Traveling in Place

Stiegler, B. (2013) Traveling in place: A history of armchair travel. Translated from German by P. Filkins. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

As the project began to take shape around concepts of landscape, we entered isolation due to COVID-19. At the same time, I moved from a house surrounded by trees and water into a small apartment in the city. The possibilities for looking at landscape changed dramatically. Traveling in place, introduced the idea of travel as a state of mind, and the opening chapters discussion of Xavier de Maistre’s 1794 Voyage autour de ma chambre, revealed the possibility of seeing my surroundings in a different way.  

This book references multiple examples of artists working within small spaces – due to house arrest, illness or through choice – and resonates with the project in looking at the multitude of experience that can be gained from repeated close investigation of an everyday object. Voyage autour de ma chambre also references the window as a frame through (and from) which to view the world however also as a means to sharpen perception (p. 54). The landscape this project explores is dominated by the cypress tree that fills my window. The window frames the tree, it distances it, sometimes my own reflection overlays the tree, sometimes the tree itself frames a more distant view. Through the project my own connection to this landscape is revisited and explored, meaning the project becomes a way of opening my eyes to recognise the strangeness of the familiar (p40).

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