"...the capturing of coastlines...within a two-dimensional frame and the naming of these appearances...were twinned processes, the offspring of a larger conceptual enclosure act which lent colonisation its rhetorical legitimacy." (2)

Historical Background

a)Mapping

The history of the mapping of Australia by the Dutch begins in 1606, when the explorer Willem Jansz in the 'Dufkyen' sighted and mapped a portion of the coastline of Cape York, thinking it to be part of New Guinea. The Dutch had begun to establish themselves in the East Indies at the end of the 16th C and in 1602 founded the Dutch East India Company (the Verenidge Nederlandsche Geoctroyeerde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC). The company quickly took control of the export of spices in Eastern Indonesia and developed into the largest commercial and naval power in the region. For nearly two centuries the VOC executed functions of government in the area with a Governor General, a navy of forty warships, a ten-thousand strong army and the rights to erect colonies and coin money. After the influence of the VOC had ended, many of its functions were assumed by the Dutch government, and it was not until the middle of this century that Indonesia was to become a nation in its own right.

Although during the early years of the VOC's involvement with the East Indies their attention was focused quite firmly on the enormous profits to be made, the silent presence of the great unknown continent that lay to their south began to assert itself. In order to shorten the duration of the journey from Holland to Indonesia a different route began to be trialed in 1610. Taking this new route ships sailed east from the Cape of Good Hope, propelled by the strong winds we know as the 'roaring forties'. They then turned north to sail some two and a half thousand kilometres running roughly parallel to the coastline of Western Australia to arrive at the VOC headquarters at Batavia, now Jakarta. This route was formally adopted in 1616 as it had proven to be much quicker, often halving the time taken to make the journey, but like all navigation in those times, it had its hazards.

The historic quest for an accurate way to measure longitude over long ocean voyages, only finally resolved in the 18th C, has been the subject of recent popular analysis. During the early 1600's this knowledge wasn't available, and the calculation of a vessel's position at sea was often a haphazard affair. Too long a delay in turning north whilst following this new route and the consequences could be disastrous. Between 1616 and 1644 twenty-one Dutch ships made accidental landfall along thousands of kilometres of Australian coastline, often with tragic results. It can probably be said that one of the main reasons for an increasing curiosity by the Dutch about Australia and an associated desire to map the continent was due to its role as a navigational obstacle. But there also was the legacy of years of speculation as to the existence and shape of the Great South Land, and the nature of its wealth. In 1642 Antoonij van Diemen, Governor General of the Dutch East Indies mounted an expedition to settle the question. He gave command of this enterprise to Abel Janszoon Tasman.

Setting out from Batavia to Mauritius, and circumnavigating half of the Australian continent without sighting it, Tasman eventually encountered land which he named Van Diemens land. The name of this island was of course later to be changed to Tasmania. It wasn't until Tasman's second voyage in 1644 that he chose a more appropriate route, and sailing south along Cape York, after having -like his predecessor Willem Jansz in 1606- failed to find the Torres straits, he eventually charted the coastline as far as Point Cloates in the south of Western Australia, a distance of 4,185 kms. The information gathered by Tasman on these voyages, along with data from 1606 onwards, formed the basis of the 'Tasman map' (although Tasman himself was not directly involved in its creation). The map bears the coat of arms of Amsterdam and the text "Company New Holland. In the east, the great land of New Guinea and the first known South Land being one land all joined together as can be seen by this dotted track by the yachts Limmen, Zeemeeus and the quel d'Braq, anno 1644".

b) Ceramics

The early 17 th C was also a time of exploration and development in Dutch ceramics. The technique of maiolica (decorated earthen-ware on an opaque white tin glaze) had come to the southern Netherlands (modern Belgium) from Italy as early as the beginning of the 16th C. From documents preserved in Antwerp it is known that the Italian potter Guido de Savino of the famous Umbrian maiolica center Castel Durante was working in the Netherlands around this time.

The beauty and popularity of Italian maiolica had seen it traded over much of Europe, and it was inevitable that the artisans who created it would eventually follow to establish new centers of production. During the late 16th C many of these artisans moved north following the capture of Antwerp by the Spanish, and they settled in many Dutch towns, including Delft. There is a certain irony in this as it is again a Spanish influence hastening the spread of maiolica, an art that had arrived centuries before in Italy from the Spanish world and its connections to the middle-east where the technique originated. In any case, the development of Delftware was soon to receive further impetus via contact with another, albeit very different tradition.

It was early in the 17th C that Chinese ware, often of the blue and white Wan-li type (1573 - 1619) began to appear in Holland, and its impact was immediate and profound. The trading activities of the Dutch East India Company were inextricably bound up with this process of change, and its cargoes of the beautiful -and by comparison with European ceramics of the time- technically sophisticated wares were in high demand. It wasn't long before Dutch potters began to copy it, although at first using the quite different maiolica techniques. These copies are often very accomplished, but it is perhaps in the partial adoption of decorative and formal devices from both traditions and cultures and in their mingling that one finds the most interesting and innovative work.

Around 1670 the owners of the pottery factories realised that there was a public demand not only for the blue and white Delftware derived from Wan-li and other styles but also for polychrome, or multi-coloured, ceramics. The same process was to occur as before with both direct copies of Chinese Kang-hsi and Japanese Imari appearing, and as before there were designs in which the oriental and occidental  co-existed. As well as a Chinese influence being evident in the decoration some forms were also appropriated, such as the tea-pot, tea-caddy and the gourd shaped bottle. Most forms however were of a western design, to suit western use, although the increasing sophistication in manufacturing techniques meant that alongside familiar objects such as plates and fruit-bowls some quite idiosyncratic shapes were to appear, perhaps best exemplified by that most Dutch of objects, the Tulip vase. However, the most typical ceramic object associated with Delft is one that is the least reliant of any upon its form to fulfil any function at all, save that of being a vehicle to carry the decoration, and that is the ceramic tile.

