EXPANDED LANDSCAPE
Mirrored incidents on a peninsula
An installation at
N56°27’10,25”, E12°39’40,73”
on 10:00 – 13:30 (CEST),
16 September 2011
The landscape is a deposit of time. Time is a flow of irreversible incidents. A now choosing a future from a just forgotten past.
Every incident leaves an impression, a reflection of the past echoing through the expanded landscape like light from mirrors. The riddle of the landscape is the memory of time.
The mounds located at the surveyed site date from the younger Nordic bronze age (1000-500 BC), and are made from rubble of sedimentary quartzite rocks, still bearing the impressions of the life forms of the sea where they were formed 600 million years ago.
At the time of their construction, sea level was 4-5 m higher than present. This means that the mound closest to the shoreline was then just at the shoreline. The mounds count to a total of eight, six of which are of comparable sizes, while two are smaller.
The mounds are said to have been used as burial ground: the ashes of ancestors were deposited in the rubble.
Mirroring the site reveals another purpose: the six larger mounds form two straight lines intersecting at mound #1. The angle of intersection is precisely one twelfth of the full circle. The line pointing closest to north is turned precisely one twelfth of the circle to the west.
The bisector of the lines formed by the locations of the six large mounds passes through the top of one of the two smaller mounds and is turned exactly one eighth of the circle to the west. The layout of the mounds has the properties of a compass.
The same bisector intersects the horizon at the point where the sun sets at summer solstice. The layout of the mounds has the properties of a calendar.
A riddle left by our ancestors for us or future generations to solve, or just an incident of our inherent drive for pattern recognition: seeing something out of the randomness of nothingness? But a reflection of the landscape echoes through the mirrors as leftovers of a past erased from human memory and becomes a message to interpret.
