What does it mean to visit a place, to use the photograph as a form of possession? This micro-installation uses handmade ink, a touch-activated soundscape, and the form of the postcard to consider the ways in which a place is “possessed” by the modern tourist. This work considers Susan Sontag’s description of the photograph as a form of possession alongside John Urry’s theory of the tourist’s gaze. In full, the work traces the legacy of the eighteenth-century grand tour to practices of contemporary tourism in Italy and considers the relationship between ecological catastrophe and a modernity that was always unsustainable to itself. Grand Tour uses translation, broadly defined, to comprehend place. This particular iteration uses soil as the basis of visual, sonic, and material representation of a landscape.
The opening reception celebration for Grand Tour will include two performances/activations of the “soil organs,” sculptural electronic instruments made of soil, water, rocks, and thread. These performances will take place at 7:00pm and 7:30pm. At 6:45, Clare Harmon will speak briefly about the exhibition as a whole and its theoretical underpinnings. Attendees are also encouraged to interact with these instruments before and after the performance.
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