I thought I\u2019d do something short(er) this time, but, as you\u2019ll quickly notice, that didn\u2019t happen. I had gone through this text before and thought I\u2019d be able to make a quick summary of it, highlighting what I like about it, while also providing some related commentary. I honestly didn\u2019t realize how good this text was until I went through it again, section by section, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence. Anyway, to get to the point, in this essay I\u2019ll be covering Tim Ingold\u2019s article \u2018The Temporality of the Landscape\u2019. It was first published as an article, but you can also find this published subsequently as a book chapter. The pagination in this essay is from article version. I\u2019ve mentioned this article in the past and covered in a summary form, but I don\u2019t think I gave him a fair shake by mentioning it in passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s worth noting that while this article is highly cited and highly touted, I reckon that most people will find Ingold\u2019s views hard to understand, as well as largely disagreeable. He goes against the grain and isn\u2019t afraid to do so. He isn\u2019t appeasing anyone in this article. He does his own thing, boldly and bravely, which is one of the reasons why I like this article. He sets out to do what he wants, in the way he wants and doesn\u2019t spend his time kowtowing to people who might disagree with him. I like this kind of approach because when I read something, I want to read what they have to say about this and\/or that, not what they don\u2019t have to say about this and\/or that but has been included for the sake of acknowledging people who are typically expected to be acknowledged. This is not to say that he doesn\u2019t cite people. He does. It\u2019s rather that he gets to the point. He skips the tiresome literature review, which is typically just about citing people for the sake of citing people who expect to be cited in order for the research to get published. Oh, and don\u2019t get me wrong. There\u2019s nothing wrong about a good literature review. I just prefer literature reviews that are just that, literature reviews, full fledged reviews of existing literature, so that the reader can use that review to get a good idea of what\u2019s what and then read that literature themselves. That serves a purpose, which is not just citing people who expect to be cited in this and\/or that discipline or field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, Ingold (152) starts by stating that, for him, archaeology is a united enterprise, regardless of what labels it is given, such as social, cultural, biological or physical. His (152) point is that it makes little sense to think of this or that archaeology as a separate entity when it is clear that the different aspects affect one another. The same could, of course, be said about just about any discipline or field. He (152) then jumps to address the title of his article, noting that he focuses on time <\/em>and landscape <\/em>in this article. Importantly, his focus is really on how these are related, how time <\/em>and space <\/em>should not be addressed separately from one another, as he (152) goes on to point out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI believe that such a focus might enable us to move beyond the sterile opposition between the naturalistic view of the landscape as a neutral, external backdrop to human activities, and the culturalistic view that every landscape is a particular cognitive or symbolic ordering of space.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, there are two things that he would like to get straight. Firstly, he isn\u2019t fond of how landscape is viewed as whatever is there, out there, in the background, treated as a mere synonym to space, which, in turn, is viewed as this container, something in which things are located, this or that close or far from one another. This is very common way of thinking of space and, oddly enough, you find this even in contemporary studies, albeit I \u2019d say that it plagues linguistic landscape studies more than other types of landscape studies. To make things worse, this way of thinking about space is more of symptom of a way of thinking which is, in itself, the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, some provide a quick fix by mentioning that space is social or cultural and thus important in itself, in addition to whatever it is that they are addressing. However, to me, that\u2019s not enough because you end up explaining one concept with another concept that is not explained, substituting one hollow abstraction for another hollow abstraction. You thus respond to the criticism that you take space for granted, as a mere container, with recourse to something else that is taken for granted, in the hopes of that the other person shares this view. So, he is against the na\u00efvet\u00e9 of the first view, but he is also against the view where everything is just labeled cultural, social, cognitive or symbolic, without qualifying what is meant by that, how it all works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of the two views, he (152) proposes something wildly different:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI argue that we should adopt, in place of both these views, what I call a \u2018dwelling perspective\u2019, according to which the landscape is constituted as an enduring record of \u2013 and testimony to \u2013 the lives and works of past generations who have dwelt within it, and in so doing, have left there something of themselves.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Okay, okay, I can dig this. I agree with him on this. I don\u2019t know about others, but, of course, landscape is an enduring record of what has been done. In a way, our surroundings are made of these traces of past generations. Some generations have, of course, left more traces than others. The same applies within a generation, so that it only makes sense that some have left more traces than others. Linking this back to his criticism, this third view challenges the first view that all there is is just things in a container, like sandwiches in a lunchbox. Now, to me, he isn\u2019t saying that there aren\u2019t these things, sandwiches in a lunchbox. No, no. It\u2019s just that he wishes to shift our attention from the things, whatever they may be, to how those things came to be. In my example, we have sandwiches (things) in a lunchbox (a container), meant to be eaten for lunch, but those sandwiches did not simply appear in the lunchbox, like out of nowhere. Someone made them. So, the way I see this is that he does acknowledge the things, but what he is interested in the conditions of their apparition, how this or that may have come to being. This shifts our attention from \u2018what\u2019 to \u2018how\u2019, \u2018who\u2019 and \u2018why\u2019. Assuming that my take on his criticism of the second view is correct, this third view challenges it in the sense that it is far more specific than the second view. If landscape is presented as just reflecting <\/em>this or that culture or society or as its ordering of space, it treats culture or society as something superior to actual people, as if existing over and above them, beyond them, regardless of them, yet defining them, which, in turn, fixes them in time. I think this is why he emphasizes the importance of not only addressing landscape as a record of actual people, but as a record of people both present and past. What he wants us to pay attention to is how people change and so does landscape (and culture, society etc.), inasmuch as they do, of course (as the record does endure, and so do our ways of thinking, resisting the change that is, nonetheless, inevitable).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following his own take on the issue of landscape, which is arguably rather broad, Ingold (152) turns his attention to the details, to how one might actually engage with landscape. He (152) emphasizes the importance of \u201cimmediate experience\u201d and \u201ceveryday involvement in the world.