From a strange planet - 48

We still follow the E39. That's one way to not get lost in the myriad landscapes that the cameras reveal to us. We will see how far we get. There are many sights to discover. The most spectacular is the brooding house. But we also have silent lakes, dark woods and the ball in the hills.

The quotes are from this book:

Lacan at the Scene (mit.edu)

Lacan at the Scene by Henry Bond | Goodreads

E39 Vaulekrossen 1 - Streetview

The staring house. The gaze of the Other

And this detail of a darkened window, or a house that looks on, has been elaborated in turn by a sequence of  influential philosophers including Sartre, Merleau- Ponty, Lacan, and Žižek, each of whom has invoked it in relation to the notion of the Other’s gaze - for Žižek it is Norman Bates’s home in Hitchcock’s Psycho, while for Sartre it is an - inexplicably poignant - white farmhouse at night during war- time.

In his chief commentary on the theme of the Other ... Sartre offers several examples of objects that can come to embody the Other’s look. He notes how the Other’s gaze will be given just as well on occasion when there is a rustling of branches, or the sound of a footstep followed by silence, or the slight opening of a shutter, or a light movement of a curtain. ... the actual eye of the watcher, hidden behind the curtain, behind a window in the farmhouse. [Source: Lacan at the Scene by Henry Bond]

Lacan comments: “all that is necessary is for something to signify to me that there may be others there ... [A] window if it gets a bit 

dark, and if I have reasons for thinking that there is someone behind it, is straightaway a gaze. From the moment this gaze exists, I am already something other, in that I feel myself becoming an object for the gaze of others.

Slavoj Žižek has also isolated the motif of a house that looks on, asking: Is this notion of the gaze not perfectly rendered by the exemplary Hitchcockian scene in which the subject is approaching some uncanny threatening object, usually a house? There we encounter the antimony between the eye and the gaze at its purest: the subject’s eye sees the house, but the house - the object - seems somehow to return the gaze ... this gaze is effectively missing, its status is purely fantasmatic.

This image of “house” also has the quality of a Jungian archetype - a communal (society-wide) unconscious foreknowledge. For example, when young children draw, they often begin with a depiction of a face or a house - in front elevation—and these two images seem to coincide, with the mouth and eyes in the same formation as the windows and door.

E39 Søyland - Streetview

No that's not a side road into the hills. It just looks like that. 

There are just flat fields on the right.

And that's like me, trying to understand the surroundings.

Looking for mysterious surroundings, 

like this mysterious lake, just around the corner.

Rv. 444 Torger Carlsensgate 1 - Streetview

At first this landscape does not look to promising.

But there are beautiful wide landscapes with many scales of depth.

And dark woord at the end of the road.

Fv. 510 Rege - Much more details in an earlier post

There is a sphere in the hills. And a church.

You can see them in detail by following the link above.

The hills at sunset.

The hills at midday.

From a strange planet - 50

Here we follow the E39 South. We try to connect two of our earlier posts. The one starting at Saglandsbakken and the one ending at Rekevik.

E39 Ualand retning Krossmoen - Streetview

Snowy panorama.

River crossing. Small version.

More river crossing. Big version.

Fv. 44 Sælebø - Google streetview

The block.

The block once more.

Another block. Smaller this time.

E39 Drangsdalen Retning Flekkefjord - Streetview

Snow road. From here to the end of the local side road.

Here we stop. And look. And think.

E39 Hamrebakkane Retning Flekkefjord - Streetview

Snow road. From here through the landscape.

To the hut. Moss on the roof.

Silence. End of winter.

Fv. 42 Tverrå Retning Tonstad - Streetview

Snowy road. From here through the landscape.

To the house. Transparent trees.

Sunlight. Distance. End of winter.