In no other European country did ceramic-tile pictures, (as opposed to mosaic) assume the importance that they did in the Netherlands and they were made in great quantities not only in Delft but in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam and elsewhere. They were used to decorate corridors, cellars and hearths and were used singly and in groups or panels. Interestingly the appearance of polychrome tiles bearing geometrical and floral designs occurred quite early, around 1600, and the dominance of the blue and white tile depicting pastoral, biblical, nautical ( and even erotic ) scenes was to come some time later, around the middle of the century.

These early tiles were heavily influenced by the new patterns and imagery arriving from the far East as well as carrying the strong decorative traditions of the Islamic world from which the maiolica tradition had sprung. In combining both of these with European motifs and devices, three of the worlds great artistic traditions came together to create images of great beauty and complexity.

In outlining two historical sources that have informed the project Imagined Landscapes: the Tasman Map Re-configured we have been looking at elements of cartography and ceramics as were used by the Dutch in the 17th C. The third area which forms the basis of this project is necessary to it in much the same way as triangulation is to construct an accurate map, but has its traditions in a different historical period, that of the mid-to late 20th C.

Re-configuring a map.......silicon valley.

Imagine making a template from the Tasman map and using it to make an object on the potters wheel. In a sense this is what we have done, but trading the wheel for a computer keyboard using the 350 year old map outline and translating it into computer data. 3D graphics programs enable one to take any 2D line and lathe it, similar to the action of the potters wheel, arriving at a symmetrical, virtual 3D object. The initial stage of the rendering is in the form of a 'wire-frame', which is a 3D object described in terms of mathematical vectors analogous to the lines of latitude and longitude used in cartography. The object may then be clad or wrapped with a skin, usually of a plain colour. More sophisticated programs allow the use of scanned images from any source to perform the same function. This is done with a technique called 'ray-tracing', which can deliver photo-realistic renderings of any conceived object and can include shadows and reflections. The forms you see on these pages were done in this way- 'lathing' the outline of the Tasman map at different angles, and ray-tracing the wire-framed images using scanned surfaces from 17th and 18th C Delftware.

In the examples shown here the surfaces were taken from details of decorated tiles, either part of a single tile or multi-tiled panel. In the latter case the lines running between the tiles evoke the lines of latitude and longitude, and when this previously flat surface is wrapped around a virtual 3D object, a corresponding distortion occurs in which these lines mirror the virtual skeleton under the skin. Some other computer manipulations we have explored involve rendering 'close-ups' and 'cut-outs' showing otherwise hidden internal structures. (Internal sections are also rendered although they may not be visible.) The programs also allow for a shift in perspective on the screen which may be taken advantage of in  several ways, one of those being to create stereoscopic images. Stereoscopy was invented almost simultaneously with photography itself, and involves viewing two slightly perspectively shifted images, each one corresponding to the left and right eye, A popular and still well remembered adaptation of the technique was the 'Viewmaster', another is the 3D movie. With the help of the 3D rendering program it was possible to make the jump to the next level of illusion: the 3D stereoscopic image of the virtual ceramic object.

Please consider.....

Works of art can be experienced in mainly two ways. The first is as an actual encounter with a work, eg. viewing it in a gallery, museum or domestic environment. In this case one can approach the work, maybe even walk around it or pick it up. But most of our experiences of art works are from reproductions - printed images in books, magazines or catalogues or more recently on the Internet. These are secondary sources (in most cases), and when viewing them we are reliant on accompanying information, eg. the dimensions of a work or a description of the materials from which it is made. When this information isn't available an assessment of the work becomes difficult. How do these concerns relate to computer art? Neither are there necessarily any materials involved, nor need computer art have any particular dimension, as it can be resized at will. In some cases we may look at a work of computer art in much the same way as we view a photograph believing that it depicts an actual object. The viewer is then misinterpreting not only the origins of the work, but also its intentions, which may be more virtual in nature.

The work Tasman Map Reconfigured deals with several levels of illusion. When we first began showing people some of our rendered images, a typical reaction was "Oh, when did you make that?". Our answer was usually "We didn't" , taking up the implication in the question that the object was 'real' and that what they were seeing was a photograph of that object. This is because we tend to believe our eyes when looking at photographs, although we know that they don't always portray a truthful depiction of reality. The 'truth' and validity of these objects lies in the images themselves, as they are documents that describe the construction of a 'knowledge-space'.

While we have moved on to create objects in clay and other materials as part of this work, this is not our primary concern. Rather, we have set out on a voyage, one linked to those of Abel Tasman, retracing (and raytracing) his steps in the 1640's and creating a hybrid artwork incorporating elements from history, cartography, computer art and ceramics. This project is ongoing and includes objects in both 2D, 3D and interactive elements and can be viewed in different forms in both actual spaces and the virtual space of the World Wide Web.

We see this work as belonging to an emerging field which uses both traditional and non-traditional art-practices that are altered, informed by or and are dependent on the use of computer technology. 

 (1) General instructions given by the Dutch East India Company to its explorers regarding the procedure for the annexation of territory.
(2) Paul Carter, exhibition catalogue 'Fleeting Encounters' at the Museum of Sydney, 1995.

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