\u201d He (152) acknowledges that we can\u2019t go back in time, to engage with the world as people did back in the day, whenever it was, because, well, we can\u2019t go back in time and those who could, perhaps, relay that information (assuming that they can just relay it to us, which I think they can\u2019t, as language doesn\u2019t work that way, transparently, as I\u2019ve discussed in my previous essays) are dead. It\u2019s kinda hard to interview dead people! He doesn\u2019t indicate this, but it\u2019s the same with people who are longer present, not because they are dead, but because they have moved elsewhere. They may have left traces of themselves, but it\u2019s unclear who did this and\/or that, so we are left guessing. Anyway, for him, this is all beside the point, as he (152) goes on to indicate. Why? Well, because, for him (152), \u201cthe practice of archaeology is itself a form of dwelling\u201d in which \u201c[t]he knowledge born of this practice is thus on a par with that which comes from the practical activity of the native dweller and which the anthropologist, through participation, seeks to learn and understand.\u201d To clarify this point, he is not saying that the way a so called native dweller and an archaeologist (any researcher really, but, I assume, here it\u2019s archaeologist because this is published in an archaeology journal) engage with the world are the same, because they are not, as he (153) goes on to explicitly point out. What he (153) is saying is that while their ways of engagement certainly differ (to unspecific varying extent, I might add), they are both engaged in the same project, doing the same thing, as they \u201cboth seek to engage the past in the landscape\u201d. In short, as he (152) goes on to rephrase this, \u201c[f]or the archaeologist and the native dweller, the landscape tells \u2013 or rather is<\/em> \u2013 a story\u201d, which \u201cenfolds the lives and times of predecessors who, over the generations, have moved around in it and played their part in its formation.\u201d For him (152-153) this means that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo perceive the landscape is therefore to carry out and act of \u2026 engaging with an environment that is itself pregnant of the past.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I condensed this, omitting the bit about remembrance and remembering, because, as he (152-153) points out, one isn\u2019t strictly speaking recalling something internal, some internal image, something stored in one\u2019s mind. Instead, one engages with the world which conjures the past, or so to speak. But what then differentiates the so called native dweller, the local, and the archaeologist, the researcher, the expert? The answer to this is kind of obvious. It should not be hard to figure out, albeit, I have to point out that, in my experience, some of my colleagues do fail to figure that out. I\u2019m like \u2026 well \u2026 the expert has certain advantages that come with that background, whatever that may be. When you look at the landscape, whatever is out there, in our surroundings, the expert knows what to look for, for certain purposes, whereas the local doesn\u2019t. Why is that? Well, firstly, it\u2019s because the expert is trained to pay attention to certain things (being expert at this and\/or that). Now, this does not mean that the locals are dumb, that they don\u2019t have knowledge of this and\/or that. They are not unworthy. Everyone has some background which pushes them to pay attention to this and\/or that, inasmuch as they do, of course. That said, their backgrounds and their knowledge are likely not relevant. How so? Well, by relevant I mean that they may not be relevant to what the researcher seeks to find out by investigating the surroundings. Their backgrounds and knowledge are relevant to themselves, of course, but that\u2019s not, in itself, the same as being relevant to what the researcher seeks to find out. Sure, okay, they can be relevant to the researcher, but only inasmuch that\u2019s what\u2019s relevant to the researcher. For example, if the researcher wants to know what\u2019s relevant to them, then, of course, that\u2019s also relevant to the researcher. It only makes sense. Secondly, in the context of landscape, the researcher is not only an expert in this and\/or that, but also an expert in landscape. Summarizing what I\u2019ve covered in many of my previous essays, people are not generally attentive with regard to their surroundings. That\u2019s a core function of landscape. That\u2019s what landscape does to people. So, if I ask the locals to engage with their surroundings, I\u2019m making them do what they don\u2019t do. In other words, by making them do what\u2019s unthinkable to them, I\u2019m no longer dealing with what\u2019s relevant to them, according to their backgrounds, but what I want them to think of as being relevant to them, according to my background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, what I just went on about is my take on what differentiates the local from the researcher. He (153) also argues that one\u2019s training, one\u2019s \u201ceducation of attention\u201d is important because it guides one \u201cto attend to those clues which the rest of us might pass over\u201d, which is quite literally the case when one deals with archaeology because the clues are located below the surface. He (153) exemplifies this also with hunting, noting that a novice hunter learns from more experienced hunters who help the hunter to pay attention to what\u2019s relevant different situations when hunting, albeit some of the stuff one learns on one\u2019s own. The thing with educators is that while they are not strictly speaking necessary, they do facilitate learning in general. So, in short, what differentiates the novice hunter and the experienced hunter is that \u201cthe experience hunter is the knowledgeable<\/em> hunter\u201d, as he (153) goes on to summarize it. That\u2019s what\u2019s what. I don\u2019t get it how some fail to understand this, how the researcher is the one who is experienced and knowledgeable, whereas the local is not. Does this mean that local input is pointless? Again, as I already pointed out, no. Whether it matters really depends on what the researcher seeks to find out, whether it\u2019s relevant to what’s being studied. If it\u2019s not and thus no help, it\u2019s pointless to ask them for input. That said, if it is relevant to one\u2019s study, then it is and thus it makes sense to involve them. Of course, in the context of landscape, the way I understand it, one still needs to be aware of how one ends up projecting oneself, one\u2019s own experience or expertise on the locals if one involves them, which is exactly why I don\u2019t involve them. I mean, sure, I could involve them, but then they should be treated as experts, like me, because, well, I made them experts. What they have to offer, their knowledge, would certainly be useful to me, but only if it offers something that I don\u2019t already know. So, for example, when it comes to language, semiotics and various social issues, such as gender or socioeconomic matters, they would not be of much use to me. That said, if I were, for some reason, to involve a biologist in a landscape study, that person could be of great use to me because my knowledge of biology is certainly very limited, whereas that person would likely be very attentive to the relevant clues that I would simply not even know how to look for. This is a matter of expertise, how well attuned one is to one\u2019s surroundings, in terms of knowledge in this or that, as he (153) puts it. This makes the split between the experts and the non-experts (non-local\/local, outsider\/insider, etic\/emic) unnecessary, if not counter-productive, because the accounts that one can provide are no more or no less authentic than anyone else\u2019s. What matters is what matters, what it is that one seeks to find out. It\u2019s like coming up with a problem, in a Bergsonist sense (as I\u2019ve discussed in some of previous essays), followed by solving it. No need to hunt for the meaning<\/em>, the origin<\/em>, the truth<\/em> or the like, just solve problems that you find interesting, the way that you finds most apt for the purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, to me, this, asserting that there is a clear distinction, a dichotomy between the researcher and, in negation, who isn\u2019t the researcher, is just ill-conceived or, rather, half-baked. I like to be very clear about the fact it was I who did the research. It\u2019s me. Just me. I consider myself an expert, but only in this and\/or that area of expertise, whatever it is that I have focused on. I don\u2019t know it all, nor market myself as such. In addition, I think expertise or knowledge should viewed as something that one has to a certain extent. So, yeah, some know more while others know less. It’s not simply a matter of either or. What matters is what others can contribute to the research, to your <\/em>research. If you know better, then you do and that\u2019s it. If you don’t know better, then you don\u2019t and it might be worth it to include them in