Stick Hand Fathom Shackle

STICK HAND Politecnico de Milano FATHOM SHACKLE ISSN 2531-7083 TRACES JOURNAL: Transmitting Contentious European Heritages with the Arts. www.traces.polimi.it Max Stolkin STICK HAND FATHOM SHACKLE Maxwell Stolkin Politecnico de Milano TRACES is an independent quarterly peer- Piazza Leonardo da reviewed, non-profit journal that brings Vinci 26 together original contributions to explore 20133 Milano – Italy www.traces.polimi.it emerging issues in the field of heritage [email protected] and museum studies. Each issue investigates a specific topic from different perspectives on practices, innovative approaches and experimental research actions. Free issues per year: ‘Snapshots’, with graphic- based contributions raising questions and investigating practices;‘Dialogues’, in which the topic unfolds through a semi- structured interview; and ‘Insights’, that expands the field of inquiry by means of theoretical and empirical critical thoughts. TRACES Journal ensues from the research project Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritages with the Arts. From Intervention to Co-Production, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 693857. The views expressed here are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily refl ect the views of the European Union. TRACES Politecnico de Milano The Inch: Edward Whymper recounts a back in/from the margins 1. Whymper, Edward. 1891. Travels certain alteration he made of South America- and amongst the great STICK to an Andean peak named presented as a work of Andes of the equator. Sincholagua in his book contemporary art. London: J. Murray. Travels Amongst the Great 2. International Andes of the Equator. This specific piece of System of Units. The European cultural heritage NIST Reference on Units, Constants, and Over 100 years later, an measures exactly one inch- Uncertainty. https:// Ecuadorian artist named and this is the story of physics.nist.gov/cuu/ Oscar Santillan caused a how a inch made three Units/introduction. brief media storm by making crossings of the Atlantic html a similar alteration to Ocean over a span of more the English landscape. than 100 years. Santillan titled the artwork he made with the This inch has alternately material remains of his act been called a ‘head in a The Intruder. The work was bag,’ an ‘intruder,’ a exhibited in a contemporary ‘work of art,’ a ‘small, art gallery in London in suggestive gesture,’ a 2015. ‘natural history specimen,’ an ‘act of vandalism,’ and Public outrage to The a ‘mickey-’ among other Intruder was covered by things. How can a single The Guardian, Vice, the inch be so many things? Daily Mirror, and other media outlets. Some The very purpose of a commentators characterized unit of measure is to Santillan’s artwork as an prevent such divergent act of vandalism. Others interpretations by expressed surprise over the providing a standard frame artists disregard for the of reference: landscape. “A unit is a particular physical The work was actually quantity, defined and adopted a highly researched by convention, with which transmission of a other particular quantities of contentious piece of the same kind are compared European cultural heritage- to express their value.”1 which Santillan brought Max Stolkin www.traces.polimi.it TRACES Politecnico de Milano Engraver Interpretations of this event upon which they are Whymper’s father trained background. The engraver supposedly standardized making their measures. him at the art of wood establishes the contours unit of measure vary engraving from an early of positive forms against according to a number of “Perception organizes spatial age. Whymper is more negative space. The 3. Gallagher, 4. Cosgrove, Denis. contextual factors. distributions around an Shaun. 2013. How widely known today for engraver begins in the 1985. “Prospect, egocentric frame of reference the body shapes his accomplishments in ‘sharp and near.’ perspective and Who is/was doing the that is implicitly indexed to the mind. Oxford: mountaineering than he the evolution of Clarendon Press. the landscape measuring? Was the inch the perceiving body, and is for his work as an The figure in the woodcut idea”. Transactions, measured on a vertical or things appear near or far, to engraver. Each vocation is literally drawn forth Institute of British horiztonal surface? the left or right, and so forth, would factor heavily into into the near by means Geographers. only in relation to the body”3 the frame of reference by of subtracting from the Is it an inch of the which he would perceive, far. The contours of 5. Art Term: contour of a form in the Our first perceiving body measure, and orient himself forms in the foreground Wood Engraving. Tate Modern, London. foreground of the picture was born in England in in the world around him: are established as the http://www.tate.org. plane? Or is it an inch of 1840. background is scraped, uk/art/art-terms/w/ a surface that is slowly “Landscape distances us hacked, and chiseled away. wood-engraving receding towards some from the world in critical The figure in the woodcut distant vanishing point ways, defining a particular is drawn forth from the on the horizon? Does the relationship with nature and expanse of space that depth of this picture those who appear in nature, recedes behind it, The plane recede in physical, and offers us the illusion figure in the engraving is Self Portrait, Edward Whymper, from the frontispiece of; Whymper, Edward, cultural, or temporal and Ian Smith. 