In preparation of a lecture I will be giving in October, I am revisiting my library for things I intend to reference because of their significance for my own personal path as an artist. Joan Fontcuberta’s Landscapes Without Memory is definitely on the list. As I tend to do, I wanted to share some quotes from his opening essay that are really great. As always, the entire essay is great, but if you want to read that, you’ll have to buy the book.
“The majesty of forests, lakes, glaciers, and mountains, under clean skies with dramatic clouds, induces a special state of mind that undoubtedly promotes - as Walden did for Thoreau - both spiritual centeredness and creative inspiration. But, paradoxiacally, for people like me, coming from an urban environment of crowds, noise, and exhaust fumes, all that peace and purity seemed less like a nature reserve than like an artificial set, with all the cliches you might expect to find in calendar illustrations. A nature so perfect could not be true. Or, at any rate, it was a truth that the contemporary world no longer deserves.”
By the way, the essay is titled Landscapes of Landscapes, or Art as Map by Joan Fontcuberta.
“The alchemists’ mistake was to search for the philosopher's stone, when all they really needed was a powerful Silicon Graphics computer.”
And finally, a question that I think I ask myself every night, that is conveniently pretty funny to think about. As a preface, Terragen is a software which assists in the generation of highly detailed and realistic landscapes.
“If there had been computers and Terragen in Ansel Adam’s day, would he have gone out to photograph the landscape around him?”