your research. That said, if they do contribute, I think that then it should no longer be considered just your <\/em>research. Then it should be considered a collaboration and the others should be treated as equals, as authors, not as mere informants who end up being mentioned but not getting any credit because you want all the credit for yourself, despite making them do the work, contributing their expertise which you yourself lack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To further comment on expertise, were I asked to comment on discourses pertaining to flora and fauna, as manifested in the landscape, I\u2019d be like, well, I can\u2019t really say much about that and recommend asking a biologist (a botanist and\/or a zoologist, to be more specific). I wouldn\u2019t know enough about that. Could I learn more about that? Yes. Sure. Anyone could. Should I? Maybe, maybe not. I reckon that if it matters enough to me, I\u2019ll find myself learning more about biology, which, in turn would help me in this regard. I could, of course, ask someone who has already done that to do that (instead, or with me, as a collaboration). Similarly, should I engage with surroundings that are entirely strange to me? Well, just because I find the dichotomy half-baked doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m advocating for parachuting me to some faraway land that I know little of, to make an authorized record of their way of living, based on my observations. Again, I think I wouldn\u2019t consider myself as having enough expertise in that scenario. Like in the previous example, I\u2019d recommend asking someone else, possibly someone who shares certain expertise with me, but knows more about that specific context. Could I pull it off though? Well, yes and no. If I had to do it right now, if I\u2019d be given little time to familiarize myself with what\u2019s relevant in that context, I\u2019d say no. Then again, if I had all the time in the world so that I could do all that, then sure, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything that prevents me from studying some faraway land. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything essential<\/em> that I wouldn\u2019t be able to handle in the long run. Would I do that though? Well, I don\u2019t think it makes much sense. I don\u2019t even know who\u2019d fund such. Why would they? Why wouldn\u2019t they choose someone who wouldn\u2019t have to go through all that. I mean I\u2019d ask them that if they offered me such. Again, it\u2019s not I couldn\u2019t, nor that I shouldn\u2019t, but that it wouldn\u2019t make much sense to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To explain this in the terms used by Ingold, something tells me that just because you are an experienced and knowledgeable hunter doesn\u2019t mean that it applies in all cases. Having a wealth of experience in hunting a certain animal doesn\u2019t mean that the experience is applicable in the context of hunting all other animals. Similarly, experience in hunting a certain animal in a certain context doesn\u2019t mean that the experience is applicable in all other contexts. You could certainly learn to hunt another animal or the same animal but in different circumstances, to learn new things and adapt your previous experience and knowledge to a different situation, but that would involve considerable effort. You might want to go through all that, if it\u2019s about you, if that\u2019s what you desire, but it\u2019s, of course, not something that you must do (well, unless your life depends on that or something).<\/p>\n\n\n\n To put this bluntly, in inverse terms, it\u2019s equally problematic to side with the non-experts, to have them express themselves, inasmuch it is understood as supposing that it is essential<\/em> to do so. To use the hunter example again, it certainly makes sense to involve local hunters, instead of non-local hunters when it comes to hunting this or that animal, locally, in specific circumstances that may not apply elsewhere. That said, there\u2019s nothing essential<\/em> about the local hunters that makes it so that someone who isn\u2019t one of them, there and then, wouldn\u2019t be able to learn to hunt that animal, in those circumstances. To use the faraway land example, just because I once got criticized for conducting a \u2018colonial\u2019 study, in a context that I was born into, grew up in and, later on, worked in, I don\u2019t think that there is anything essential<\/em> about being local. I keep using that word, essential<\/em>, because siding with the locals presupposes that there is something inherent<\/em> about them, this or that group of people, that defines them as such, something that is their essence<\/em>, which someone who is not one of them cannot ever be, you know, because it\u2019s about the essence<\/em>. I find this highly problematic because it builds on essentialism <\/em>(cough, cough, Plato!). It presupposes that there is a fixed identity, an idea or a form, that something or someone is tied to and must conform with. So, in my case, I could argue that no one should study anything Finnish except Finns, because a non-Finn would not be able to understand the essence<\/em> of Finnishness, considering that they themselves lack in terms of that essence<\/em>. Now, I find that laughable. It\u2019s such a bad argument that I find it hilarious and stupid at the same time. The what now? The essence of being Finnish! Hahahahhahahaha! It\u2019s like in Plato\u2019s \u2018Parmenides\u2019 where Plato\u2019s main man, his champion, Socrates, has a moment of clarity, when he finds himself disturbed by the realization that, according to this own logic, everything, even something like hair, mud and filth (dirt), therefore needs to correspond to a pre-existing idea or form, what could also be called an essence<\/em>. To explain the gravity of this issue, this literally means that you can never invent anything. So, for example, the skyr that I just ate after that long run, that Icelandic cultured dairy product, has a fucking corresponding idea, the idea or essence of skyr. Haha! So does this keyboard, this mouse, these headphones, these speakers, this screen, that notepad over there, those cans of beer, all different sizes mind you, the point being that the list is endless, but, if we are to follow this logic, none of these are inventions. I think you should be able to grasp what the problem with this way of thinking is, but, in case you don\u2019t, don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll return to this soon enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You should be able to get the point if you\u2019ve ever done discourse analysis<\/em>. I mean if you follow the Foucault\u2019s (49) definition of discourses <\/em>\u201cas practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak\u201d, as presented in \u2018The Archaeology of Knowledge\u2019, you would know that following that definition everything and everyone we deal with is constructed through discourse (statements), albeit not exclusive through it as also needs to taken into account the non-discursive side (visibilities). The titles of his earlier book \u2018Les mots et les choses: : Une arch\u00e9ologie des sciences humaines\u2019 or \u2018The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences\u2019 are entirely serious and highly apt because he is interested in words (the discursive<\/em>) and things (the non-discursive<\/em>), which together create an order of things<\/em>, the ordering of objects, as he (49) points out in the \u2018The Archaeology of Knowledge\u2019. I roll my eyes, every single time, every time when some suggests that I do ethnography instead of discourse analysis, when it\u2019s clear that the two are incompatible. It\u2019s like asking me to be on team Plato when it\u2019s obvious that I play for the opposing team, the anti-Platonists. Hilarious!