From a strange planet - 47

 Irish webcam churches viewed as a focus of the landscape

 Since my discovery of the Irish church webcams I've been inspired to look at these churches from two viewpoints:

• The first one is the traditional Catholic viewpoint of the the Real Presence of Christ, which I tend to feel most intensely in the empty church at night, when the only light in the church shines from the altar lamp. For me this is a deeply significant, almost mystical experience. And I feel it even through the medium of the webcam, in the night.
• The second one is inspired by an experience during an Irish bus ride. When we drove past a church one of the older men on the bus made the sign of the Cross. This made me aware that the Real Presence was not only felt and acknowledged in the vicinity of the Tabernacle, but maybe from all places where the church was visible.
• So, in the investigations below, I present the view of the church at night, and then I explore the visibility of the in the surrounding landscape. I try try to find the furthest places that are influenced by the presence of the church as their focal point. I hope you enjoy this exploration as much as I do.

St Joseph's Church, Fincairn - Streetview

We explore the church surroundings on streetview. We start at the church door and see how far we can go before we lose sight of it. In this hilly landscape it's surprisingly easy to go far.

Seen from here: an Irish still life.

Seen from here: a wide hilly landscape.

St Patrick’s Church, Celbridge - Streetview

This church is situated in a place with high building density. It's impossible to find a nice far view.

From an industrial parking lot:

From a bungalow area:

St Brigids Church - Streetview

From here: a short walk down Lovers Lane (really!).

From here: in this dense area you cannot go far without losing sight of the church.

From a strange planet - 46

Churches interpreted as power places 

Many years ago I was interested in German books about "power places". These books all start from the same hypothesis. They assume that in older times, there was a class of powerful people and organisations who knew the places with optimal landscape energy. That's where they built their castles and churches. So by exploring churches, castles, holy shrines and places of pilgrimage you can map the most energetic places in the landscape. This might look like this:

St. Michael’s Church - Google Streetview

One of my favourite books from that period describes a project - nicknamed by the authors: the Rally Santa Maria -  where two German researchers travel around churches all over Germany and locate the most powerful energy spots by using pendulums and dowsing rods. They document their findings in huge detail.

On a smaller scale, the same mechanism applies inside buildings. The placement of altars and holy relics inside churches is also governed by energy,  ley-lines and directions of energy radiation. This might look like this:

St. Michael’s Church - Google Streetview

Personally I don't believe in this mysterious landscape energy, but I'm a big fan of churches as places of contemplation and healing. So I have sympathy for this endeavour even though I'm not supposed to believe in pendulums and dowsing rods.

Irish webcam churches interpreted as the focus of the landscape

 Since my discovery of the Irish church webcams I've been inspired to look at these churches from two viewpoints.

The first one is the traditional Catholic viewpoint of the the Real Presence of Christ, which I tend to feel most intensely in the empty church at night, when the only light in the church shines from the altar lamp. For me this is a deeply significant, almost mystical experience. And I feel it even through the medium of the webcam, in the night.

St Peter's Church - Google Streetview Our Lady Queen of Peace Pastoral Area

The second one is inspired by an experience during an Irish bus ride. When we drove past a church one of the older men on the bus made the sign of the Cross. This made me aware that the Real Presence was not only felt and acknowledged in the vicinity of the Tabernacle, but maybe from all places where the church was visible.

St Peter's Church - Google Streetview Our Lady Queen of Peace Pastoral Area

So, in the investigations below, I present the view of the church at night, and then I explore the visibility of the in the surrounding landscape. I try try to find the furthest places that are influenced by the presence of the church as their focal point. I hope you enjoy this exploration as much as I do.

Parish of Kill, Ardclough & Johnstowns - Google Streetview

At night there are just a few lights in the dark. Like:

And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehends it not.

By day there is light and activity.

We explore the places from where we can see the church and its tower.

This is from the other side of the biggest provincial road.

This is from the parking lot in the back of the church area.

And this is from far away, from the other side of the golf course.

The church tower must be there, behind the trees, but it is hidden.

Like:

Indeed, you are a hidden God, you God of Israel, the Savior.