I have found in the process of completing a number of assignments for the various modules of this course to date that often my own ideas develop independently of the work of others. Or at least I am not much influenced consciously by other artists. There might be one or two who do have some impact, from whom I might steal some ideas, but not many.
I am experiencing that now with this assignment. I have done a lot of reading around the recommended texts for this part of the course (not everything but much of it) and I am not feeling that it is having much impact on my current thinking. It is still the case that the two most direct influences, in the sense of encouraging me in the direction of a train journey, are still Kazuma Obara and Wang Fushun, both of whom I have already written something.
I have though continued to think about other possible directions and influences. So far the one artist who is impinging more than any other on my thinking is Richard Long, and particularly his text based works. There is I suppose also a bit of a nod in the direction of Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger and Mark Titchner, about all of whom I am afraid I was a bit dismissive earlier, but I still find their abstract approach – by which I mean that the image and text do not necessarily complement each other and their juxtaposition does not necessarily add much to the overall meaning of the combined elements – to be not very helpful or inspiring. The idea though of using text based on elements of the journey itself, as Long has done, has got me thinking again about how I might approach a number of photographs for my projected series that focus on the interior of the train, rather than the external landscape through which it passes.
One particular idea I am playing around with, but have not yet been able to try in practice – that will not be until next week when I hope to be able to get back on the train – centres on the text displays on board that announce the route the train is taking and the arrival at each station along the way. I will have a play and see how it looks.
Otherwise I have been going through my own library again to see what other sources I might usefully mine. Funnily enough there does not so far seem to be much. There are plenty of books that are based around journeys but mostly they are generic, or wide ranging, not just a record of moving from A to B, and are more about moving through a wider landscape and society. I think here in particular of the likes of Robert Frank’s The Americans, Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places, Guido Guidi’s Per Strada and In Sardegna. A couple with more of a sense of a linear trip with a start and an end are Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi and Vanessa Winship’s She Dances on Jackson. These are though still quite big, wide-ranging journeys, seeking to capture people and places rather than the process of the journey (or journeys as I cannot imagine these series were created in one go and in a sequential manner) and so, admirable though they are, I do not feel they are much help to me here.
The only book that I can think of for now that records a discrete, finite, journey, is Craig Mod’s and Dan Rubin’ record of an eight day trip, on foot and by bus, along the Kumano Kodo to Koya San in Japan. As they say in their introduction it is not meant as a guide: “It’s simply a catalogue of moments. It says: There is a place in the world that looks and feels like this.” This comes some way towards what I am thinking about: this is the country that my train passes through and this is what it looks and feels like to make this trip.
Rather than try to choose some representatives images from the book (which can any event easily be found using Bing or Google Images) I have included below a link to their web-page that gives a flavour of the project.
Frank, R (2016). The Americans. Göttingen: Steidl
Guidi, G, (2019). In Sardegna: 1974, 2011. London: MACK
Guidi, G, (2018). Per Strada. London: MACK
Mod, C & Rubin, D, (2016). Koya Bound: Eight days on the Kumano Kodo. Tokyo: self published
Obara, K, (2018). Exposure / Everlasting. Cordoba: Editorial RM / RM Verlag
Shore, S, (2014). Uncommon Places. London: Thames & Hudson
Soth, A, (2017). Sleeping by the Mississippi. London: MACK
Winship, V, (2018). And Time Folds. London: MACK
Mark Robinson's OCA Landscape, Place & Environment Blog 