<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you fail to get the point, check out Foucault\u2019s 1981 interview with Andr\u00e9 Berten. You can find this online as a video, but there’s also a transcript of it, titled \u2018What Our Present Is\u2019. He explains his own approach in that interview so concisely and so promptly that it shouldn\u2019t be too hard to understand. What\u2019s particularly important about this interview is how he points out that the thing of his time, phenomenology, was too fixed on lived experience<\/em> in the sense that it involved predetermination. For him the problem is not with lived experience, as such, as we all do have lived experience, quite obviously, really, but rather how it ignores how that experience is not markedly individual but rather collective and social. To be more specific, we can, of course, say that all experience is in some sense individual, as we are all unique to some degree. That said, much of our experience is, in fact, shared, which is why it\u2019s collective and social. We are highly alike, not because we are born that way, but because we become that way, because we are brought up that way. I mean, just the fact that we can speak is because someone taught us to speak. In other words, it\u2019s more apt to say that people\u2019s experiences are mostly collective rather than individual. The way we experience world is not given, from birth. It\u2019s structured according to what counts as true in the relevant regimes of truth<\/em>, as he might say (in his other publications). This is exactly why I\u2019m not interested in lived experience, what it is that Joe or Jill Sixpack has to say about this and\/or that, but in what are the conditions that give rise to his or her experience and his or her opinions about this and\/or that. The experiences and the opinions of people are one thing, sure, but, for me, what\u2019s really interesting is why they might<\/em> have come to experience the world in a certain way and voice their opinions about it in a certain way. Like Foucault exemplifies this in that interview, mad people are not that interesting. Sure, we could focus on them, what is it that they have to say, okay, okay, but the problem with that is that we therefore take for granted that they are actually mad. Maybe they are, maybe they aren\u2019t. In other words, we treat madness as a given, as a matter of essence<\/em>, rather than as a construct that is specific to certain time and place. To be clear, this does not mean one seeks to explain someone\u2019s behavior by probing into their past, whether they endured a tough childhood, a tough break up with someone, or the like, because, again, to understand all that, one needs to analyze how we\u2019ve come to construct what is \u2018childhood\u2019 or a \u2018relationship\u2019 in certain spatio-temporal context and what kinds of roles various institutions play in all that (plus a whole host of other things). This is far, very far, from contemporary ethnography, because if one follows Foucault, one cannot start from people\u2019s experience, trying to situate oneself in their shoes, or so to speak. One has to realize that all lived experience, their experience included, is conditioned and it\u2019s this conditioning that leads them to experience the world the way they do. There\u2019s nothing given about it. Instead, as Gilles Deleuze (and F\u00e9lix Guattari) keep saying, we are always in the middle of things. People\u2019s lived experience is, of course, important, to themselves, just as my lived experience is important, to myself, but, in a study, what\u2019s more important is how these experiences, mine included, are constituted and how they emerge, what are the conditions of their apparition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the prologue where he addresses what\u2019s been covered so far, how landscape ought to be approached in his view, Ingold (153-157) moves on to address how he defines landscape<\/em>. This section is very thorough and explicit, something which you rarely see in recent studies. I mean I\u2019d like to get away with a three to four page discussion of just one concept but, alas, no one apparently has the time, nor the attention span for such these days. I mean, I haven\u2019t even covered this section yet, but I\u2019m already loving it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, he (153-154) goes back to the basics, starting out from scratch. In summary, to him, landscape <\/em>is not land<\/em>, nor nature<\/em>, nor space<\/em>. Firstly, it\u2019s not land because land is divisible, but landscape is not. In other words, land is something that you can measure, so it\u2019s quantitative and homogeneous, whereas landscape cannot be measured, so it\u2019s qualitative and heterogeneous. So, unlike land, you can\u2019t really say that there is this or that landscape, extending from here to there, nor that this or that landscape is composed of these and these elements. As he (154) puts it, \u201cyou can ask of a landscape what it is like, but not how much of it there is.\u201d He (154) also argues that \u201clandscape is a plenum\u201d which is why it is, in itself complete, at all times, having \u201cno holes in it that remain to be filled in\u201d. In other words, You don\u2019t work to complete it, but to rework it, to alter it. To me, this doesn\u2019t mean that you don\u2019t have these and\/or those things out there, but rather that the whole they (in)form is never a pre-existing entity that has been fragmented and thus may be missing some pieces. What you see is what you get, or so to speak. It never lacks anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, landscape <\/em>is not nature <\/em>because this would presuppose that nature is something that\u2019s just out there, (pre-)existing, while we, you and I, just happen to be there, as separate from all that, wherever there is. So, in other words, he is troubled by the human\/nature or culture\/nature split because it assumes that one is always external to the world, detached from it, as if observing it from a distance. In short, this involves a certain dualism (which I vehemently oppose!). In his (154) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cApplication of this logic forces an insistent dualism, between object and subject, the material and the ideal, operational and cognized, \u2018etic\u2019 and \u2018emic\u2019. Some writers distinguish between nature and the landscape in just these terms \u2013 the former is said to stand to the latter as physical reality to its cultural or symbolic construction.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Oh, snap! And there goes ethnography, gone with the wind (as it should, in my opinion, inasmuch as it builds on such dualism)! Anyway, he (154) goes on to exemplify the application of such a logic by how Stephen Daniels and Denis Cosgrove (1) define landscape as \u201ccultural image, a pictorial way of representing or symbolising surroundings\u201d in the introductory chapter to the book they’ve edited, \u2018The iconography of landscape: Essays on the symbolic representation, design and use of past environments\u2019, and strongly argues against such a definition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do not share this view. To the contrary, I reject the division between inner and outer worlds \u2013 respectively of mind and matter, meaning and substance \u2013 upon which such distinction rests.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I share his disdain of dualism, which, the definition provided by Daniels and Cosgrove certainly builds on, but I acknowledge that the dominant way of thinking is dualistic. In other words, I agree that landscape <\/em>is not a mere representation <\/em>(of something), but, that said, people do tend to take it as such, hence its great influence on people. To me it\u2019s pivotal engage with the topic from that angle because it\u2019s societally highly relevant. Ignoring the issue won\u2019t make it go away. I think that people should be made aware of it and provided the tools to deal with it. That said, given the problem is really with the way of thinking, with the dominant image of thought<\/em>, not landscape itself, one should, however, also explain what the problem with that is and how one might think otherwise, as well as how that affects how one might creatively re-think how landscape functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Related to this, I recently listened to (and read the translated transcription of) a lecture on Baruch Spinoza held by Deleuze in 1980 (Seminar on Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought, third lecture, held December 9, 1980). The point of this lecture is to present to two images of thought: the dominant one which relies on morality<\/em> and the one proposed by Spinoza which relies on ethics<\/em>. The former builds on essence<\/em> and values<\/em>. It forces one to consider something as having an essence and that operation is done through the means of values. What is considered the essence is also the Good<\/em>, which is why it is also good to act in a certain way, not just in accordance to one\u2019s essence. This consideration involves a judgment<\/em>, which is also why this image of thought<\/em> is, at times, called the principle, the system or the doctrine of judgment (in Deleuze\u2019s works). It\u2019s also important to