nonscape
Miniature painting - 5.4 x 8.6 cm. Watercolor, gouache, transparent gesso on repurposed, cancelled, paper subway ticket sized with gesso and marble dust.
Non-places, as described by Marc Augé in "Non-Places : an Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity" (1992) "are there to be passed through." And here we have just such a place, one of the foremost "non-places" in the world - the Amtrak ticket booth in New York's Pennsylvania Station. I believe that by painting this quintessential non-place I have created a paradox, the non-place eternally frozen in time through the act of painting acquires the power of being viewed and contemplated, and thus I have rendered a non-place into a place, where all parts of the composition, true to life as they are, conform to a weaving-togetherness that is notably devoid in non-places, which is to say, present in places with placeness. Nonetheless, despite the placing of the non-place in my painting, the non-place-made-place still retains many of the qualities distinctive to non-places. Ticket booths, clocks and arrows are some of the notable landmarks [!] of the non-place. In fact this painting depicts an apex of non-placehood made more non-place by the very absence of one of the most distinguishing features of non-placeness - words. This non-place is so devoid of placeness that even the instructions for use, the very injunctions that non-places require in order to function as places from which to leave, are missing : the light box intended for signage contains no letters or numbers, the ticket booths contain no sellers of tickets, an information arrow points to an empty container. Here is a non-place that is so singularly leavable that it does not even offer help to get you going. This place is so non that it is noteworthy. All of which is to say, this non-place is so far to the left of your typical non-place that it is a place again, and made all the more so by its present depiction in miniature on a transit ticket, which should be at least enough to get you to the airport.
nonscape
Miniature painting - 5.4 x 8.6 cm. Watercolor, gouache, transparent gesso on repurposed, cancelled, paper subway ticket sized with gesso and marble dust.
Non-places, as described by Marc Augé in "Non-Places : an Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity" (1992) "are there to be passed through." And here we have just such a place, one of the foremost "non-places" in the world - the Amtrak ticket booth in New York's Pennsylvania Station. I believe that by painting this quintessential non-place I have created a paradox, the non-place eternally frozen in time through the act of painting acquires the power of being viewed and contemplated, and thus I have rendered a non-place into a place, where all parts of the composition, true to life as they are, conform to a weaving-togetherness that is notably devoid in non-places, which is to say, present in places with placeness. Nonetheless, despite the placing of the non-place in my painting, the non-place-made-place still retains many of the qualities distinctive to non-places. Ticket booths, clocks and arrows are some of the notable landmarks [!] of the non-place. In fact this painting depicts an apex of non-placehood made more non-place by the very absence of one of the most distinguishing features of non-placeness - words. This non-place is so devoid of placeness that even the instructions for use, the very injunctions that non-places require in order to function as places from which to leave, are missing : the light box intended for signage contains no letters or numbers, the ticket booths contain no sellers of tickets, an information arrow points to an empty container. Here is a non-place that is so singularly leavable that it does not even offer help to get you going. This place is so non that it is noteworthy. All of which is to say, this non-place is so far to the left of your typical non-place that it is a place again, and made all the more so by its present depiction in miniature on a transit ticket, which should be at least enough to get you to the airport.