Cartography, Issue 10

Tillmans is interested in the process that, starting from the image, reproduced in different contexts such as magazines, books, postcards, galleries and museums, nightclubsand music videos, record covers, posters, architectural spaces and theatrical stages, activates new dynamics of non-hierarchical, decentralized relationships, open to differences. Might the mediated image at times be more impactful or enduring than a direct experience of the work? Might it be equally significant, even if different? 

THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, A JOURNEY BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER BEA DE GIACOMO AND THE DIRECTOR MASSIMILIANO BOMBA. TEXT BY DOUGLAS STUART FROM THE BOOK “YOUNG MUNGO”.

A sharp wind blew across the loch and snapped the fabric of his cagoule in its hurry. The air was clearer than he had ever tasted, and when Gallowgate wasn’t watching, he tilted his head back and put his tongue out into the breeze. It tasted green like spring grass, but there was a prehistoric brownness to it, as though it had searched an entire age through damp peaty glens and ancient forests, looking for its way to wherever it was going.

FOLK IN THE HEBRIDES, BY LISA ROVNER

In 1938, the couple bought the Isle of Canna. In Shaw’s own words: It’s smaller than its neighbors. When you are sailing towards it you’ll see how very green it is. There are high cliffs to the North and the South but the rich grass grows to the very edges of them. I’m often asked if this isn’t a lonely life. It is not. People who work with animals are never lonely. I remember visitors arriving onshore from a yacht one lovely summer day. “You’re far from the world here” said the yachtsman. I’m in the center of my world was the reply.