understand that judging something according to its essence, how well it is realized, always involves an appeal to a higher level above the level of existence<\/em> (Being<\/em>). You have to do that from the above, otherwise you can\u2019t judge. In other words, each time you judge, you have to elevate yourself above the others. This is why I consider it hilarious that such a thing exists as peer review. I mean being a peer means that you are on the same level as they are, that is to say not above them, yet the system requires that you to have to judge others, that is to say act from above, meaning that you are, in fact, not their peer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deleuze exemplifies how this works in reference to how Aristotle states (in \u2018The Nicomachean Ethics\u2019) that humans are reasonable animals, that is to say that it is what distinguishes human from other animals, which is why it is considered the essence <\/em>of humanity. That said, Deleuze adds that human behavior is, nonetheless, often highly irrational, as one might be able to point out on the basis of one\u2019s own experience of human behavior. In short, human essence is rationality, yet, in actuality, humans do not act according to their essence. Therefore humans fail to realize their own potential, what it is to be human. He emphasizes that it\u2019s important to understand the essence as an end that one is supposed to seek, that is to say what is valued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, it\u2019s evident that judgment <\/em>invokes lack<\/em>. So, as rationality <\/em>is (held as) the essence <\/em>of what it is to be human and as one, nonetheless, keeps failing at realizing that, one\u2019s own essence, one is, oddly enough, defined in relation to something that one is not. This is not the topic of this essay, but, as I\u2019ve written in previous essays, one ends up doubling oneself through this procedure. One is thus a mere re-presentation<\/em> of one\u2019s own essence, a partial realization of it. Now, I don\u2019t subscribe to this way of thinking, but, to clear, it is the way most people think. People think that they are this or that, not only human, but, for example man, which, in turn leads them to assess themselves and others in terms of whether they realize their potential, the essence of man, whatever that is considered to be. This creates all kinds of problems because people keep failing to reach their own essence, not realizing that it is people who came up with what that essence is in the first place. So, it becomes a moral obligation to act in a certain way, as to realize one\u2019s own potential, to be in harmony with one\u2019s essence, or so to speak. This leads to what Deleuze calls a double judgment<\/em>, where one judges oneself and is also judged. In other words, people end up judging themselves and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latter image of thought<\/em> treats essence<\/em> completely differently. Instead of viewing it as general or abstract, as a shared properly, such as the essence of human, the essence of dog or the essence of table, each essence is particular, a singular determination,<\/em> the essence of this<\/em>, or that<\/em>, and so on, and so on. This is why Deleuze often explains things in terms of singularities<\/em> in his own works. In this context, lecturing about Spinoza, he points out that it\u2019s, perhaps, less confusing and, thus, more apt to speak of existence<\/em> (Being<\/em>) and existents<\/em> rather than essences. To be clear, existence<\/em> pertains to the level of existence<\/em> (Being<\/em>) and existents<\/em> (beings<\/em>,as in be-ings<\/em>) pertain to the singularities<\/em> of this or that, whatever this or that happens to be on the level of existence. There is no judgment involved, as to whether this or that realizes some abstract idea, some general essence, nor how well it realizes it. But how does one differentiate between this or that, let\u2019s say between two humans, two dogs or two tables, or, any one of them, really, if not through how well they realize their essence, how well they reach their potential? Well, obviously, the difference is between the existents <\/em>(beings<\/em>), that is to say the singularities<\/em>. On the level of existence <\/em>the difference between existents<\/em> (beings<\/em>) is quantitative<\/em>, which means that there is scale<\/em> to it. So, one existent<\/em> (being<\/em>) is more or less similar to another existent<\/em> (being<\/em>). There is also a qualitative difference, but that\u2019s between modes of existence<\/em>. The qualitative side is, perhaps, harder to explain, considering that it has to do with mode<\/em>, the way<\/em> or manner<\/em> how something exists. Deleuze uses the example of how someone may find something funny and another person may not find it funny at all. The difference is not in the existent, what something is, in that moment, but the way or the manner it is or, rather, appears to us, like in the case of two people who react to something in a different manner. So, in other words, mode of existence<\/em> is about the manner of being<\/em>. It\u2019s not about what, but how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we consider both the quantitative <\/em>and the qualitative <\/em>differences together, what defines this or that, whatever it may be, a human, a dog or a table, for example, is what they can do, as Deleuze is keen to emphasize. So, in short, the moral image of thought<\/em> is concerned with what something is<\/em> or, rather, is supposed to be, whereas the ethical image of thought<\/em> is concerned with what something can do<\/em>. It\u2019s not that in the latter case it doesn\u2019t matter what something is, because it does, but rather that what something is, in the quantitative sense, is relevant only inasmuch it affects what it can do, what it is capable of. He exemplified this with drinking, how some people can\u2019t hold their liquor, or so to speak. It\u2019s not that they are by their essence like that, poor drinkers, but that, as it stands, they are not capable of consuming a lot of alcohol without vomiting. Sure, the constitution of their bodies does affect that but this has nothing to do with an essence. This is why Deleuze is interested in diagrammatics<\/em>, i.e. the diagrams of power, which involves elaborating what this or that can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If it appears that I\u2019m dealing with another world, it\u2019s because I am. That\u2019s how Deleuze sees this. The first image of thought<\/em> pertains to a moral <\/em>world, whereas the second image of thought pertains to an ethical <\/em>world. I run into this issue quite a bit whenever I submit a manuscript. It\u2019s often quite telling of the state of academics, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, back to Ingold (154) who goes on to further explain his position. In summary, for him (154), landscape <\/em>is not nature, something out there, on its own, nor \u201chumanity against<\/em> nature\u201d, a matter of imagination, something that takes place in the mind. I\u2019m not entirely sure about my take on this, but, to me, it appears that he is against presenting landscape as separate from people, as a given, just there, out there, regardless of whether we engage with it or not. I think he is also against thinking that landscape is just in our heads, imaginary, so that there\u2019s no connection what\u2019s out there as it\u2019s just in our heads. In short, I think he is saying that you can\u2019t really explain landscape without taking both into account at the same time. There\u2019s this reciprocity. So, yes, you could say that landscape is just out there, but you\u2019d struggle to explain how that would be the case, knowing that it has a certain history and how it pertains to the order of things. You could also say that landscape is just a figment of imagination, not really out there, but you\u2019d struggle to explain how it is that it got in there, how it became a figment of your imagination, unless, unless, it\u2019s what\u2019s out there, other people included, that was involved in that process, knowing that people have not always engaged with the world as such order of things, knowing that people were not born with it. This is why I think it\u2019s apt that Ingold (154) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]hrough living in it, the landscape becomes a part of us, just as we are a part of it. Moreover, what goes for its human component goes for other components as well.