{"id":1065,"date":"2018-05-20T23:03:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T23:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/?p=1065"},"modified":"2023-04-27T19:53:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T19:53:11","slug":"ich-bin-ein-berner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/2018\/05\/20\/ich-bin-ein-berner\/","title":{"rendered":"Ich bin ein Berner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the past I\u2019ve addressed certain topics or themes that were discussed by others in conferences. I\u2019m not going to do that here, in the sense that I\u2019d choose a particular topic and expand upon it. I am, however, going to address all kinds of things that I found noteworthy and interesting <\/em>at a conference that I attended abroad not long ago. I was going to do this ASAP, as I usually do, but I got carried away by work, on top of more work. Anyway, I\u2019ll do this in chronological order, starting from day one, then day two and then finally day three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In day one, David Karlander addressed nothingness<\/em>, or, I guess, the absence <\/em>of whatever it is that is absent<\/em>, the trick being that, the way I\u2019d put it, it\u2019s hard to know what\u2019s missing, you know, because it\u2019s missing and you can\u2019t know it\u2019s missing if and\/or when it\u2019s missing. How to put it more clearly? Well, I\u2019d say I\u2019ve encountered this in my own research as well. Think of empty walls. Sure, sure, okay, they are only as empty as one thinks they are. Indoors, for example, have a habit of having white walls. Yes, yes, there are walls that are of other colors as well, but at least in the Finnish context white is the default wall color indoors, followed by some very light colors. It\u2019s not even about the color as such as we might as well replace the default color by something more striking, for example, orange. The point is that we are very used to having empty walls, one color, typically something that\u2019s not considered offensive to one\u2019s eyes. Pay attention to this next time you enter a public building. Corridors, offices and classrooms have a tendency of being rather bare bones, if you will. They tend to have walls that are blank, white or some shade of greige, supplemented by an array of equally unremarkable furniture. Offices may have some personality to them, but that\u2019s typically something that matches the character of the furniture, for example something framed, a photo or a diploma. What\u2019s messy is a pile of books and papers, if that. In many cases, for example at my university, the spaces used, the various corridors, offices and classrooms, are not actually the property of the university, but the property of another entity, owned in part by the university (incidentally a topic that was discussed at lunch at the conference). That means that the tenant, the university, must adhere to certain policies and practices, ones that keep the walls empty. I believe that with some of the buildings there\u2019s this thing that they must also adhere to some policies on maintaining their architectural integrity. This means that everything must be exactly as some architect or designer once envisioned the buildings to be like. I\u2019m not kidding with this. A janitor, for the lack of a fancier title, once told me that this stuff goes as far as having the right type of light fixtures and level of lighting, which, can actually be rather contradictory with the safe use of such spaces. Simply put, it can end up being next level fussy, just because someone thinks it makes sense to adhere to the aesthetic appeal of indoor lighting in the early 1900s when they didn\u2019t have proper lighting to begin with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, back to the presentation, which, I think, went well. He got some flak afterwards for presenting something <\/em>as nothing<\/em>, which, well, is probably something that\u2019s hard to address or counter in that moment. In other words, some, I can\u2019t remember who, pointed out that it\u2019s actually something <\/em>that\u2019s there, not nothing<\/em>. So, yes, correct, the empty walls, or surfaces to be more general here, are indeed something<\/em>. However, oddly enough, no matter how they are something<\/em>, say, white walls with, perhaps, a dent or some faint discoloring here or there, they appear as if nothing<\/em>, nothing worth paying attention to in any case. The presentation included certain bits on how, for example, graffiti <\/em>is painted over, at times, with a contrasting color, which then, rather obviously stands out from the wall itself, because, well, it\u2019s of(f) color. Here it\u2019s worth adding that it makes no difference to the observer whether something specific, such as some graffiti<\/em>, was painted over in certain color that does not match the color of the surrounding wall or not. What if someone paints over a portion of wall, just for the sake of it? Do we pay attention to some generic rectangular area of a concrete wall painted in some dull color that may or may not stand out from the totality of the wall? Should we? Should we not? It\u2019s something<\/em>, yet at the same time nothing<\/em>. Maybe it was something <\/em>(specific), but now nothing <\/em>(in contrast). Maybe it never was something <\/em>(specific), but now appears as something <\/em>(in contrast). This may not make much sense to dwell over, yet, if you ask me, it makes a lot of sense to address. This is, at least in part, why I prefer to approach landscape <\/em>as having to do with discourse<\/em>. Not that they aren\u2019t