Kategorie Vortrag
Titel Vortrag: "Surface textes: The ground and the page" (Prof. Dr. Tim Ingold, Aberdeen)
Termine Dienstag, 15.05.2018 18 Uhr c. t.
Ort Neue Universität, Hörsaal 8

https://www.eth.uni-heidelberg.de/md/eth/institut/vortrag_ingold.pdf

The  monks  of  Medieval  Europe  would  often  compare  the  meditative  practice  of  reading  with  the  process  of  wayfaring through the landscape. The lines inscribed by hand on the parchment were likened to paths traced by foot on the ground. Both the page and ground are textured surfaces. In this paper I begin by exploring the surface properties of the ground, showing how it does not so much separate what is above (the sky) from what is below (the earth) as set up a zone in which sky and earth commingle. Thus the ground covers  the  earth  but  does  not  cover  it  up.  Following  the  Victorian  writer  and  art  critic  John  Ruskin,  I  compare  the  ground to an earth-veil. I then show that the page of writing has equivalent properties: its texture is the text; its surface a veil. Taking the comparison one stage further, I suggest that the page, like the ground, is subject to the atmospheric influence of weather. This allows us to view writing itself as a process of weathering, and the hand of the writer as an agent of the atmosphere.