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And that (154):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[E]ach component enfolds within [it] the totality of its relations with each and every other.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Here I replaced \u201cits essence\u201d with [it] because I can\u2019t stand the word essence in this context, considering what I\u2019ve covered so far. Anyway, the point here is about relationality<\/em>. You can\u2019t explain this or that, without acknowledging that you also need to explain what else is there, because all that affects this or that, whatever it is that you seek to explain, inasmuch as it does, of course, and, importantly, all that what is connected to it and thus affects it, inasmuch as it does, is also defined in this way, as constructed in relation to whatever it is linked to or has been linked in the past. To make more sense of this, it\u2019s worth explaining how this is typically defined, as explained by Ingold (154):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn a world construed as nature, every object is a self-contained entity, interacting with others through some kind of external contact.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not that there\u2019s no interaction involved, no relations between entities in this understanding of the world, but rather that each entity or object is taken existing as separate, self-contained and self-sufficient entity that engages with other self-contained entities or objects, whatever they may be, if they do. In other words, there\u2019s a radical separation of entities that is taken as how things really are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, thirdly, landscape <\/em>is not space<\/em>. He (154-155) exemplifies this by comparing how just about anyone engages with the world with the way a surveyor or a cartographer engages with the world. In summary, no matter where people are and when that takes place, landscape is always there for them. There\u2019s no escaping it. Importantly, this also applies to those surveyors and cartographers. That said, what\u2019s particular about these surveyors and cartographers is that it\u2019s their job to go against this everyday way of being in the world. Their task is to gather data and \u201cto produce a single picture which is independent<\/em> of any point of observation\u201d, so that it appears, as if, \u201cit could be directly apprehended only by a consciousness capable of being everywhere at once and nowhere in particular\u201d, kinda like in \u201caerial or \u2018birds\u2019-eye\u2019 view\u201d, as explained by him (155). The point he (155) is making here is that this approach to the world no longer deals with actual circumstances and actual people, what is it that people do, like walk from here to there, wherever there is, but with potential circumstances, what people might do, where they might walk, to point B, from where they are, point A, as judged from above. In short, such an approach involves a radical separation from the world, where the world is divided into neatly bounded segments, as he (155) goes on to add.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As already pointed out, with landscape <\/em>there is no such segmentation, no place that is \u201c\u2018cut out\u2019 from the whole\u201d, as he (155) goes on to specify it. Now, as I already pointed out, we can think of landscape as a whole, but only as a particular whole, which consists of parts that are tied to it, there and then, in that specific spatio-temporal context, so that, in his (155) words, \u201ceach place embodies the whole at a particular nexus with in, and in this respect is different from every other.\u201d To be clear, landscape is not, in itself, a bounded entity, so, in a way, there are no landscapes, as in this landscape or that landscape, as he (156) goes on to argue. I think I\u2019ve pointed out this before, in some previous essay, but, anyway, you can try this out yourself. It\u2019s should be easy to get this point. So, the point he is making is that you are always somewhere and what you can see (or sense, if you don\u2019t want to limit yourself to vision) is the landscape. Don\u2019t move! Don\u2019t move your head or even your eyes! Is what you see a<\/em> landscape? Let\u2019s assume it is, even if it isn\u2019t. Now, feel free to move and\/or move your head and your eyes. If what you just saw was a landscape, is what you see now the same landscape or another landscape? Where would you draw the boundary? Now, do the same again, move a bit and\/or look around. What about now? It should be evident that from this little experiment there\u2019s nothing inherent about our surroundings that gives rise to a<\/em> landscape, understood as this neatly bounded entity. We can, of course, speak of landscapes, this or that, but it\u2019s then we who define them as such, on the basis of our experience, as he (156) goes on to point out. How does that work then? Well, I reckon that we intuit it, what we call this or that a<\/em> landscape, and we intuit it on the basis of our knowledge and experience, which, to my understanding, is always markedly shared or collective. I\u2019d also say that language is to blame here because it always fail to capture the complexity of any given situation, the singularity of it, no matter how aptly someone puts it. You end up with some sort of a reduction of what you are dealing with. Ingold (156) seems to agree with me on this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn short, the landscape is the world as it is known to those who dwell therein, who inhabit its places and journey along the paths connecting them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d actually be even more radical with this and remove the sense of place because, for me, place is already a point in space and thinking in terms of points, going from one point to another, one after another, implies that there is a system to it, a grid, or so to speak. So, I\u2019d reformulate this as so that landscape <\/em>is the world as it is known to people, how it appears to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having explained how, to him, landscape <\/em>is not land<\/em>, nor nature<\/em>, nor space<\/em>, he (156) jumps to contrast his definition of it with environment<\/em>. To distinguish the two, he (156) first provides his own definition of environment as reality for, the world as it functions<\/em> in relation to people (and other life forms<\/em>) who inhabit it. He (156) is keen to emphasize that, for him, function has to do with affordances and therefore environment has to do with what it makes possible to people (and other life forms). He (156) adds that this also applies to all life forms, what he refers to as organisms, as they are also defined in terms of their functionality, what it is that they are capable of. So, not unlike Spinoza, he defines people (and other life forms) in terms of what they are capable of and, by extension, the environment as what comes to afford them this and\/or that function or capacity to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the functional definitions of environment <\/em>and life form<\/em> that puts emphasis on the capacity to act, he (156) defines landscape <\/em>as a matter of form<\/em> and compares it to body<\/em> (what, I think, Deleuze and Guattari would call organism<\/em>, in the sense that it\u2019s how something is organized, which is why I chose to replace organism with life form in the environment \/ life form pair). In short, he (156) considers form as pertaining to what something is, how it appears to us, in this or that form, whereas function has to do with the capacity to act. Similarly to environment and life form, landscape and body are relational, one always informing the other, as he (156) goes on to point out. In addition, because they pertain to form, they need to be formed<\/em>. As explained by him (156), they are not pre-formed, appearing as such, like out of nowhere. To be more specific, he (156) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBoth sets of forms are generated and sustained in and through the processual unfolding of a total field of relations that cuts across the emergent interface between organism and environment[.]\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, as body <\/em>is a form<\/em>, as is landscape<\/em>, he (156) calls the formative process embodiment<\/em>. He (156) acknowledges that embodiment has certain buzz value to it, which, I take, pushes people to conduct studies that revolve around this notion. I reckon that it\u2019s just like any other popular concepts that suddenly become trendy. The problem with that is that the concepts are used for their supposed explanatory value, without really explaining them. So, he (156-157) warns not to confuse embodiment as something simple as prioritizing form over process, as a matter of inscription<\/em> or transcription<\/em>, \u201cwhereby some pre-existing pattern, template or programme, whether genetic or cultural, is \u2018realized\u2019 in a substantive medium.