Andy Goldsworthy: Concepts of the Landscape

Andy Goldsworthy: Concepts of the Landscape Title: ‘Travel constructs a fictional relationship between gaze and landscape’ (M. Auge, â€Å"Non-Places,† 1995; p86). Does this statement seem to you to express a central insight about landscape and travel in the 20th century? Please discuss in relation to the work of Andy Goldsworthy. The Earthworks art of Andy Goldsworthy challenges, firstly, a classical art-historical conception of the landscape, and can also be implicitly responsive to the ‘supermodern’ sense of landscape and place, theorised by Marc Auge, in which â€Å"Vocabulary†¦ educates the gaze, informs the landscape[1].†. Goldsworthy captures the essence of place through texture, allusion to process and a mutual dependability on nature, as if to transform both the materials of the objects and the meaning of their often banal contexts. It is immediately evident that Goldsworthy’s works, in general, strongly accentuate texture and shape. Goldsworthy describes the working process as a tactile expression, implying the involvement of a multi-sensory extension of the body, a recurring artistic intention, especially through cues signifying touch and vision. â€Å"For me, looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins[2].† This obsession with recurring forms in nature using different materials has a ritualistic edge, where the earthworks have lost the purpose and functionalism of the commercial product. This tactile gaze, used as the central way of identifying the object, is further evoked through the use of text. For example, in a photograph of a spherical ice ball positioned aside a bleak Autumn bridge, his texts connotes the image not only in terms of its visual impact but also the texture implied by its aural qualities: â€Å"Stacked ice – sound of cracking.[3]† The shape and texture of the river in the 1988-9 Leadgate and Lambton Earthworks[4] symbolizes its sensual form in a way which still identifies it as relating to a river, but without the non-abstracted seamless visual art representation of a river. Goldsworthy describes this process: â€Å"The snake has evolved through a need to move close to the ground, sometimes below and sometimes above, an expression of the space it occupies[5].† Similarly, rather than use the language of signposts to designate a river (in its non-place), the use of more tactile cues reclaims the spectator’s newness of vision: in Auge’s words, the traveller (AG) is recapturing the landscape like it is â€Å"the first journey of birth†¦the primal experience of differentiation[6].†While Auge asserts that non-places â€Å" exist only through the words that evoke them,[7]† AG’s words work to clarify the gaze rather than condense it to a unified vision. But what constitutes this gaze? When we refer to his earthworks, are we referring only to the symbolic object, or the whole space inside the photo frame? Like a travel writer, a heightened perception or rediscovery of the landscape is the central tenet of Goldsworthy’s working process: â€Å"Some places I return to over and over again, going deeper- a relationship made in layers over a long time.[8]† There is a suggestion by AG that site or context affects and, to an extent, has a significant role in generating the features of his objects: When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it†¦The energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within[9] While the train, for Auge, is one of the greatest culprits behind the spectator’s fleeting vision of space, Goldsworthy’s immobilization and transposition of the train track and its practical function to a snaking †¦in the Lambton earthworks?, is a way for AG to recapture the essence of the landscape, to shift its perceptual status from non-place to place: â€Å"Staying in one place makes me more aware of change[10].† However, part of this awareness is awareness that the land itself is fleeting and transforming according to environmental ‘whim,’ and that the photograph merely represents a certain moment in a process. His emphasis on spontaneity and change according to environmental and climactic conditions, as well as his own sense of navigation, is significant because he is able to evoke the history of the object through capturing a synchronic moment in its processes. If we look at several of his works in which piles of material are neatly centred with a hollow hole[11], we sense their impermanence and a foreboding decay from seeing their present formal cohesion. A Cambridge earthwork with leaves is accompanied by this awareness in text, where a materialistic description of the object is transformed into a narrative of it: â€Å"Torn Hole/horse chestnut leaves stitched with stalks around the rim/moving in the wind[12].† Perhaps more than these smaller-scale earthworks, the earthworks in County Durham most forcefully use the concept of environmental process to allude to the movement of travel, not only through their obvious association with trains, but through the movement implied by the object, as â€Å" ripples from a thrown stone[13]†. Freezing these processes is a way of reawakening the senses, by both seeing the object statically without moving too fast and by being aware of its continuing narrative, rather than being driven by the â€Å"perpetual series of presents[14]† of those unrecognised non-places, exaggerated in Thomas Gursky’s digital photos . According to Auge, the language of signposts etc. does not heighten the spectator’s perception of a place, but merely substitutes their relationship to it as a mere passing acknowledgement.