Land´s End
Version I / Version II
Expedition is a formula for an organized business of searching and finding. The unity of inspection, landing, takeover, naming and mapping forms the complete act of a discovery. Therefore a land appropriation begins with a taken image.
After Sloterdijk one can only conquer what successfully could be reduced by one dimension.
In October 2008 we decided to steal the first end of the world which is supposed to be the first one in a long row of world ends (such as the region Finistère in Brétagne, Cabo de Finisterre in Spain or also the most southern point in South America, nearby Ushuaia). Therefore we went for a one week trip to Cornwall in Great Britain in order to chip off this ancient end of the world and came back with two ends.
Land´s End in Cornish is Pen-Von-las, the End of the Earth, and one view is that it was the Irish settlers in the fifth and sixth centuries who gave it this name.
We stated that Land´s End is nowadays a tourist amusement parc and a brand which has nothing to do with our romantic view of a world end.
In the eyes of Cornishmen, Cape Cornwall always used to be, and still, in spite of accurate measurements, is held to be the most westerly point in Cornwall.
In a comparison of Land´s End and Cape Cornwall it is mentioned:
In local opinion Cape Cornwall seems to have been the more important headland.
(all citations taken from the Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names, fourth edition, 1960)
Five Kilometers away from Land´s End there is Cape Cornwall where we found the World End as we imagined it to be and decided to steal this one, too.
The first place we exhibited our capture was London and after that we brought the stones to Austria where they are exhibited right now in the OK Zentrum in Linz. The two ends where presented in two different rooms. Each chipping off was documented with video and largely projected (in the case of Cape Cornwall with a video projection, in the case of Land´s End on a large flat screen).
In addition to the stones and videos we had a slide projection of the act of robbery, Polaroids with the four Mahony member (discoverer – portraits), cross-sections of both World Ends signed with the points of chip off, a photo album with Polaroids of the lettering Land´s End and a Video of us being photographed in Land´s End by tourists.
In Cornwall we found out that it is not only the act of stealing which interests us but always also include the area in which the world ends are in our work. So the stones and the videos of chipping off will be the combining element, the surrounding works will change.