\u201d In terms used by Spinoza, this is not a matter of something or someone realizing their potential, their telos<\/em>, their pre-scripted goal. So, it\u2019s important to realize that the process of embodiment involves what he (157) calls incorporation<\/em>, \u201ca movement wherein forms themselves are generated\u201d. I\u2019d add here that it\u2019s not that there aren\u2019t any patterns, templates, programmes or scripts, but rather that even these are subject to change. For example, human patterns, what one might also call practices <\/em>or discourses<\/em>, are certainly subject to change. The same applies to genomes, the genetic instructions of various life forms. So, to get back to the topic, landscape can therefore be understood as a form of environment<\/em>, as based on whatever it is that gets incorporated into it, as he (157) goes on to point out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way he defines embodiment <\/em>and how it relates to landscape <\/em>reminds me of how Deleuze and Guattari define it, pertaining diagrammatically to forms of content<\/em> and expression<\/em>. That\u2019s why it also reminds me of how one might define it as pertaining diagrammatically to non-discursive<\/em> and discursive formations<\/em>, to use the Foucauldian parlance. When it comes to other things, besides landscape, it also reminds me of how discourses can and do become materialized or manifested, as discussed by Ron Scollon in his book chapter \u2018Discourse itineraries: Nine processes of resemiotization\u2019 and by Richard Schein in his work, namely in his article \u2018The Place of Landscape: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting an American Scene\u2019. I\u2019m not going to elaborate more on all that because I\u2019ve explained the way that all works so many times already. I think it\u2019s better to keep going with this and see where Ingold moves next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, Ingold uses the same approach with time <\/em>or temporality <\/em>as he does with landscape. Before he defines it, he (157) seeks to establish what it isn\u2019t. In summary, he (157) argues that temporality is not synonymous with chronology<\/em>, nor with history<\/em>, because the former pertains to a \u201csystem of dated intervals, in which<\/em> events are said to have taken place\u201d and the latter pertains to a \u201cseries of events which may be dated in time according to their occurrence in one or another chronological interval.\u201d What\u2019s important here, in both cases, is that they have to do with a system of isolated instances, this or that, for example an event or a date. One moves from one event to another, in succession, one by one, but, as he (157) goes on to emphasize, nothing happens, nothing takes places, nothing moves, nothing does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In stark contrast with chronology and history, he (157) defines temporality as a matter of immanence, so that one passages in time. To be more specific, it involves \u201ca pattern of retensions from the past and protensions for the future\u201d, so that historicity merges with it \u201cin the experience of those who, in their activities\u201d, what he also calls taskscape<\/em>, \u201ccarry forward the process of social life\u201d, as he (157) goes on to clarify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, the focus is now on that taskscape<\/em>, which is intrinsically temporal and consists of various activities. That\u2019s the starting point here. He (157-158) specifies that these activities can also be understood as a matter of labor<\/em> and that the products of these activities, commodities, can be measured in terms of their value<\/em>. Both labor and value can be quantified, as he (157-159) goes on to elaborate. Firstly, while what counts as labor may vary, as it involves various raw materials, tools, procedures and skills, it can nonetheless be measured in terms of the time (clock-time<\/em> or astronomical time<\/em>, as quantified on the basis of the axial rotation of the earth and its movement around the sun) and the wages (money<\/em> or capital<\/em>) that go into it. Secondly, value can measured in terms of how much something is deemed to be worth. In stark contrast, use-value<\/em> pertains to affordances, what something is to someone in terms of what it makes possible for that person, and thus it cannot be quantified. This is why he (158) considers the distinction between value\/labor<\/em> and use-value<\/em> to be homologous with the distinction between land<\/em> and landscape<\/em>. In short, similarly landscape<\/em>, taskscape is qualitative and heterogeneous, as he (158) explains it as concisely as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taskscape<\/em> consists of activities, which he (158) specifies as practical operations carried out by some skilled person in that person’s environment<\/em>. These tasks<\/em> are similar to the parts, components or particulars that make up landscape in the sense that while it is tempting to discuss them in isolation, as this or that task, they only make sense in connection to other tasks, as he (158) goes on to clarify. So, as I pointed out in the context of distinguishing landscape <\/em>from land<\/em> (154), these tasks form a whole, but only a particular whole. In his (158) words, these tasks only make sense \u201cwithin an ensemble of tasks, performed in series or in parallel, and usually by many people working together.\u201d So, yeah, I\u2019d say that they form a whole, but it is a whole that is particular, not some given whole of which the various tasks are just parts of. In other words, for him (158), taskscape<\/em> is an ensemble of interlocking tasks, \u201can array of related activities\u201d, that never lacks any task or activity, just as landscape<\/em> is an ensemble of elements, a configuration of bit of this and a bit of that, \u201can array of related features\u201d, which never lacks any element or feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to time, the temporality of taskscape <\/em>is social and pertains to how time is experienced, as he (158-159) points out. So, unlike clock-time or astronomical time, it doesn\u2019t consist of any distinct units and therefore it cannot be quantified. This is what Henri Bergson refers to us duration<\/em> (dur\u00e9e<\/em>). To be more specific, in \u2018Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness\u2019, Bergson explains the difference between time<\/em> and duration<\/em>. He (75) starts by explaining how numbers work:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNumber may be defined in general as a collection of units, or, speaking more exactly, as the synthesis of the one and the many.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, in short, you have one, which, in turn can be summed up as many if there are more than one ones. There\u2019s also subtraction, multiplying and dividing, but that\u2019s all beside the point. What\u2019s important here is the emphasis on thinking this as having to do with a collection of units. He (76) adds that we also need to qualify these units:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is not enough to say that number is a collection of units; we must add that these units are identical with one another, or at least that they are assumed to be identical when they are counted.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This obviously involves a certain reduction, as he (76) goes on to acknowledge:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[W]e agree \u2026 to neglect their individual differences and to take into account only what they have in common.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s that, granted. Of course it\u2019s possible to address the individual differences, but then we are doing something different, as he (76) points out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[A]s soon as we fix our attention on the particular features of objects or individuals, we can of course make an enumeration of them, but not a total.