[15] Goldsworthy’s works seem to reclaim that historicity of the natural object that is lost in the immediacy of the commercial product[16], including the signs that describe and name features and punctuations in the land, trying to give it a sense of place. Challenging the prescriptions of discourse on our subjectivity, however, has always been a preoccupation in landscape art. Constable’s landscape paintings, for example, could represent a different challenge to the supermodern construction of landscape into a fleeting ‘non-place,’ through his holistic, static, formalist and panoramic vision of the land. While Goldsworthy reconfigures the landscape’s gaze beyond the static to an awareness of its morphology, materiality, unpredictability and precariousness, Constable and the landscape painters of the 18th century synchronized these natural irregularities, painting the clouds and sun simultaneously and consciously at different periods and freezing the movement of the Hay wain into a stance.[17] In Goldsworthy’s work, therefore, landscape is no longer a site, implying static, but a process, implying diachronic, in which the object and its place are interdependent. Throughout the earthworks photographs and their accompanying text, two main interconnected subjectivities emerge, both of which seem threatened by the dislocation through the â€Å"non-place:† organic nature and Goldsworthy, who is simultaneously a conscious manipulator of nature’s autonomous processes as well as driven by the manipulations of nature itself. The larger scope of his County Durham Leadgate and Lambton Earthworks, encourages a more structural and slightly cartographic gaze. A disused railway track becomes the site for a snaking sand track photographed aerially alongside rows of monotonous houses. Their juxtaposition, their mutual encroachment on one another and the snaking imprint’s echo of movement, in one sense seem to re-establish the inter-dependency of urban structures and nature, and the similarities in the way we perceive them despite serving different functions. In this sense, it allows greater insight to its organic qualities by its association. In a technical sense, it could be argued that there is a tension between Goldsworthy’s organic creations and their technological control by the intrinsic features of the photograph. However, any hint of the artist’s exploitation, evoked in works such as â€Å"Snowball in trees†[18] or in references to the name of the excavator driver in the Leadgate and Lambton Earthworks, is balanced out, in exchange, by their precarious existence in nature, where a rock could be precariously balanced on a boulder.[19] This relationship between nature and its manipulations is significant because it represents a reappropriation of our relationship with those places, designated by the artist’s symbols rather than the symbols of industry with which â€Å"individuals are supposed to interact only with texts, whose proponents are not individuals but ‘moral entities’ or institutions[20]†. Goldsworthy navigates and finds his non-prescribed place, by being led by climactic and environmental factors rather than such ‘moral entities.[21] Auge defines non-place in detail against the anthropological concept of place, where the traveller occupies a non-communicative, solitary space with the language of ticket machines and train timetables.[22] Accordingly, these public facilities and structures give the spectator an image of their individuality, or a ‘distanced’ simulated familiarity,[23] by discursively framing and displacing the ‘gaze’ and the individual ‘essence’ towards a simultaneous collective individuality, through the â€Å"individualization of references[24].† In contrast, by allowing the serendipitous influence of nature to produce a unique result on each object, each of the processes in the Earthworks produces individual objects, which, not over-prescribed by images and signs, evolve in partial autonomy. BIBLIOGRAPHY Auge, Marc, Non-Places: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, London: Verso, 1995. Baudrillard, Jean, The ecstasy of communication, trans. Bernard Caroline Schutze, ed. Slyvere Lotringer, Brooklyn, N.Y. : Autonomedia, 1988 Goldsworthy, Andy, Andy Goldsworthy, London: Penguin Group, 1990. Hand to Earth, Ed. Andy Goldsworthy. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Post-Contemporary Interventions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. Rosenthal, Michael, Constable, London Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1987 Rosenthal, Michael, â€Å"The Victorians and Beyond,† British Landscape Painting, Oxford: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1982 Footnotes [1]Marc Auge, Non-Places:introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, 1995: Verso, London , p108 [2]Andy Goldsworthy, Andy Goldsworthy, 1990:Penguin Group, London , p1 [3]Andy Goldsworthy, â€Å"Stacked ice sound of cracking,† Hampstead Heath, 28 December 1985 [4] Andy Goldsworthy, â€Å"Leadgate and Lambton earthworks,† County Durham, Winter-Spring 1988-9 [5] Goldsworthy, p3 [6] Auge, p84 [7] opcit, p95 [8] Goldsworthy, p1 [9] ibid [10] ibid [11] For example, â€Å"Bracken,† Borrowdale, Cumbria, 13 February 1988; â€Å"Slate,† Stonewood, Dumfriesshire, Summer 1987, â€Å"Plane Leaves,† Castres, France, 19 October 1988. [12] Cambridge, 24 July 19886 [13] AG, p4 [14] Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Post-Contemporary Interventions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. [15] Auges, p97 [16] Jean Baudrillard, The ecstasy of communication, trans. Bernard Caroline Schutze, ed. Slyvere Lotringer, Brooklyn, N.Y. : Autonomedia, 1988 [17]Michael Rosenthal, Constable, London Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1987 [18] [19] Rock on boulder work [20] Auge, p96 [21] AG, p1 [22] Auge, p107-8 [23] Auge, p106 [24] Auge, p109

