The LODE line

Presenting the global through the local . . .

Looking back to 1991 and the LODE proposal . . . . 

Firstly, the line, the LODE line. This line was determined by the location of two city ports and their quaysides. This did not involve utilizing chance as an artistic method, but in a way it is working with Cage's concept of nature, our global reality, in its manner of operation. 

The LODE proposal

The LODE line girds the planet




The value of an arbitrary line

Taking the locations of Liverpool and Hull as the starting points of the work and connecting these locations on curved space leads to some surprises for the artist. Where does the line go?

This "artistic" decision results in a practical means to presenting the global through the local. The "local" being "points" on the line that for the LODE project results in twenty-four locations, 24 places on a line "running" over 360 degrees of planetary surface, and creating an arbitrary sample for the whole.

When we look west from the quayside in Liverpool or eastward from the Humber Dock in Hull, our geographic orientation tends to fit with the map of the world as flat, even when we know that the planet is spherical. We are inclined to imagine a path that follows a small circle, not a great circle, because, perhaps, we have become so used to the Mercator Projection as a way of visualising spatial relations.

So, the LODE line becomes a guide to possible locations for the project, places along what is called a great circle. Also known as an orthodrome. A great circle of a sphere is the intersection of the sphere and a plane that passes through the centre point of the sphere. 

So, a great circle is the largest circle that can be drawn on any given sphere. Any diameter of any great circle coincides with a diameter of the sphere, and therefore all great circles have the same centre and circumference as each other. 

This special case of a circle of a sphere is in opposition to a small circle, that is, the intersection of the sphere and a plane that does not pass through the centre. Every circle in Euclidean 3-space is a great circle of exactly one sphere.

Living on a planetary sphere any connection between one location and another involves non-Euclidean geometry.

The planet is four dimensional, spatial dimensions and time, space-time, but most of our maps are flat. 

The use value of the Mercator projection continues to this day. When Gerardus Mercator, a 16th-century German-Flemish cartographer, geographer and cosmographer, created the 1569 world map based on a new projection, it became our image of the world, particularly in western Europe. This atlas which represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines is an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts. But it works through a magnificent distortion.

A

B

Compare Mercator's projection 'A' with the Gall–Peters projection 'B' that as a rectangular map projection maps all areas such that they have the correct sizes relative to each other. Like any equal-area projection, it achieves this goal by distorting most shapes. The Gall-Peters projection revealed the inherent political and cultural aspect that has been embedded in the Mercator projection, that has Europe as a global centre. In the Gall- Peters projection Europe is a small northerly region dwarfed by Africa and the 'Global South'.

Scheduled Airline Traffic in 2009 - Curved Lines Across the Atlas!

A straight line on a "flattened" earth is actually a curved line!

In differential geometry, a geodesic is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line" to "curved spaces". The term "geodesic" comes from geodesy, the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth; in the original sense, a geodesic was the shortest route between two points on the Earth's surface, namely, a segment of a great circle. Geodesics are of particular importance in general relativity. Timelike geodesics in general relativity describe the motion of free falling test particles.

To calculate the shortest distance between two locations on our planet we need to use a great circle as the shortest path connecting two points on the surface of a sphere.

The technique Philip Courtenay adopted was firstly; to purchase a globe that was illuminated from within; secondly take a rubber band and stretch it out to create a great circle linking Liverpool and Hull and seeing where the line goes; and thirdly to take the photos you can see in the LODE 1992 - 2017 Re:LODE banner.

Philip Courtenay was surprised at the trajectory and the territories that this line crossed, and wondered what kind of adventures this line would lead to? and how to identify in advance where to connect to the line? and how to engage with these places? as part of an artistic activity, at points along this line? 

In the original proposal of 1991 it states:

There are journeys to places in Europe and the Americas, situated on the extended Liverpool – Hull ‘great circle’.

At the time of writing it seemed unlikely to involve more places than Europe and Colombia in Latin America as countries and coastlines that the LODE line crosses, but seeing where this LODE line was leading meant that circumnavigation of some kind was important symbolically as well as providing a research base that was both diverse at the local level and connected also at the level of increasing economic and cultural globalisation.

Back in 1991, in an academic context where definitions of globalisation are often contested, Anthony Giddens writes in The Consequences of Modernity:

"Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa."

Giddens, Anthony. (1991). The Consequences of Modernity Cambridge: Polity Press. p. 64.

In 1992, Roland Robertson, professor of sociology at the University of Aberdeen, an early writer in the field, defined globalization as:

"the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole."

Robertson, Roland (1992). Globalization : social theory and global culture (Reprint. ed.). London: Sage.

Applying the simple and logical process of connecting two places was now guiding the project to a whole lot of other places that would also be linked along the line. There is no centre to periphery hierarchy in this situation as each location on the line shares its equidistant relationship to the centre of the planet. This gives the project its de-centred and non-hierarchical quality, offering a method for exploring the economic, cultural and sociopolitical forces at wok in a global situation comprehensible at a local scale. 

The LODE zones

There is a good reason for using the term zones in relation to the LODE Line. The LODE Line is an abstraction, it does NOT exist as a real thing. The LODE line could appear to be a real thing, say, for example, in augmented reality, but it is still an abstraction. It has no thickness, only geometry, but the LODE Line has, and will be, every time the line is followed, a guide that leads us along a way - LODE is Old English and means "way".  It is this way that leads the project into zones. From the LODE Line we can see a landscape stretching out in all directions from the line. These zones are real.