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Okay, I\u2019d disagree here on the last bit, in the sense that you do get a total, albeit not the same total that he is talking about here. For example, if I examine 50 sheep, there\u2019s 50 sheep. Let\u2019s say that one of them is black and the rest of the sheep are white. So, there are a total of one black sheep and 49 white sheep, for a grand total of 50 sheep. This is clearly doable. Then again, what he is saying is that 1 and 49 are not the same thing as 50 in themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He (77) moves on to state that we can think of the one and the many both in terms of space<\/em> and time<\/em>. In terms of space<\/em>, we can have a flock of sheep, 50 of them, each occupying a different position in space. They are positioned close enough to one another so that we can comprehend them as a flock, yet far enough from one another so that we can distinguish each sheep. In terms of time<\/em>, we can also think of the 50 sheep as appearing to us in sequence, one by one, as a series of them. He (77) notes that it is certainly tempting to distinguish these two ways of counting sheep as different from one another, but he isn\u2019t buying this. For him (77), the problem with the second conception of counting sheep is that it appears to pertain to time, but it actually pertains to space or, to be more accurate, the way time is defined in terms of space, that is to say spatially. How so? Well, because this involves measuring \u201cthe trajectory of a body in motion\u201d, counting \u201conly a certain number of extremities of intervals, or moments<\/em>, in short, virtual halts in time\u201d, as explained by Bergson (11) in \u2018The Creative Mind\u2019. Time<\/em> is thus actually astronomical time, as already elaborated by Ingold (158). It\u2019s how time is unitized, how it is counted, but not time itself, or time in itself, what Bergson refers to as duration<\/em>. He (86) exemplifies this pure duration<\/em> in \u2018Time and Free Will\u2019 with how the sound of a bell makes little sense if it is experienced as separate countable instances. He (86-87) acknowledges that it is certainly possible to do so, but that\u2019s not what people generally do. I think music is an even better example because it\u2019s not typically apprehended as a mere list of separate sounds that you listen to one by one. It\u2019s the same with video, as Ingold (159) goes on to point out. You can look at a video, frame by frame, but that results in looking at static images that just appear to you, on an as is basis, distinct from one another, having no connection to one another, unless, unless you apprehend them as a continuum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, in summary of this issue that pertains to time, many may think of it in terms of clock-time or astronomical time, but, following Bergson or Ingold, that\u2019s just a conception of time, not time itself. It\u2019s how time is ordered into chunks, not time itself. It\u2019s how time is measured, as based on the way space is measured, not time itself, nor space itself, for that matter. Instead, time is always social. What does Ingold (159) mean by this then? Well, before I explain that, it\u2019s important to make note of how one is constituted in the present moment, as explained by him (159):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs such, [taskscape<\/em>] constitutes my present, conferring upon it a unique character. Thus the present is not marked off from a past that it has replaced or a future that will, in turn, replace it; it rather gathers the past and future into itself, like refractions in a crystal ball.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n To put this in terms used by Augustine (242-243) in \u2018Confessions\u2019 and Deleuze (76-77) in \u2018Difference and Repetition\u2019, only the present <\/em>actually exists. The past <\/em>cannot exist, in itself, as the past is what ceases to be. It\u2019s the same with future <\/em>as it can never exist, in itself, as it is yet to be. In other words, contrary to popular opinion, time does not have three dimension: the past, the present and the future. Instead, as stated by Deleuze (77), as the past and the future are always apprehended from the present, they are, in fact, dimensions of the present, as evident from the example he provides:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA scar is the sign not of a past wound but of \u2018the present fact of having been wounded\u2019[.]\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In more simple terms, what matters is the present. Everything you do is always in the present. Even recollection functions in the present, hence the scar example. As there is only the present, there are no points in time, no time line, which also means that, similarly to landscape<\/em>, taskscape <\/em>does not consists of isolated tasks that take place in isolation from one another, as discussed by Ingold (155, 159). This does not, however, mean that one cannot segment it, to apprehend it in such a way, nor, I\u2019d say, that it is not useful to do so. In his (159) words, just as what one can apprehended as the various landscape elements, such as \u201cwalls or fences\u201d, can be seen as demarcating a<\/em> landscape from another landscape, the various activities, such as \u201crites, feasts and public ceremonies\u201d, can be understood as segmenting time in a similar fashion, separating a<\/em> taskscape from another taskscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What about the social aspect of time then? This should actually be fairly easy to comprehend if one considers what\u2019s been covered so far already. Keep in mind that the aforementioned activities that can be understood as parts of this or that taskscape and the elements that can be understood as parts of this or that landscape all involve humans. No rite, feast or ceremony exists on its own and no wall or fence came to being on its own. As everything and everyone is the product of this world, the way we come to understand time is always social. The same applies to space. In other words, everything and everyone is markedly social and, conversely, whatever is<\/em> there, like those walls and fences, and whatever it is that people do<\/em>, for example take part in those rites, feasts and ceremonies, can be understood as social markers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ingold (159) indicates that \u00c9mile Durkheim defined time as social, but, for him, the problem with Durkheim\u2019s work is that it also treats time as chronological. In other works, he (159-160) isn\u2019t satisfied with how Durkheim treats time as consisting of chunks of time, marked by the various activities that \u201ccome from society<\/em>\u201d, including the aforementioned activities, as explicitly mentioned by Durkheim in his own work. Simply put, he (160) doesn\u2019t buy Durkheim\u2019s definition of time as truly social because the recurrence of the aforementioned activities are treated as a metronome, which \u201cinscribes an artificial division into equal segments upon an otherwise undifferentiated movement\u201d. Against this, he (160) argues that the social aspect of time is not metronomic<\/em>, having a steady beat, like tick-tock, but rhythmic<\/em>, pulsating, so that the beats vary and fluctuate. He (160) argues that rhythm has to do with \u201cthe successive building up and resolution of tension, on the principle that every resolution is itself a preparation for the next building up\u201d. He (160) exemplifies this with breathing because each exhalation always anticipates the next inhalation, until it doesn\u2019t, of course, resulting in death. This is why life is rhythmic. To be clear, it\u2019s not only that our own life is rhythmic, that one goes through one\u2019s own rhythmic cycle or cycles, but that we are connected to the rhythms of others, and therefore taskscape ought to be understood as constituted by \u201ca complex interweaving of very many concurrent cycles\u201d, \u201cthe network of interrelationships between the multiple rhythms\u201d, instead of a \u201cparticular rhythm\u201d, as he (160) goes on to clarify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This reminds me of how Valentin Volo\u0161inov (72, 94-95) defines language in \u2018Marxism and the Philosophy of Language\u2019 as action, be it verbal or written, but not just as any action but as interaction<\/em>, so that each utterance or expression always anticipates a response and also acts a response to something. It\u2019s worth emphasizing that this applies not only to saying something or writing something, that is to say expressing something, but also to reading, as well as thinking, what Volo\u0161inov (38) calls