To my knowledge this is the first PhD by practice to explore Chorography’s relevance as a methodological tool in contemporary artistic practice and critically address the historic yet neglected role of chorography in the documentation of place. Chorography, or place writing, is the artistic representation of a regional map which originated in Classical Geography (c.149AD). This field-based approach and detailed descriptor of place qualitatively maps characteristics of the locale by examining the constituent parts of that place. If a sensory physical mapping of place occurs prior to representation where is the body in the process of chorography?
There is a need to distinguish this act from its documentation and re-presentation to provide new theories, forms and applications by addressing the political implications of the embodied in the act of representation. To provide a contemporaneous account the performative relations between the body, mapping and place; the mobile, embodied and situated are therefore central to a contemporary interpretation of chorography.
To enact these relations sites chosen for their historic, symbolic or mythological significance include the Devil’s Bridge in Wales and St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall. Applying chorographic methods in artistic practice I aim to realise a historically grounded exploration of place by performing and documenting embodied, visual, textual and symbolic mappings. These mappings will form the basis of artworks, critical and performance writing, book works, performance and installation which will translate chorographic methods and the physical act of mapping into artistic practice. Combining historic method with contemporaneous form will enable a renewed understanding of the Chorography of place not just artistically but physically, contextually and historically.
Introduction: Analysis of the following articles have revealed problems in defining the field of chorography as well as methods, theories and insights which warrant further examination. These summaries identify, illuminate and reflect on these issues and their implications in theory and practice.
Paper 1: Rohl, Darell J (2011) The Chorographic Tradition and Seventeenth-and-Eighteenth Century Scottish Antiquaries, Journal of Art Historiography 5: 1-18.
Chorographic practice and theory according to Darrel J.Rohl
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the relations between British Antiquarianism and chorography. Rohl’s primary objective is the role of chorography in the lesser known Scottish Antiquarian’s. He also situates chorography in a wider field of contemporary discourse, including archaeology, which he fails to introduce or identify in the paper. This complicates his paper and disorients the reader, undermining an article which is aimed at clarifying the field whilst simultaneously criticizing competing definitions in contemporary usage. Ironically this adds to his own observation of imprecise language within various historical, practical and theoretical discourses and a lack of clarity for a precise chorographic definition.
Rohl translates chorography unproblematically stating his definition is located within the terms etymology, employing the chorographic corpus to support his arguments. Chorography is commonly interpreted by way of its Greek origins in Classical Geography, which Rohl discusses, yet translations exist across various theoretical discourses resulting in a plethora of interpretations which he does not address i.e. Ancient Philosophy. He posits a broad yet ‘reluctant’ definition of chorography as the ‘representation of place or space’ providing an accessible entry point. Whilst this may ultimately be productive the conflation of these terms is problematic due to their complex philosophical and theoretical histories where they are often employed interchangeably. This undermines or problematizes his definition; what does Rohl mean by space, to what type of space is he referring and how does one represent space?
Through a close reading of classical texts Rohl provides a summary of chorography’s history, terminology and methodology demonstrating the significance and influence of chorographic practice ‘synonymous’ with the antiquarian approach. Based on his own definition he identifies twelve basic observations which constitute a chorographical way of thinking, developing a more thorough exposition drawn from and supported by a variety of historic and contemporary sources including Polybius, Strabo and Ptolemy. Presented as an explanatory list they include “representation of place/space, multi-media presentation, it is spatio-hisorical, connection of past and present, it highlights the interdependence of human and environment, chorography de-centres and re-centres perspective, uses authorial voice, contains a degree of native knowledge, is about experience, memory and meaning, chorography is also generative of place, calling them into being, it is transdisciplinary and is both qualititvely and quantitively empirical and critical (p.6). Rohl eventually states these principles are representative of the chorographic corpus. These valuable insights warrant further investigation for the application of chorographic thinking to artistic practice.
Archaeology is then introduced in relation to chorographic methods as if self-evident; Rohl is an archaeologist. He locates chorographic methods in archaeological practice from his reading of British Antiquarianism, although he does not explain their historical relation, the latter being archaeology’s historical precursor. Rohl then outlines ten chorographic principles of archaeological practice including “regional field survey, inquiry, collection of facts, stories and objects, detailed description/measurement, listing of historic events, analysis, visualisation, historiographic method, critical thinking and presentation” (p.7). To the uninitiated he is explicitly referring to Landscape Archaeology in contradistinction to the better known practice of excavation. This distinct and separate strand involves fieldwork and interpretation, which I have experienced directly, however it is necessary to state Landscape Archaeologists are not performing chorography. These methods provide a clear, though not uncontested route, to conducting primary site research.
Finally, he performs a comparative analysis of works by the privileged Sir Robert Sibbald and the marginalised Alexander Gordon, contrasting their chorographic methods and the presence of differing attitudes in practice. The former via the distance of the questionnaire, survey, list and inventory, the latter performing a personal, yet critical, peripatetic engagement. Their outputs combine multiple layers of textual and visual material providing a rich topography of detail. Both, according to Rohl, are united in material engagements and documenting relations between past and present, geography, historiography, archaeological remains and positioning the local in relation to the regional or national construction of identity. He concludes that the legacy of antiquarianism in relation to chorography is being developed within the contemporary practices of heritage and archaeology.
“Placeways is a philosophical and historical interpretation of the experience and meaning of place. Searching for a way of knowing and living in the world that does not fragment experience or exploit the environment, E. V. Walter explores the way people in other cultures and other times have experienced place. The book develops Walter’s theory of topistics – a holistic way of grasping a place as the location of shapes, powers, feelings, and meanings. Exploring the common ground of such diverse fields as philosophy, history, urban planning, classics, cultural geography, architecture, sociology, and environmental psychology, Walter provides theoretical resources for readers who want to rescue the human environment from the loss of feeling and meaning. Walter discusses a wide variety of places, from prehistoric caves, the Australian desert, and classical Greece to medieval towns, Renaissance cities, and modern slums. He examines the changing realities of expressive space and reveals the nonrational, symbolic, and intuitive features in our experience of places – elements taken for granted by archaic peoples but discounted by modern civilization. The current crisis of environmental degredation, according to Walter, is also a crisis of places. For the first time in human history, people are systematically building meaningless places. If we are to comprehend and reverse the ruin and dislocation of our cities, we must develop another way of understanding the built environment and the natural landscape. True renewal, Walter says, will require a change in the way we structure experience and a return to an ancient paradigm for understanding both the natural land and the constructed world.”
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