Notes

Things seen everyday. Things attracting ones attention who knows why. Views from the childhood house.

The things which are so omnipresent that they are not seen.

To give an example, contrast it to the experience of a person newly arrived (check the stranger from Camus) to the land. The attention to detail is at the utmost (reference to Heidegger's Being in Time). Rarely does the everyday routine gets the attention of the observer, if there is still something left of an observer in a state of immersion ... going native.

The horizon, from the bedroom window, is the line of the Alps and the Mont-Blanc, a line or a mountain range, a place for occasional skiing or hiking, becoming then the memory of a day, but mostly a line, never the same line but always the same line, higher than the eye with no chance to see beyond to other horizons.

The stupefaction of seeing that line uncover itself on the occasional bird-eye view of an airplane trip. The readjustment of one's conception of the mountain from a line to a plane expending endlessly.

But lets look at the north side of the house, the south being out of reach and abstract. The north side, another mountain, much less monumental, much more tangible, another line, or rather a vertical plane, a facade the head has to shift upward to see the edge. The distance of observation, or rather the distance of experience is one of a few kilometres easily covered even on foot.

Is it the nature of the mountain, in that case the Jura, or the short distance separating the observer from it which transforms the horizon line into a vertical plane, or is it the irritation of having the view blocked by an undistinguishable mass? Or is it the experience of being part of the mountain until the top is reached, at what time the perception of what was a vertical plane or an horizon line shifts to map like land marks, horizontal planes forever, which gives that particular mountain other dimensions? The association of the vision with the experience of being part of the mountain in a sense, gives it a tangibility, a feeling of being part of, an abstraction of self in the immersion of everyday gestures, a reality of experience.

Lines, thin lines, thick lines, abstract objects, once horizon lines, planes, contours, one dimension, two, three?

Line ... 1 a) a cord, rope, wire, string, or the like b) a long, fine, strong cord with a hook, sinker, leader, etc. used in fishing c) clothesline ... 2 a wire or wires connecting a telephone or telegraph system .. . 3 any wire, pipe, system of pipes or wires, etc. for conducting water, gas, electricity, etc. 4 a very thin, threadlike mark ... 6 a border or boundary ... 7 a division between conditions, qualities, classes, etc .... B outline; contour. ..

The line drawn on a large piece of paper, higher than the observer but not higher than the wall it is stapled to which limits its size, the lights it receives, the view one can have in stepping back. The room is small, the limits of reality, another element in the play of space, with space. That piece of paper has been up for a couple weeks now, becoming part of the space or reminding itself of its newness, of its temporality on that wall, an irritation attracting the attention daily, a satisfaction or certitude of interaction in the near future. A paper recycled from a garbage bin several years ago, now unrolled on the floor, stepped on by bare feet, now roughly cut with a cutter, discovering its texture, its resistance to treatment, its whiteness more or less, thickness, its transformation over time - cassant et fragile malgré sa texture de carton. It has been rolled up for so long and the texture is so weak now that it breaks on the tension points where it is stapled to the wall. A piece of tape and another staple forces it back into place.

An only line, fractal of the Alps in the south, de la sanguine noire, a line done in one go without real control or vision as it is much higher than the eye. The option of stepping up on a chair or stool was disregarded as inappropriate. It is more the gesture and its concentration which were to capture that line.

It is disregarded as too fragmented as a line, but really meaning that what it holds is too far, in its minimization, in its abstraction, to be identified as the horizon line searched for. Therefore it defines by elimination that the horizon in question is not south, today or yesterday or one instant or always for the life of that plane of paper. Those Alps are too far away to have imprinted significance of the word horizon.

With no hesitation, the calendar photograph of mountains resembling the Alps' texture chosen for inspiration is disregarded, and a contact sheet of photographs of the Jura is chosen to capture the nature of the line defining the transition between the sky and the mass of the mountain.

Those photographs were taken in the hope of capturing contrasts of light creating space (a feeling of depth) during an instant of late afternoon, or was it early evening, when the transition of day and night makes for other transitions not so obvious. Pleasing, the photographs served the purpose they just did, perfect timing and availability of resources. Their original purpose had not been filled since the camera had not capture that transition of the mountain from a vertical plane, a barrier to the eye, to mounts and mist and valleys appearing in that particular light. In fact the photograph had transposed all the planess and flatness of the vertical plane and confirming its obtruding nature.

Another line, smoother, softer overlaps the first attempt, immediately finding its balance on the page, another geste (the French word for gesture will be used from now on as it carries the significance du vécu which the English language does not, having been learned much later in life. The mother tongue finds its references in the everyday apprenticeship of smells, colors, textures, while the English language is, in this particular case, one of concepts and abstraction, of another block of time and space - note 25 June: check Piaget concerning the way of learning with movements) in one go with no real visibility.

Is it because of its relation to the first line or just because that's the "right" line? There are now two lines, one which one may be tempted to erase and another identified as carrying the meaning of horizon, objective horizon, subjective horizon or abstract horizon of the moment.