No Reference Land

Ellen Johannesen writes the following about No Reference Land on her webpage:

"The lack of references to my own culture made it an interesting as well as lonely experience: Perhaps I could compare it to awakening with a loss of memory in the regard that everything felt right and very meaningful. I loved this place and these people. They felt so wondrously familiar and easy to interact with, as if we had known each other for a long time. At the same time everything was unknown: There was nothing in the visual culture I could recognise. I found myself in a most ritually oriented culture, in which correct behaviour and respect were incredibly important – and I didn’t know the rules. No one could, in an understandable manner, explain me how the language worked, and I soon discovered that the language did not follow rules the way I wanted it to. If I asked what was right, I always got different answers!

In addition the language was physically difficult to pronounce, and the sounds were hard to separate. I was illiterate; I had to learn letter for letter, to repeat sounds over and over, write the alphabet in my prettiest handwriting again and again, until my teacher was satisfied. I stopped looking for the recognisable and for non-existing rules. I had to get on the inside of this; had to find out how they thought, regarded time, and estimated a situation, to understand how they expressed themselves."

Ellen Johannesen has documented her process, in taking notes and writing poems underway, among other things. Ellen Johannesen was inspired by Allen Ginsberg's Indian travel journal, Indian Journals March 1962–May 1963 (1970), and in this process she has been concerned with direct perception and experiences in the moment, without emphasising logic connections.

Sources:

Home - karmaconsult, http://www.karmaconsult.org/, 04.10.2010, http://www.karmaconsult.org/projects.htm

Store norske leksikon, http://snl.no/, 04.10.2010, http://snl.no/Allen_Ginsberg