SURVEY
2017
PERFORMATIVE ACTION
[FOR TWO INVESTIGATORS]
sur·vey
[sərˈvā]
verb
1. To determine and delineate the form, extent and position of a physical space; [to seek out its inscrutable facets; to parse its nature].
2. To ascribe a metric; an enforcement of measure onto a space, such that it is readable, recognisable and universally understood within the context of a set of conventions – allowing one who is not present to grasp a (limited, yet legible) sense of physicality.
3. A marking of invisible lines – the act of making borders, boundaries, the frame of demarcation. An assertion of order over nature, one that is almost exclusively arbitrary — divested and yet fastened to the specific experience of a particular space. A pantomime that demands an acquiescence of self — a yielding to a broader framework, a larger convention – one so intrinsic to our experience of the world that we forget that it exists.
4. A bureaucratic division – an administrative process. A definition of territorial borders and regional municipalities – informed by or against the landscape. A set of cuts that define the experience of space, signifying what’s yours, what’s mine and what is collectively shared. A negotiation we forgot we were having.
5. An epithet of change, disruption, alteration often met with ambivalence. A transition from one state into another, an act of redefining.
6. A colonial gesture — one impossible to cleave from past injustice. An occupation and expropriation of another land. A negation of existing boundaries, borders and demarcations. An act that requires constant recognition and ongoing reconciliation.
7. A transitory act; a denial of our own impermanent relationship with the landscape. A futile struggle against the erasure of lines once fixed.