Solutions to Global Poverty

There are different solutions to Global Poverty nowadays. Foreign aid is considered one of the most effective because it helps in pioneering new ideas for development and solves the budgeting problem that might ruin even the brightest project. There is considerable scope for improving on the current level of foreign aid, around $120 billion per annum. Another solution is tax recovery. Multinational corporations and wealthy elites minimize tax burdens so that poor countries are denied tax revenues from each of these sources exceeding in aggregate the current level of foreign aid. Besides this, investment in the rural economy always pays off. Rewards of economic growth are to be spent on payments for the poor and for immunisation. Of equal importance to local communities and individual households is greater power to control their own affairs.  Control Key and Word – Text and Graphics. An infusion of accountability through democracy and individual rights creates the environment in which governments come under pressure to end wasteful practices and corruption. However the removal of agricultural subsidies that protect American and European farmers is needed to create a favorable atmosphere for the real business competition to take place. A fundamental reordering of priorities is the surest remedy for the poor, as indeed it may be for all of us in search of a sustainable future. Plenty of issues call for fundamental reform of global governance. Undoubtedly, some other sectors where developing countries struggle for treatment are trade, investment, intellectual property rights, climate change and energy. It’s a well-known fact that Brazil, China and Vietnam are countries with the greatest success in poverty reduction. Only their governments control key sectors of their economies and show little inclination to relax those restrictions on human rights and democratic freedom. That’s why we need to find another solution of this consequential issue.