important, but for this reason I\u2019m not as much interested in individual signs, presenting them and addressing their appearance<\/em>. I\u2019m rather interested why <\/em>it is that, for example, something comes to appear <\/em>as it does. Simply put, I\u2019m not interested in presenting photographic evidence of walls of certain color but rather examining why <\/em>it is that they are the way they are and why <\/em>people are up in arms if they are not. Of course this does not apply only to empty walls but also to the signs that people wish to analyze instead of the absence of signs. I\u2019m not interested in presenting photographic evidence of signs, how <\/em>they appear <\/em>to us, i.e., what they look like, but in why <\/em>it is that they are the way they are and how <\/em>they came to be how they are and where they are. Anyway, to recap this one, it may be that the audience didn\u2019t really get or appreciate what Karlander was after, but I think he struck oil. Ironically, perhaps they considered his presentation on nothing <\/em>as nothing<\/em>. Then again, I might be wrong about the audience as next to nothing <\/em>was said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in day one, in the parallel sessions, Durk Gorter brought up dynamic displays<\/em>. As that could mean a lot of things, I mean the word dynamic <\/em>could be used in whatever context, for the buzz value of it, what was, and to be honest still is, at stake is how more and more signs, or rather, let\u2019s call them frames of display<\/em> (because of signs can be linguistic\/semiotic signs, but what we mean here is the actual factual \u2026 things<\/em>), are not static<\/em>, this or that. In simple terms, ignoring my word salad, Gorter pushed the audience to pay more attention to digital displays<\/em> because they are becoming more and more common. He addressed how they are used in a public transportation system in the city of Donostia-San Sebastian. I\u2019ve never been there, but it\u2019s sort of how it is here as well, on the local traffic buses. Not all of them have them, but some of the newer ones have digital displays<\/em> that run bits of information bearing relevance to the bus routes, but also news stories and advertising. To those living in the capital region, at least the trains running to the airport have digital displays, albeit I don\u2019t think they run news or advertising on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To situate these in landscapes<\/em>, as typically understood as the great outdoors (albeit it\u2019s not strictly speaking limited to it \u2026 think of large shopping centers, for example), it is not uncommon here to run into these. I know the location of a number of large billboard sized digital displays<\/em> in Turku. I\u2019d say that they are hard to miss when you come across them. While they do have the sheer size of a billboard that makes them stand out, yes, it\u2019s rather the flicker of the screen, the changing canvas that draws your attention. You can do a lot with a digital display<\/em>, say, run a video. However, just changing what is presented, going from one display to another in the same frame, is likely to make you pay attention to it. While I was living in Ireland, almost a decade ago, they had something similar, dynamic <\/em>but not digital<\/em>. There was this billboard on the way to the closest grocery store. It looked just like any billboard, you know, huge, but as passing it took a while, the display changed. It had blades, not unlike vertical window blinds, that rotate, making it possible to have more than one display in the same frame. Apparently this is called a rotating billboard or, if incorporating three sides (think of stacking Toblerones next to one another and then rotating them to alter the overall message), a Trivision. Anyway, digital displays<\/em> are, of course, far more dynamic <\/em>than such old school dynamic displays<\/em>. The thing here is, as explained by Gorter, that while it is likely that what is on display is on a loop, just like with a Trivision, digital displays<\/em> have infitite potential, limited only by code. At the same time, while they could be presenting anything, they also might not. Just switch it off and the frame of display <\/em>is rendered into a blank frame, becoming nothing, or so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering it\u2019s Gorter who has done most work on these and presented on them, it must been him who pushed me to explicitly address this in my published work. So, kudos to him for pushing me to think about it. I don\u2019t know if I addressed it sufficiently as it didn\u2019t find it particularly problematic. However, it\u2019s something that I might address more in the future. I happen to have a sweet spot for attempting to overcome obstacles, for coming up solutions to things rather than doing just more of the same. It\u2019s also something that, I think, one has to address in the future. There\u2019s bound to be more and more of digital displays<\/em> out there in the future. We may well also end up in a situation where people view the same scene differently, not because their way of seeing<\/em>, i.e., how they are constituted, is different, but because the scene will be mediated by technology, such as Augmented Reality (AR). To give you a concrete example, think of wearing glasses (albeit, I know, it seems a bit clunky \u2026 glasses) that render text on the sites of display. It could be in this or that language, depending on the settings. Take off the glasses and the frame of display<\/em> is blank. We can take this to the next level by removing the need of physical