“... The World Was Becoming Numerical”
Susanne Leeb
►http://www.meltonpriorinstitut.org/pages/textarchive.php5?view=text&ID=103&language=English
The essay is part of the comprehensive project documentation “Dierk Schmidt: The Division of the Earth - Tableaux on the Legal Synopses of the Berlin Africa Conference.” Edited by Lotte Arndt, Clemens Krümmel, Dierk Schmidt, Hemma Schmutz, Diethelm Stoller, Ulf Wuggenig, Cologne 2010.
Dierk Schmidt’s series Teilung der Erde (The Division of the Earth) is defined by a visual paradigm that combines a modernist surface quality and cartographic forms of representation. The works show what they are: the floor plan of Palais Radziwill in Berlin, where the so-called “Africa Conference” took place, a map of the Congo turned 90 degrees, the floor plan of a Namibian ceremonial site or assembly grounds, a kind of unofficial Herero parliament, with footsteps marking out a political ceremony; a diagram explaining the legal steps of the Herero reparations case; and not least a white surface with writing placed upon it: a letter.
