Jason Lanka

I have recently observed that my interaction with the landscape is increasingly filtered through more and more layers of digital technology. Be it my camera, my computer, my iPhone, or my TV; I am purposely placing a screen between myself and my direct experience and memory of the landscape.  

This growing habit reinforces my place as an observer in my consciousness and yet we know that the observer is never neutral. I_AM affecting the land. Do the layers of digital interface dim the land’s affect on me?

Is my relationship with the “environment” an affected manner I create to delude myself? 

I set out to explore my relationship with nature and often that exploration leads towards the picturesque, but the picturesque is an illusion.

My identity is an illusion.

This video performance is my attempt to explore this artifice.

I spend weekends and holidays out in the woods, on the wind swept plains of my birthplace, or in the mountains where I grew up, and yet I realize that my physical and psychological contact with my environs becomes more tenuous every year.

My cell phone, my flat screen TV, a constant wireless connection, a computer; these devices form the foundation for my connection with our western society and yet they consume more electrical resources every year. Like a cataract, these devises increase the opacity of the screen through which I view my altered landscape.

Am I conscious of my impact and my place in my environment?

Do I pretend to sit in the land, but in actuality, I am on the land?

 Disparate Bodies is a piece exploring the growing disconnect my generation has with our environment. At a time where “the environment” is vogue politically, socially, and economically, environmentalism seems less a state of consciousness and more a film that when added makes it easier to consume.

A figure on the landscape, separated by space and form

The work was filmed on the high plains of North Dakota. The final installation of the work will consist of a video documenting the performance and the installation of the chair and finger apparatus.

I would like the express my sincere gratitude to Kyle Pherson. I could not have created this piece without his help. My thanks

Whenever we enter the land, sooner or later we pick up the scent of our own histories.

- William Least Heat-Moon

A figure in the landscape... touching earth. I perceive my body. I perceive the earth. And yet my perception of my body is separate from my perception of earth.  

How far is my reach? 

I am interested in the marks our culture leaves in landscape, but also what intrigues me is the constructed image of the individual who makes his mark on the land. I have chosen to use the masculine depiction of man, because I am interested in how Manifest Destiny, an imperialist nineteenth century white male invention, is still playing a defining role in our American culture’s representation of the ideal individual who lives within the landscape. This person has been for better part of my life, the Marlboro Man. Michael S. Kimmel and Amy Aronson did a fantastic analysis of symbolism in the advent of the Marlboro Man in their book Men and Masculinities.

The Marlboro Man symbolizes (the image of) the American Frontiersman, the old fashioned Wild West Cowboy. This form of masculinity evokes images of man against nature, of man as the tamer and dominator of nature and peoples. As he lives in a presocietal world without rules, he makes his own rules. He exists in “uncivilized” territory where his object is to stake out a piece of the world. This trailblazing involves destroying and subduing indigenous peoples, nature and animals. The American Frontiersman is therefore wild, free and unrestrained by society, yet at the same time he is transcendent of nature in that he is a civilizer. He is the tamer and controller of nature.

What if I were to ask the Marlboro Man to recognize the mark he leaves in the landscape? Could I force him to become aware of his presence in the land? Could the process of recognition also function as an act of penitence? These were the questions I set out to answer in this body of work.

The performance was recorded and documented. I invite you to listen and observe. 

The exhibition of this work includes the photo documentation of the performance and the sculptural object used by the "Marlboro Man".