunte della povertà, dell’ingegno, dell’orgoglio, elementi di appartenenza o “redenzione”  a un paese giunto con ritardo all’unità, tra slanci e sconfitte, ambizioni e frustrazioni ; a una comunità “senza narrazione” (la citazione è da Edward Said), conosciutasi primariamente attraverso lo sguardo etnografico del visitatore sette-ottocentesco, il “forestiero”. Il rapporto tra discorso artistico e pedagogia nazionale, postulato nella riflessione idealistica tra le due guerre, non si interrompe bruscamente nel settembre 1943, con la “guerra civile” che ne consegue o l’occupazione militare delle due Italie. Cerca faticosamente di ricomporsi: con quale attendibilità o efficacia è oggetto di interrogazione.

"Ytalya subjecta": l’amarezza per la repubblica e la sua malcerta identità culturale nel contesto atlantico del dopoguerra è dichiarata da Emilio Villa in una composizione poetica dal titolo "17 variazioni".

Giulio Carlo Argan attraversa le due metà del secolo: la sua esperienza di storico e critico impegnato, intellettuale e uomo delle istituzioni tocca quasi ogni aspetto della vicenda considerata. E’ stato inevitabile che assumesse importanza centrale nella prospettiva storica e civile del saggio.

History of American artist Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels (1973-76) followed by an interview with Holt. Book chapter published in Great Salt Lake: An Overview of Change (Utah Geological and Mineral Survey, Department of Natural Resources, 2nd ed.): 561-568

Paul Belford examines the historical and archaeological trajectory of Offa’s Dyke, and considers motivations behind its construction and formation, including political, ideological and defensive requirements. In the context of a book about fortification, Dr Belford re-examines the defensive aspects of the Dyke, considering its relationship to the surrounding landscape – how it overlooked the land, how it was viewed by local society, how it contributed to methods of control, and how it may have functioned as a frontier. In terms of the latter point, the chapter discusses the relationships between Offa’s Dyke and Iron Age hillforts and identifies three locations where pre-existing hillforts could have played a role in the operation of the Dyke: Beacon Ring, the Breidden, and Llanymynech. Although the Dyke was designed to establish a visual domination of the landscape, even the large and formidable sections would not have presented a serious military defence against invasion. Dr Belford reminds us that Offa’s Dyke is a complex and sophisticated earthwork for which more research is required to unravel the social and cultural significance of the monument. This chapter is a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussions, investigations and projects on the earthworks of the Anglo-Welsh border.

Today, the name Danevirke is used as an umbrella term for
a series of linear earthworks and walls around the town of
Schleswig in northern Germany close to the Danish border. Historically, the Designation ‘ Danevirke ’ (also encompassing variations of the name like Munimentum Danavirke, opus Danorum, Dännewarck or
Danewerk) was confined to a continuous part of the earthworks
stretching westwards from the Baltic Sea inlet Schlei. In the
more comprehensive meaning today, Danevirke also comprises
additional contemporary earthworks (mainly Kovirke
and East Wall – known as Oldenwall, Østervolden or Osterwall)
and even a sea barrier in the Schlei fjord. All structures
summarised as Danevirke can be dated to the 6th to 12th centuries,
but there is new evidence that the earliest earthworks
could be even older. In addition to the medieval earthworks, parts
of the ramparts were reused, fortified and equipped with an
additional series of bastions in the 19th century, and with an
anti-tank ditch in World War II.
The Danevirke is situated at an important geographical
isthmus on the Jutland peninsula, where the north-south
passage is constricted to only a few kilometres, and which was
also used as a shortcut between the Baltic Sea and the North
Sea during the 9th to 13th centuries. Because of this crossroads of trading routes, the Viking Age emporium of Hedeby was also situated here and was linked to the Danevirke via a rampart in the 10th century.
The functions of Danevirke have been in the focus of interest much longer than investigations into its building phases and structure have been conducted. But before we discuss in this article the purposes
it might served, we should recall the many and very diverse sections and construction phases which comprise the Danevirke as well as the long period of use and reuse. This diversity and complexity of the archaeological sites are – if seen as ensemble – likely to cast serious doubt on any attempt to attribute only a single function to the whole of the Danevirke complex.

The Newark Earthworks complex is unprecedented in the Hopewell world in terms of its scale and the precision of both its geometry and its embedded astronomical alignments. The diversity of discrete earthwork components suggests that each of the several monumental enclosures fulfilled a particular function and the integration of all these components into a unified design suggests those separate functions all were necessary to achieve a more comprehensive ultimate purpose. Largely missing from discussions of Newark has been the mortuary component. This is due principally to the early destruction without serious study of Newark's burial mounds. A review of the not-as-meager-as-previously-assumed-but-still-meager archival sources provides some of the missing pieces of the puzzle and suggests that the burial mounds were the focus of the site and key to its ultimate purpose.

Nigerian archaeology has been through a series of developmental stages. The current trend in the studies of urbanization takes a cue from postcolonial pedagogy, which seeks to interpret indigenous material cultures from the eye view of their makers. This echoes a localized model of urbanization. Methods and paradigms for urbanism expand, and indigenous archaeologists have their voices heard without the outside veil. Despite these advances in methods and approaches, little is being explored in the direction of earthworks and earthwork studies to corroborate research on urbanization and state consolidation. This article turns the light on this avenue and suggests that more earthen works should be investigated if unanswered questions in urban studies must be answered.

This paper presents and contextualizes the results of recent research at the Cedar Creek Earthworks (AaHq-2) in Essex County, Ontario, one of the few remaining Late Prehistoric earthen enclosures in the western Lake Erie region. First documented in the 1930s, the site consists of a unique semicircular berm and ditch feature to which has been appended three earthen projections or “nodes.” Despite a combination of remote sensing, testpitting, and targeted test excavations both within and beyond the earthworks, a dearth of material culture remains and subsurface features (including evidence for a palisade) suggests the site did not serve as a village and raises questions regarding the role(s) Cedar Creek played in the lifeways of past aboriginal populations.

Recent archaeological investigations, building on previous work, establish more clearly that the Serpent Mound plateau has been a focus of intensive, repeated activity both in prehistory and more recently. In the 1880s, Frederic Ward Putnam conducted the first archaeological investigation of the Great Serpent Mound and the surrounding plateau. Subsequent analyses established that the Adena constructed a conical mound on the plateau to the south of the Serpent effigy. An Adena, and later, a Fort Ancient settlement were established nearby. In 2011, ASC Group, Inc. (ASC) conducted archaeological investigations in the areas around the conical mound prior to the installation of utilities at the Serpent Mound State Memorial. The utility work was planned to support the increased tourism expected due to the pending World Heritage nomination of the site. The excavations shed light on activities in the circum-mound area around the conical mound by both the Early Woodland Adena and Late Prehistoric Fort Ancient peoples. Adena activities involved lithic reduction and tool use, while a buried A horizon appears to relate to a burned area Putnam investigated north of the Adena mound. However, a radiocarbon analysis returned a Fort Ancient period date, suggesting the re-use of the area around the conical moundis circum-mound area.