frames of display<\/em>, having the technology render it for us in whatever way is preferred. This way one doesn\u2019t even need to maintain the frames of display<\/em>. I think it\u2019s also worth mentioning that as neat and handy as that may sound, it sort of goes without saying that it will end up used for commercial purposes as well, for example to set up advertisements all over the landscape<\/em>, tailored just for you<\/em>, based on some profile of you<\/em>, probably created by you<\/em>, unless, well, you are willing to pay (enough) not to see the them in the AR. This way, in a sense, even nothing<\/em>, or, to be more accurate, the perception of nothing, can well be converted into something<\/em>, in terms of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in day one, Dejan Ivkovi\u0107 presented on his collaborative work on meaning making on the spot, how it is that people come to encounter <\/em>the landscape<\/em>. What I found particularly interesting and perhaps more important is the emphasis on raising awareness<\/em>, how people should pay more attention to the elements in the landscape<\/em>, whatever they may be. For me, awareness <\/em>of the key issue, how it is that landscape <\/em>operates as constructing certain a(n)estheticized reality<\/em>, one in which we happily, or should I say with pleasure<\/em>, ignore the particulars <\/em>in favor of a totality <\/em>irreducible to its particulars<\/em>, is of high importance. Raising awareness <\/em>may be of little interest in research as it doesn\u2019t lead to a steady flow of articles, more of the same, here, there, everywhere. Taking into account the key issue, the numbing quality of it, should really be the goal. At least the way I understand landscape <\/em>operating (as an abstract machine<\/em>), it makes no actual difference to present, one article after another, findings on this or that landscape<\/em>, unless the goal is to actually address the issue itself. Ignorance of how <\/em>it works <\/em>only feeds into it all, likely even reinforcing it. Anyway, getting back on track here, back to the topic, I found the presentation worth the attention as the emphasis is put on the spatial practice<\/em> and paying attention to one\u2019s surroundings, how it is that one comes to encounter <\/em>particulars (or not) in the landscape<\/em>. Simply put, the value added here is the explicit emphasis on active participation<\/em>, one\u2019s role in everyday life, as opposed to being a mere receptor of an irreducible totality<\/em> that operates, as if tailored as such, to cater for your desires<\/em>, whatever they may be. Phenomenology may not be my thing, but I\u2019m not hostile to it, far from it as it pertains to how it is that people come to experience <\/em>the world. At least you\u2019d think that\u2019d be of particular interest to people, no matter how against reason <\/em>that may go according to the hardcore objectivists<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skipping ahead quite a bit in day one, Andre Joseph Theng presented on, how would I summarize it, how coffee shops are branded, coming across as authentic <\/em>or inauthentic<\/em>. I might be misrepresenting this, as it\u2019s been a while in between, but if I understood correctly, in this context, we can speak of coffee of being first<\/em>, second <\/em>or third wave<\/em>. The first wave<\/em> has to do with popular coffee, say, erm., what comes to my mind is something like that coffee and donuts chain named after its founder, a hockey player. We could think of something else here as well, but having spent a good deal of time in Canada, I think that\u2019s a good example, something that came to my mind first. It\u2019s a no frills, get some coffee, the usual if you will, type of a thing, accompanied by an assortment of donuts. It\u2019s the sort of place that I think people go to get their coffee fix, just as you do by having some filter coffee at home in Finland. So, with the first wave<\/em>, it\u2019s about coffee, some coffee, just some coffee. It\u2019s not about getting great coffee. It can be great coffee, but it just typically isn\u2019t and I reckon it\u2019s not even trying to be, nor is it advertised as such. At least I\u2019m under no impression that I\u2019m buying myself some great experience when I buy a brick of filter coffee and a bunch of filters for my coffee machine. It just gets the job done and isn\u2019t half bad. That\u2019s, of course, not to say that the brands don\u2019t try to sell it as something great, better for the environment and\/or the farmers, and the like, at least in comparison to the other brands and companies. The second wave<\/em> then, to my understanding, is marked by going against the first wave<\/em>, or at least that\u2019s the origin of it. Here the first thing that comes to my mind is that originally small coffee roastery originating in the Pacific Northwest, the one that turned into a major chain. It offers better quality than the first wave<\/em>, offering a wider variety of coffee, but, I guess, is as corporate and has turned as homogeneous as the first wave<\/em>, even if it is marked by espresso, rather than just \u2026 coffee. I remember walking into a building through its central entrance, shared by, on the left hand side, the aforementioned second wave<\/em> coffee shop, and, on the right hand side, the aforementioned first wave<\/em> coffee shop. They were remarkably similar in terms of their \u2026 well \u2026 homogeneous appearance. It\u2019s not that they mimic one another, I mean hardly, but that you could easily walk into yet another store of either company and not really know the difference. My