Space as Time

In his essay The Accessible Landscape, Jackson discusses the concepts of territory and boundaries. He brings Robert Sack’s idea of ‘territoriality’ to light, which Sack defines as “the attempt by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relationships by delimiting and asserting control of a geographical area” (70). This idea is not solely American, rather it can be seen in all areas of the world especially in the planning and organization of European cities. A prime example would be the continuous reorganization of Germany throughout the 20th century, particularly the in Berlin. As Eastern European Jews began immigrating into Berlin to escape persecution, especially from Poland and Russian, they began to gather in a district called Scheunenviertel. Its name, translated as “Barn Quarter”, comes from the number of barns and cattle sheds that dominated the area. The population was also dominated by a number of beggars, stereotyped by Germans as the Ostjuden: “the lazy unemployed who deserved to be deported.”[1] Even before the large immigrations, the area was considered the ‘dark district,’ serving as the home to the black market, criminals, and prostitutes. But we see by the gathering of these persons for a social power force within this district. At the same time, the outside world was also trying to suppress the district by pushing them together into a tight section of the city. This idea of segregation is further seen in the city with the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Jackson also discusses the theme of fragmentation in the American city, this idea of seeing “territories isolated from their setting” (72). Jackson goes on to discuss the lamentation for their disappearance and the holding on to these landmarks which end up scattering themselves amongst the new buildings. He illustrates how much the town has been transformed, “how many functions it now serves, and how it constantly creates new ancillary spaces and structures” (73). In other words, there is visual/architectural evidence of social transformation within the landscape itself, with the fragmentation of the city. This too can be seen in Berlin with the bombing during the wars, the construction of the Wall, the rebuilding of the city, the tearing down of the wall, and constant revitalization of the city.

Many artists depict this fragmentation and transformation of the landscape. But I think the most compelling exemplar of this theme is projection and instillation artist Shimon Attie. Of Jewish American decent, Attie’s artwork emphasizes the relationship between place, memory, and identity. In 1991, Attie went to Berlin to explore his family’s roots in the Jewish Ghetto of Scheunenviertel. Walking along the streets in Berlin, he was disturbed by the absence of the former Jewish life. His ancestor’s neighborhood was now empty of any Jewish existence. Attie responded to this phenomenon with an installation collection entitled The Writing on the Wall, Berlin 1992-93: Projections in Berlin’s Jewish Quarter.[2] Attie considered the collection to be the synthesis of installation art, photography, performance, new media, and public art. [2] He wanted “to peel back the wallpaper of today and reveal the history buried underneath.” [2] In order to do this, Attie projected archival photographs of life in the Jewish ghetto before World War II onto the exterior of existing buildings. Each projection ran for one or two evenings and was open to the public. Attie also photographed the projections and published them in a series also called The Writing on the Wall.

Mulackstrasse 37, Former Jewish Residents

Mulackstrasse 37 Daylight

In Mulackstrasse 37, Former Jewish Residents (ca. 1932), an archived photograph is projected of two boys sitting on the curb in 1932. Directly above the boys is contemporary graffiti that is cut off by the frame: “Was der Krieg verschonte,” What the war has spared. The phrase compares the fate of the boys to the architecture, emphasizing the easy destruction of the human body compared to the brick and stone of the building still standing behind them, and with it, the easy destructibility of memory.[3] The phrase continue on saying, What the war has spared does not survive in socialism! This adds another layer of history to the building after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Then further on down the wall the phrase is carried on: The struggle continues. The long phrase is reminder on the debate over how to memorialize the murder of Jews: “Does the writing on the wall signify an act as a warning for us in the present as much as for those in the past?”[4]

Shimon Attie was also concerned for the recent renovation of the Scheunenviertel area. This is represented by the scaffolding to the left of the building. The fall of the Berlin Wall beginning in 1989 allowed many West Berliners to expand into the Scheunenviertel neighborhood. Within just a few years, block after block was being renovated, some into houses, others into bars and restaurants. Attie later addressed the issue in article published in the Art Journal in 2003:

The Scheuneviertel has become almost unrecognizable even in the few years since the Writing on the Wall project was realized in 1992-93. The “remaking” of the Scheunenviertel affects both Jewish as well as postwar East German collective memory and identity, as the last physical evidence of these histories is now disappearing as well.[5]

Attie uses the architectural structures to emphasize the stages of loosing Berlin’s Jewish history: projected photograph of two boys (immigration and life in Scheunenviertel), the deteriorating structure of Mulackstrasse 37 (the Holocaust and the destruction of Scheunenviertel), the neighboring street guarded by the chain-linked fence (Berlin’s separation from the severity of the Holocaust), and the scaffolding (Berlin washing their hands clean of the Holocaust through renovation). Within the one frame, Attie successfully defines the space through the life, death, and termination of Jews in Berlin.

In Mulackstrasse 37, Former Jewish Residents Attie is able to illustrate not just a single moment when the photograph was taken, but an entire 50 year passage of time: from pre-World War II through the fall of the Berlin Wall. Historian Berel Lang suggests that he is able “to bring the terms of that event in the past into the present without diminishing or rationalizing either at the expense of the other.”[6] By doing so, Attie is able to define space not by physical structures but by time.

[1] Dora Apel. “Picturing the Vanished/Transgressing the Present.” Memory Effects. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2002. pp. 45.

[2] Shimon Attie. “The Writing on the Wall, Berlin, 1992-93: Projections in Berlin's Jewish Quarter.” Art Journal, Vol. 62, No. 3. (Autumn, 2003), pp. 75

[3] Dora Apel. “Picturing the Vanished/Transgressing the Present.” Memory Effects. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2002. pp 49.

[4] Ibid. 57.

[5] Shimon Attie. “The Writing on the Wall, Berlin, 1992-93: Projections in Berlin's Jewish Quarter.” Art Journal, Vol. 62, No. 3. (Autumn, 2003), pp. 75

[6] Berel Lang. Holocaust Representation: Art within the Limits of History and Ethics. Baltimor, MD, USA: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. pp. 119.

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