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Lines : A Project by Stéphan Barron and Sylvia Hansmann

LEONARDO
JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE ARTS, SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
LEONARDO,Vol.24, N°2, April 1991, pp.185-186, Berkeley

ABSTRACT :

In September 1989 Stéphan Barron and Sylvia Hansmann have driven along the Greenwich meridian from the English Channel to the Mediterranean Sea.
With a car fax they regularly sent images and texts on their trip, to fax machines in 8 locations in Europe.In this way they introduced a new representation of line ? one of the first symbols of humanity ? that included time, space, and imagination.
Lines aims at inducing a planetary consciousness, a technological humanism.
The project explores new measures of time and space, and contributes to a post-modern and ecological sensibility.

 

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT :

From 7th to l9th of September 1989, I, Sylvia Hansmann, our 2-year old daughter and photographer Francois Labastie drove along the Greenwich Meridian from the English Channel to the Mediterranean : from Villers-sur-Mer (France) to Castellon de la Plana (Spain).

Using a car fax we sent images and texts ?8 rolls of telecopies evoking imaginary lines? to fax machines in 8 locations in Europe : the Ars Electronica festival in Linz (Austria), the french Institute in Köln (FRG), the Contemporary Art Center Espais in Gerona (Spain), the Alain Oudin Gallery in Paris, the contemporary art center La Criée in Rennes (France), the Art Center Maison de la Culture in Amiens (France), and museums in Coutances and Ceret (France).

This project, called Lines, was inspired by the prehistorical caves we visited in the Dordogne (south of France) in july 88. We were much impressed by the numerous lines and symbols traced on the cave walls. At that time I was searching for a figure that I could physically travel along on a large scale on earth. As Richard Long (1) would do, walking in circles or lines in deserts.I was also searching for a way to represent this large figure in real time, at the scale of a continent, as I was traversing it.

This figure could have been a square (four points), a triangle (three points), a circle, etc...

The line is the most simple figure. When I looked at a European map, the Greenwich meridian seemed to be the figure I was looking for. The virtual line that is the world reference for time, the Greenwich Meridian refers to time, space, and their representation.

Inspired by the possibility of using a portable fax machine in a car, connected to a car telephone, I began preparing the project in august 1988, and first look for museums or galleries that would accept the project.

REALIZATION OF THE PROCESS :

With the help of ordinance survey maps we selected, for each of the 14 days of the travel, 2 or 3 points precisely situated on the meridian (Fig. 1).

Each day we looked for the selected points on the meridian (we travelled about 100 kilometers a day). At those points we took Polaroid photographs, collected objects, traced their imprints with ink or with a pencil ?for exemple on the Meridian Stela in Castellon de la Plana?, or photocopy them, made drawings or texts inspired by the places, which ranged from the sea to a forest, a supermarket, a tunnel, etc.

When we arrived at our hotels in the evening our work continued. Labastie had to solve the transmission and connection problems to send the fax we had prepared the day before, to the eight locations in Europe. During that time we prepared the fax for the next day. That phase involved copy-art : mixing, enlarging, cutting-up the different images and objects collected during the day (Fig 2). Objects were photocopied or photographed then photocopied to be sent as fax. We made and sent 850 fax most of them different during the course of the project ? 106 fax or around 30 meters of telefax were sent to each location. We asked that the fax not be cut at their reception, and that the fax machines might be hung vertically as high as possible. This way the telecopies with their succession of information suggested the line.

After the photocopying process, we dispatched all the photocopies on the floor to set up a scheme of correspondence between the different locations which received the fax ?the photocopies were dispatched in 8 different related columns (Fig. 4). Linz was the first column, Köln the second column, Gerona the third, and so on, with Coutances being the eighth column. For example, near Tarbes (South of France) there was a supermarket called ‘Le méridien’ supposed to be located on the meridian. We peeled off the name MERIDIEN from a big advertissement, then we sent the M to Linz, the E to Köln, the R to Gerona,and so on, the final N going to Coutances. In this way the meridian was projected to places that were 1000 km away from each other yet still related, as any place is related to any other place in the world.

Before sending the faxes from each point on the meridian we sent faxes on which was written the latitude and either "zero degré de longitude" (zero degree longitude), or "Coupe Transversale du Méridien" (meridian's cross section). This way the onlookers could follow the progression, without any narrative or description. The process ran from latitude 49°19'38'' North (the sea in Villers-sur-mer), to Latitude 39°56'10'' North (the sea in Castellon-de-la-Plana).

CONCEPTUAL ASPECTS OF THE PROJECT : TOWARDS NEW REPRESENTATION, NEW AESTHETICS.

"The line is getting birth from movement, from the destruction of immobility.Here we pass from static to dynamic" said Kandinsky (2). During this process we sent information about the different points on the meridian, and we asked the onlookers to imagine the line. The project aimed at inducing a mental image of the line.

We wanted to introduce a new representation that included our bodies in movement ?that is, adding time to space? and to ask people to participate in the process with their own imagination. "Ce sont les regardeurs qui font les tableaux" said Marcel Duchamp (3).

Lines continues in the vein of previous avant-garde artistic researches such as those exemplified by land art and performance and conceptual art (4), but it is not a representation in front of the onlookers'eyes.The succession of information about an art activity happening in real time, one thousand kilometers away induce a mental image of the line. Thus the project depends on instant communications technologies (Fig 3).

The fax rolls were projections ? 1000 kilometers away? of the Greenwich meridian. As Pierre Restany (5) said, we fractalized the line; that is, in transmitting a fragment of the line, the part represented the whole.

Onlookers had to find and to feel their own meridian. They participated in the ‘measuring’ of the meridian. Humankind and human sensibility are the unit for the measure of the world. I wanted to create a planetary conscioussness using long distance telecommunication, and to create an ecological sensibility using new technologies.

Stéphan Barron

 

References and Notes

(1) In Stones and flies, a film by Philip Haas, 1988.

(2) Kandinsky, Point/Ligne/Plan, 7th edition, Bern, 1973, p.57

(3) "The onlookers make the paintings", Marcel Duchamp, in Duchamp du signe, Flammarion, Paris, 1975, p.187

(4) One such example is Douglas Huebler in 1968 site sculpture project's 42°Parallel. This involved 14 locations A through N exactly or approximately on the 42 parallel in the United States.Locations were marked by the exchange of certified postal receipts sent from and returned to site ‘A’ in Truro, Massachusetts. As another example, on 24 july 1961 Piero Manzoni, made a 1140 meter long fine with ink on a roll of paper. The roll was then packed in a stainless steel cylinder. For documentation on both projects, see Conceptual Art: A Perspective, Exhib. cat., (Museum of Modern Art, 1989, pp 169 and 212 respectively.

(5) in Lines, Project Artist Book, ed. Rien de Special, Secqueville-en-Bessin, 1990