impression was that the one on the left had a more young, educated and professional type of clientele, people after some espresso, whereas the one on the right had a more middle-aged, blue collar type of clientele, people after some coffee. Anyway, moving on, as you might guess, the third wave<\/em>, as discussed by Theng, is then marked by going against the second wave<\/em>, for having turned into more of the same, you know, having become as homogeneous and bland as the first wave<\/em>. I\u2019m more familiar with beer, so I\u2019ll try to explain it that way instead. With beer, the trend was to counter the big brewers, or macro brewers. It\u2019s not just about being a micro brewery, something small. That\u2019s just a matter of scale. It\u2019s rather about the craft of it, doing it in small batches, quality over quantity, getting at the essence of it, getting the best out of the ingredients and, at times, limiting the brew in certain ways, for example by using only a single hop variety. As I pointed out, micro vs. macro is not a great way to put it because some of the so called micro breweries are now owned by the macro brewers or some never heard of investment company that hopes to make it big with the brewery. In this sense craft is a better label for what in the beer world is third wave<\/em>. Getting back to Theng\u2019s presentation, it was certainly interesting that someone is looking into the notion of indie <\/em>and being local<\/em>, at least supposedly that is, in combination with consumption <\/em>and commodification<\/em>, as evident in the landscape<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m going off the script here, mixing up the time line, but that\u2019s because I don\u2019t have as much to say about each of the presentations. Jeffrey Kallen brought up something not unlike what Theng presented on, albeit more clearly on the commodified <\/em>side of things than on the indie <\/em>side of things. He discussed the ever so obvious, albeit actually quite varied \u2018Irish Pub\u2019, the one that appear outside Ireland in various shapes and forms. In summary, to put it in words he didn\u2019t use, we can think of the \u2018Irish Pub\u2019 as both a simulation <\/em>and a simulacrum<\/em>, a copy and a copy of a copy, simulating <\/em>what you find in Ireland, or, alternatively, not bothering to do that but instead copying <\/em>what we think of<\/em> as an Irish Pub and happily mixing it with something that we wouldn\u2019t associate with it. For example, in Turku we used to have an \u2018Irish Pub\u2019, often staffed by expats but not by Irish nationals, at least that I can remember. It had all the usual elements, namely the carpentry that you\u2019d expect, as well as plenty of signs containing slogans by Irish brewers. At the same time, if my memory serves me, it was never strictly speaking limited to such and it happily mixed with all kinds of things, foreign and local. This was also the case in the \u2018Irish Pub\u2019 that I happened to come across in Bern, Switzerland. They weren\u2019t too fussy about having signs featuring British brewers alongside all things Irish. Bernardino Tavares made a related point, albeit pertaining more to the expected authenticity<\/em>. If I remember correctly, he pointed out how people come to expect something to be this or that, for example, as presented, Cape Verdean m\u00e9tissage<\/em>, the irony being that, apparently, some customers weren\u2019t satisfied with a caf\u00e9\/restaurant as it wasn\u2019t authentically mixed<\/em>, or so to speak. In other words, some people had a view in which the establishment was to have certain appeal to it, having certain clientele, served by certain staff, not just anyone, being served by just anyone, the irony being that the place is supposed to embrace the notion of being mixed<\/em>, in all kinds of ways, rather than revolving around a distinct identity<\/em>. As a polar opposite, Deirdre Dunlevy presented on how language <\/em>is used to mark community identity <\/em>in Belfast. No irony here though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was going to cover everything in one essay but this already dragged on long enough, so I\u2019ll do this in parts instead. This is the recap for day one. I didn\u2019t cover everyone’s presentation here, but that\u2019s because I just couldn\u2019t be in two places at the same time, it makes little sense to address the opening speeches, as interesting as they were, and me having little to contribute on the topics discussed by a number of other presenters. Perhaps I can link some of them in the following recaps on days two and three, whenever I find the time to write on those. Anyway, we\u2019ll see. There were some interesting presentations during those days as well, so I hope to manage to address them sooner than later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the past I\u2019ve addressed certain topics or themes that were discussed by others in conferences. I\u2019m not going to do that here, in the sense that I\u2019d choose a particular topic and expand upon it. I am, however, going to address all kinds of things that I found noteworthy and interesting at a conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3554,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[880,865,868,874,862,877,871],"class_list":["post-1065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-dunlevy","tag-gorter","tag-ivkovic","tag-kallen","tag-karlander","tag-tavares","tag-theng"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4020,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions\/4020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}