Winter 2003, #26

The sites show the effect of time, sort of a sinking into timelessness. When I get to a site that strikes the kind of timeless chord, I use it. The site selection is by chance. There is no willful choice. A site at zero degree, where the material strikes the mind, where absences become apparent, appeals to me, where the disintegrating of space and time seems very apparent. Sort of an end of selfhood…the ego vanishes for awhile. - Robert Smithson, on site selection

Editors Note: On the Horizon
This is called the “Winter 2003” issue, because it is being put together in the ten days between the Solstice and the new year, but you will probably be reading it in early 2004. With more effort going into keeping the website current, the newsletter seems to always be the last thing that gets attention. But there is no doubt about its importance as part of the outreach of the Center. It will not be forgotten. Recent hard drive failures in the office remind us of the fragility of digital media, and its contrast with the durability and tangibility of printed material. If you think about it, this line, between the ephemeral and the physical, is metaphorically analogous to the terrain covered by the Center: we deal with the nonphysical representation of physical places, the impression left by physical objects, like the shape that the land makes on the bottom of the sky, if you will. So to toil daily in the digital dominion, in order to expedite, economize, formulate, tabulate, and communicate, is our destiny, but to be sure to come back to ground on a regular basis, to commit, to record, to store, and to verify, is our duty. As it is for so many of us in these times. This duality is definitely a condition of this age. Here, in your hands, at least and at last, is something concrete. - Lay of the Land Editors