History of Brazil Essay

Brazil the only Portuguese speaking country of South America, was founded by Spanish and Portuguese in the same year of 1500, but was handed over to the Portugal in the agreement of Torsdesillas (Bamber Gascoigne,gtu). Since the time of its colonization from 1500 until the late 1930, export of principal products has been subjected. Joao VI the sole sovereign when returned to Portugal, his apparent to the throne was Pedro, who surged a sequence of progressive political differences, which ultimately led to the independence of Brazil by 1822, leading to an era of kingship by Dom Pedro. His son Pedro II continued his legacy and led a more efficient government more than his father till 1889, where he was deposed by military coup. After that there were two more military coups in 1930 and later in 1964, but since 1985, democracy slowly returned to the snagged state. But in the midst of all the political and military drama, somehow the country’s economy was on the move. The history of the country indicates of its troubled pasts, and its love affairs with military coups, but since the last three decades, the country’s political frame has been stable, leading to ample opportunity for company like ours. Brazil Demography and Economy Brazil today has a population of more than 183 million people, with a high literacy rate of more than 86% (BIGS, Brazil today). A very strong positive indication, of a healthy literate population, briefly a very lucrative consumer mass for our product. Brazil comes in one of the front leaders of a leading economy in the world. It is an elite member of trillion dollar GDP group of the world. It is one of the fastest growing economies of the world, and slowly but surely, this country has become members of varied monetary unions, like Mercosur, and G-20. Brazil’s GDP has grown at an alarming 5. 1 % in the financial year of 2007, and with a very strong GDP per capita income of $8800 and also the Brazilian currency BRL$ is very strong, as 1 USD is near about less than BRL$ 2. This 8th largest economy of the world would prove to provide substantial buyers of our product in due course of time. Brazil’s Lifestyle Brazilian culture is a very open culture, with very less of taboos, and from the early times has been into music, and dance. Being a highly diversified culture with a huge mix of ethnic groups, Brazil has a very rich heritage. Music is one of the lifelines of Brazilians, and it can be stated form the fact that, way before their independence, Brazil had its own set of music schools, set up in different part of the country . This 5th largest population of the world is very inclined to towards singing and dancing customs, and being a prosperous nation 98% of the large population has access to television, where their local movie industry which also being the 10th largest in the world is highly well-liked and watched. Brazil’s inclination towards sports is not hidden from the world, and especially their superior liking for football. The population in general is known to be very hard working, but very apposite to recreation in sports and music. Status of demands of subwoofer in cars Brazil has a very large automobile industry, and in the year 2005, Brazil manufactured more than 1.65 million cars only for its domestic market (Elisangela Cordeiro), also according to the Euro monitor consumer electronics reporting Brazil, the in-car electronics such as woofers and media players along with other electronics in the market are available at cheap installment schemes, which are luring the common man into packing his car with accessories, like car speakers and woofers. Brazil has got a very huge young population, which would be our main targets for our products, as woofers are a very mandatory thing for the young generation of Brazilians. Recommendation Our first strategy to enter Brazilian woofer market is to tie up with the local car manufacturers, and to fit in our woofers in the local brands at reasonable prices. Since Brazil has a huge automobile market, we can tap into its boom and accessories the cars with our woofers. Secondly, the basic nature of a Brazilian is very open, and everyone has very strong interest in the different genres of music, we can capitalize on this nature of theirs and we can have ads on the lines of their open nature along with, their music, being played by our subwoofer. The only competition from a brand as repute as ours is from the company â€Å"BOSE†, but it only has its sales distributors, retail and commercial in Sao Paulo, if we can pull up our regional centre in Sao Paulo as well as the capital Brasilia , then we would be miles ahead of BOSE in the Brazilian sphere, as we would be able to reach a lot of people with our products, also these two cities are the main hotspot places for tourists, mainly coming from other regions of Latin America, and we would start catering to the domestic as well as the other Latin American mass would enhance the company’s reputation in nationally as well as in other neighboring countries. We can have our shops in malls and in different youth oriented streets and places, apart from having our outlets at car showrooms. Another thing that is strongly recommended is to tap into local manufacturing structure as Brazil has a very high amount of labor population who work at remunerations which are much aff ordable to us than the labor unit in the US, also the transportation costs would exceed cost price of our product. It is more suitable to link up with government in Brazil for facilitating us with the required formalities, and also the required waivers being handed out to us, in return for the unit which would commence in Brazil, in turn handing out jobs to the local population. Once we establish our market in the region, we can market our product more to the masses by making changes in its core design and, we can create an innovative JBL series subwoofer, which can be in a shape of a football (sphere), which would woo youngsters and football lovers. Further details regarding this matter will be mailed to you from the Research& Development wing. Conclusion Brazil has a very booming economy, and it is being rated with countries like India and China who are, the fastest growing economies of the world. This country has a very reasonable labor population which would cut down our costs by a huge margin, when we start manufacturing here. The regional centers which I have recommended would enhance our market in the country, and we if we can tap into the free nature and love of music of the Brazilians , then we would have not only a huge market in this country but also other Latin American countries who would follow Brazil’s in pursuit. Apart from Brazil’s distressed past of military coups, there is nothing else that negates Brazil as one of the prime future market for our company Work Cited Bamber Gascoigne, â€Å"History of Brazil†, Jan 14th 2008 http://www. historyworld. net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories. asp? historyid=aa88

The Effects Of Underage Drinking On The United States

The abuse of alcohol among teenagers in the United States is universal and destructive. Teenagers believe drinking to be the cool that they must do to fit in with a crowd or become the popular one, when they do not realize all it brings is harm. Underage drinking has been one of the largest unsolved problems in history. Although many ideas have been made and put into practice, like raising the drinking age, harsher punishments, and, at one point, banning it all-together, nothing people do can stop teens from getting their hands on this dangerous beverage. In 2008, a National Institutes of Health Survey counted a total of 1.3 million children from the ages of twelve to seventeen that have experienced alcohol abuse just within the last year, and a total of 2.3 million young adults from the ages of twelve to twenty who have drunk five or more times within a single occasion. â€Å"At age twelve, 11 percent of boys and 9 percent of girls have commenced drinking, and 1 percent of them are classified as binge and heavy users. By age fourteen, the numbers are 31 and 33 percent use, respectively, and 6 percent of them are binge and heavy users. At age eighteen years, 73 percent have commenced drinking, 42 percent have used alcohol in the past month, and 39 percent are heavy users,† (Sherwood, 2012, p.1). However, the most common group in which abuses the use of alcohol is the college age. 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