‘GEOGRAPHY’ AND MINING: Terminology to talk about ‘mining art’. (And some frustrated venting about capitalism).
Sunday, 13 May 2018, 18:55
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Edited by Steve Bamlett, Sunday, 13 May 2018, 19:08
‘GEOGRAPHY’ AND
MINING: This term may have to go! Terminology to talk about ‘mining art’. (And
some frustrated venting about capitalism).
In talking about mining as a function of the term
‘geography’, there are significant problems. Whilst we can identify
geographical areas on the surface of a landmass as ‘Coalfields’, this is a long
way from the understanding internal space necessary for, and probably internalised by, the miner-artist.
The academic discipline ‘geography’ is indeed already deeply challenged in
earth sciences as insufficient for even a descriptive account of the earth.
Rudwick (1996:272.) argues that the very fact of mining opened the eyes of any ‘mineral
geographer’ to a third dimension of the term geography, ‘that converted
distributions of the earth’s surface into structures in the earth’s interior.’ Speaking
of rock ‘formations’ was the lexical sign of this change and of evidence seen by
the all working miners as well as mineralogists of ‘the three-dimensional
spatial relations of ‘mineral bodies’ or rock masses (ibid:274).’ In
epistemological terms the science of geography historically in this particular gave
way in the eighteenth century in France to that of ‘geognosy’ or ‘knowledge of the earth’. This science was the categorising
features of the earth above and below its surface (or anything else) that
required penetration of surface distinctions (land / sea, mountain / plain,
boundaries of political entities related to the ownership of parts of the
earth). That science itself gave way in the mid nineteenth century to a causal
science that by importing temporal understandings of cross-sectional space so
that a geographer’s discourse could move easily between describing strata as
not just spatially lower in the earth’s interior (in geognosy) but also as ‘older’
strata. Thus was born ‘geology’ in the nineteenth century (established by 1840).
Whilst Rudwick treats of this as part of the epistemological
history of earth and natural science (since fossil records were also part of
the process of development), I think we need to show that this was not a matter
concerning intellectual developments for leisured and educated classes. To
miners, such understandings were essential to their work, health and safety. I
sense the complexity of this in some of McGuinness’ development of an art that
utilised strata as a means of conveying the interior life of the miner as a
person and a class defined by social determinants. So, through ‘geography’ as a
study of earth’s surfaces can be sufficient for studies that stop at the
consideration of art as an ‘object’ of trade, as a commodity as in A843, it is
not for the study of art as experienced by working miners.
My example of this is McGuinness History of Mining. Here the development of mining towards greater
mechanisation and labour efficiency throughout the course of the nineteenth and
twentieth century Northern Coalfield history follows backwards the much longer
(unimaginably longer) history of development of the coal seams of that same
Coalfield. As mining gets more up-to-date and shapes its internal spaces with a
difference, miners themselves must regress through geological time to the
deepest and earliest time-spaces. It
would not take us long to see herein a metaphor similar to Freud’s use of the
palimpsest. Miners were travelling back to a time of greater vulnerability that
was presenting itself as if it were greater security. Just as a causal
explanation based on geological catastrophes explains the formations under the
earth of the strata of the carboniferous period of geological time, so the
miner is shaped and reshaped by political considerations that dwell on the
earth’s surface but push him ever deeper. It is an allegory of political
oppression and the role within it of mechanisation and central management. The
deeper the miner goes under the earth – the lower their sense of agency and
autonomy as a socio-human being.
Isn’t
Capitalism the pits!
Rudwick, M. (1996) ‘Minerals, strata and fossils’ in
Jardine, N., Secord, J.A. & Spary, E.C. (Eds.) Cultures of natural history Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
266-286.
‘GEOGRAPHY’ AND MINING: Terminology to talk about ‘mining art’. (And some frustrated venting about capitalism).
‘GEOGRAPHY’ AND MINING: This term may have to go! Terminology to talk about ‘mining art’. (And some frustrated venting about capitalism).
In talking about mining as a function of the term ‘geography’, there are significant problems. Whilst we can identify geographical areas on the surface of a landmass as ‘Coalfields’, this is a long way from the understanding internal space necessary for, and probably internalised by, the miner-artist.
The academic discipline ‘geography’ is indeed already deeply challenged in earth sciences as insufficient for even a descriptive account of the earth. Rudwick (1996:272.) argues that the very fact of mining opened the eyes of any ‘mineral geographer’ to a third dimension of the term geography, ‘that converted distributions of the earth’s surface into structures in the earth’s interior.’ Speaking of rock ‘formations’ was the lexical sign of this change and of evidence seen by the all working miners as well as mineralogists of ‘the three-dimensional spatial relations of ‘mineral bodies’ or rock masses (ibid:274).’ In epistemological terms the science of geography historically in this particular gave way in the eighteenth century in France to that of ‘geognosy’ or ‘knowledge of the earth’. This science was the categorising features of the earth above and below its surface (or anything else) that required penetration of surface distinctions (land / sea, mountain / plain, boundaries of political entities related to the ownership of parts of the earth). That science itself gave way in the mid nineteenth century to a causal science that by importing temporal understandings of cross-sectional space so that a geographer’s discourse could move easily between describing strata as not just spatially lower in the earth’s interior (in geognosy) but also as ‘older’ strata. Thus was born ‘geology’ in the nineteenth century (established by 1840).
Whilst Rudwick treats of this as part of the epistemological history of earth and natural science (since fossil records were also part of the process of development), I think we need to show that this was not a matter concerning intellectual developments for leisured and educated classes. To miners, such understandings were essential to their work, health and safety. I sense the complexity of this in some of McGuinness’ development of an art that utilised strata as a means of conveying the interior life of the miner as a person and a class defined by social determinants. So, through ‘geography’ as a study of earth’s surfaces can be sufficient for studies that stop at the consideration of art as an ‘object’ of trade, as a commodity as in A843, it is not for the study of art as experienced by working miners.
My example of this is McGuinness History of Mining. Here the development of mining towards greater mechanisation and labour efficiency throughout the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century Northern Coalfield history follows backwards the much longer (unimaginably longer) history of development of the coal seams of that same Coalfield. As mining gets more up-to-date and shapes its internal spaces with a difference, miners themselves must regress through geological time to the deepest and earliest time-spaces. It would not take us long to see herein a metaphor similar to Freud’s use of the palimpsest. Miners were travelling back to a time of greater vulnerability that was presenting itself as if it were greater security. Just as a causal explanation based on geological catastrophes explains the formations under the earth of the strata of the carboniferous period of geological time, so the miner is shaped and reshaped by political considerations that dwell on the earth’s surface but push him ever deeper. It is an allegory of political oppression and the role within it of mechanisation and central management. The deeper the miner goes under the earth – the lower their sense of agency and autonomy as a socio-human being.
Isn’t Capitalism the pits!
Rudwick, M. (1996) ‘Minerals, strata and fossils’ in Jardine, N., Secord, J.A. & Spary, E.C. (Eds.) Cultures of natural history Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 266-286.