Heritage

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 2: Shanks, M. and Witmore, C. (2010) “Echoes across the Past: Chorography and topography in antiquarian engagements with place”. Performance Research 15 (4), 97-106.

William Gell, Study of a lekythos (Notebook 1, GELL 4534b)

The aim of this paper is to elucidate chorographic and topographic methods in various strands of Antiquarian practice. Shanks and Witmore identify common components of Antiquarianism including local and national history, geography, the regional, examination of archaeological remains and the act of collecting. Although chorography is pre-disciplinary they claim a genetic link forms the basis of contemporary disciplinary approaches across heritage management, tourism, archaeology, historical geography and contemporary arts practice. They argue for a genealogical understanding of inter or trans-disciplinary practices concerned with relations of land, place, and locational identity to provide an enhanced understanding of present disciplinary, practical and academic positions. They substantiate these claims by drawing parallels between 16th-19thC Antiquarian practice concerned with “the history and geography of regional landscapes and the management and collection of archaeological artefacts […] seeking tangible historical roots and emerging nation states of modernity” and “contemporary global engagements with land and senses of place” of which they argue Antiquarianism is the main foundation. pp.97

Shanks and Witmore explore three primary components of Antiquarian practice including ‘chorography, itinerary and topography’ in part by way of the Scottish Borders. Their succinct, though unexpanded, definition is etymologically uncomplicated and more closely reflects my own understanding of chorography as ‘the documentation of region’. This practice includes the act of journeying and movement (itinerary) and the intersection of past and present in relation to the landscape (topography). They utilise the concept of performance and the performative to lever open unresolved issues at the heart of antiquarian practice including ‘tensions of property, belonging and ownership, anxieties about scientific and literary authenticity and social responsibility’ which warrants further analysis, pp.97

Through a close reading of Antiquarian texts, the authors perform a comparative analysis of works by William Gell, Martin Leake and the ‘literary antiquarian’ Walter Scott. They contrast their methods, attitudes in practice and also what unites them; a quest for the authentic, the fragment, the quotidian, elevating the historical detail to the status of epic. Although there are crucial distinctions to how this process is performed and manifested the authors draw attention to the implications of representation beyond the idea of medium as a means to an end i.e. the ethics and politics of representation and speaking authentically for others. These concerns are redolent of a distinct strand of Critical Ethnography under consideration for this research.

The lay of the last minstrel – by Sir Walter Scott, Illustrated by James Henry Nixon

Their analysis shows Gell and Leake take a scholarly, rational and distanced stance which is measurable, cartographic, precise, descriptive and forensic in attitude. The implications of placing Scott in the chorographic canon is an emphasis on oratory, the art of memory, folk-lore and the vernacular Ballad. Scott is not simply a collector for the sake of historic facts in and of themselves nor is he concerned with a distanced antiquarian, empirical exactitude of observation and precise recording. Scott’s literary, discursive and interpretative mode becomes an act of re-collection, re-writing, re-telling and re-presenting. Scott performs a curatorial act, a selective re-framing which recuperates, conserves, transforms and embellishes. In the case of The Lay of the Last Minstrel 1805, set in the middle of the 16th century, occupying Three Nights and Three Days, the poem articulates the manners and customs of the English/Scottish borders through the ‘narrator’, an ancient Minstrel. Throughout this process Scott’s voice is ventriloquized and dispersed into the collective voice of the ballad, the polyvocal, polyphonic and polyvalent, a performative co-mingling that results in a complex intertextual topography. Shanks and Witmore argue the topical qualities of Scott’s work place him in the tradition. These topics include “landscape and manners, terrain, tradition, scenario and narrative fragment, names and lists, genealogies and toponymies.” pp. 100 Shanks states these features are central to the antiquarian genre of chorography. Scott’s narrative poems and novels setting tales in the distant and not so distant past did much to foster people’s interest in history. Scott was involved in historical study and gained a reputation as an antiquary and practised amateur archaeology. There is no evidence to suggest however that he equated his work with chorography although he may have been familiar with the term. [1]

These contrasting approaches warrant further investigation regarding their significance to this research. According to the authors Scott’s work exceeds the concept of mimesis as representation due to it’s complex construction and fabrication. Prior research has identified this is an important factor to how alternative mimetic theoretical models might inform the study. My MA Thesis, Ariadne’s Dance Floor, Choragraphy and the Ecstatic Subject, (Distinction) Royal College of Art 2013 sought to restore a connection to the philosophical roots of mimesis and to the feminine and dance. The title was not a playful affectation but a statement of political intent via the deliberate spelling of chorography as choragraphy following the work of geographer Inger Birkeland and Julia Kristeva. According to Perez-Gomez [2008] mimesis was not originally connected to imitation “but the expression of feelings and experience through movement, musical harmonies and rhythms of speech.” [2] This underscores one of my own concerns and the need to make a distinction between the performative, embodied act and its subsequent re-presentation, this perceived gap would clarify chorography as both process and product. My concern is an overt emphasis on chorography as representation; as visual medium as opposed to embodied method. Shanks and Whitmore conclude with the idea that insights into the ‘antiquarian genre of chorography’ could provide sound methodological principles for addressing critical epistemological issues, institutional or otherwise, of conducting research.

[1] Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, 1707-2007. (2007). United Kingdom: Harry N. Abrams. pp.170 Image reproduced from https://www.bsa.ac.uk/2020/11/04/the-william-gell-notebooks-at-the-bsa/ (accessed 03/11/22)

[2] Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Built upon Love, Architectural longing after ethics and aesthetics, (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006), p.48.

Images reproduced from https://www.bsa.ac.uk/2020/11/04/the-william-gell-notebooks-at-the-bsa/ (accessed 03/11/22) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lay_of_the_Last_Minstrel (accessed 28/08/23)

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.

Heritage

Micro Critique Paper No.2

Micro Critique Paper No.1