2008. The apprenticeship of a mountaineer: Edward of a world in which we may imposed upon- cut into, senses? According to who, Whymper's London diary 1855-1859. London: London Record Society. participate subjectively by marked against the negative when, and where? entering the picture frame...”4 space beyond it’s contours. The contexts under which The wood engraving differs each measurement is made from the woodcut in the vary over time and space. processes by which one The unit of measure- the establishes forms on the physical quantity of the picture plane: inch itself- is never an object of dispute. “[Wood engraving is] a What we find is that any printmaking method distinct person’s measurement is from woodcut in that the line a quantity that makes is incised into the woodblock, it’s own measurement. rather than the background The measurement is not a being cut away to leave a line passive thing- the extent in relief.”5 or value of an inch will vary according to how the The figure in the wood measurer orients themselves engraving is asserted to the surface, object, or upon- and incised into the Max Stolkin www.traces.polimi.it TRACES Politecnico de Milano Scrambler At 20 Whymper was He enjoys the mountain 6. Husserl, Edmund, and Richard commissioned to engrave a scenery- sunrise and Rojcewicz. 1997. Thing HAND series of landscapes in sunset, the hills, dales, and space: lectures of the Alps. He left England lakes and woods- but places 1907. Collected Works. 7. Dordrecht: Kluwer as an apprentice, entered a higher value on the Academic Publishers. the picture plane of the Alps as an Engraver, and “...development of manliness, 7, 8. Whymper, established his figure in and the evolution, under Edward. 2002. the foreground of that combat with difficulties, Scrambles amongst landscape as a mountaineer. of those noble qualities of the Alps in the Years 1860-1869. human nature—courage, Washington, D.C: “The constitution of the patience, endurance, and National Geographic Objective location and fortitude.”8 Adventure Classics. of the Objective spatiality, is essentially mediated by the movement of the Body...”6 Whymper calibrated the contours by which we know him today along the vertical axis of the Alps. He used his own body as the unit by which he measured himself against the expanse- the horizontal splay of surfaces that recede into the background of a composition. “We who go mountain- scrambling have constantly set before us the superiority of fixed purpose or perseverance to brute force. We know that each height, each step, must be gained by patient, laborious toil, and that wishing cannot take the place of working.”7 Max Stolkin www.traces.polimi.it TRACES Politecnico de Milano giants, backed by massifs. came hoary And describes horizontality in a markedly different, grand; even humorous tone. Here Whymper takes a look at pointed his travelling companion Reilly, during a moment of peerless forced respite: towering “Reilly, who was getting numbed, and shifted uneasily from side to side, flanked and threw himself on his stomach, and rested his head on his elbows, and lighted his pipe and puffed at it savagely. When I looked again, how governed was Reilly? An indistinguishable heap; arms, legs, head, stones, and straw, all mixed together, his hat flung on one side...”10 Whymper does not marvel rugged for long at the sunsets- 10. Whymper, he incises his contours outlines Edward. 2002. against their fading Scrambles amongst the Alps in the colors. bold, Years 1860-1869. Washington, D.C: Jagged vertical contours- perpendicular National Geographic Adventure Classics. no matter how distant- jump forth into the foreground: cliffs, “The atmosphere was rocky perfectly still, and free from all clouds or vapours. Mountains glittering fifty—nay a hundred—miles off, looked sharp and near. All walls— their details—ridge and crag, snow and glacier—stood out turrets— with faultless definition.”9 pinnacles— He stacks adjectives and prepositions into his pyramids— 9. Whymper, descriptions of the Alps Edward. 2002. cones- Scrambles amongst with such force that they the Alps in the incise their own contours Years 1860-1869. spires Washington, D.C: into the page: National Geographic Adventure Classics. Max Stolkin www.traces.polimi.it TRACES Politecnico de Milano His climbing partner died on the descent.

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