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Artforum, Sept 1969

INCIDENTS OF MIRROR-TRAVEL IN THE YUCATAN

ROBERT SMITHSON

Of the Mayan ideas on the forms of the earth we know little. The Aztec thought the crest of the earth was the top of a huge saurian monster, a kind of crocodile,which was the object of a certain cult. It is probable that Mayan had a similar belief, but it is not impossible that at the same time they considered the world to consist of seven compartments, perhaps stepped as four layers.
-J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic Writing

The characteristic feature of the savage mind is its timeless: its object is to grasp the world as both a synchronic and diachronic totality and the knowledge which it draws therefrom is like that afforded of a room by mirrors fixed on opposite walls, which reflect each other (as well as objects in the intervening space) Although without being strictly parallel.
-Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind

Driving away from Merida down Highway 261 one becomes aware of the indifferent horizon. Quite apathetically it rests on the ground devouring everything that looks like something. One is always crossing the horizon, yet it always remains distant. In this line where sky meets earth, objects cease to exist. Since the car was at all times on the some leftover horizon, one might say that the car was imprisoned in a line, a line that is in no way linear. The distance seemed to put restrictions on all forward movement, thus bringing the car to a countless series of standstills. How could one advanced on the horizon, if it was already present under the wheels? A horizon is something else other than a horizon; it is closedness in openess, it is an enchanted region where down is up. Space can be approached, but time is far away. Time is devoid of objects when one displaces all destinations. The car kept going on the same horizon.
Looking down on the map (it was all there), a tangled network of horizon lines on paper called "roads," some red, some black. Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, Chiapas and Guatemala congealed into a mass of gaps,, points, and little blue threads (called rivers). The map legend contained signs in a neat row: archeological monuments (black), colonial monuments (black), historical site (black), bathing resort (blue), spa (red), hunting (green), fishing (blue), arts and crafts (green), aquatic sports (blue), national park (green), service station (yellow). On the map of Mexico they were scattered like droppings of some small animal.
The Tourist Guide and Directory of Yucatan-Campeche rested on the car seat. On its cover was a crude drawings depicting the Spaniards meeting the Mayans, in the background was the temple of Chichen Itza. On the top left-hand corner was printed "'UY UIAN AKIN PECH' (listen how they talk) -EXCLAIMED THE MAYANS ON HEARING THE SPANISH LANGUAGE," and in the bottom left-hand corner "'YUCATAN CAMPECHE'-REPEATED THE SPANIARDS WHEN THEY HEARD THESE WORDS." A caption under all this said "Mayan and Spanish First Meeting 1517." In the "Official Guide" to Uxmal, Fig.28 shows 27 little drawings of "Pottery Found at Uxmal." The shading on each pot consists of countless dots. Interest in such pots began to wane. The steady hiss of the air-conditioner in the rented Dodge Dart might

[[image of a map]]
Vicinities of the Nine Mirror Displacements

have been the voice of Eecath - the god of thought and wind. Wayward thoughts blew around the car, wind blew over the scrub bushes outside. On the cover of Victor W. Von Hagen's paperback World of the Maya it said, "A history of the Mayas and their resplendent civilization that grew out of the jungles and wastelands of Central America." In the rear-view mirror appeared Tezcatlipoca – demiurge of the "smoking-mirror." All those guide books are of no use," said Tezcarlipoca. "You must travel at random, like the first Mayans, you risk getting lost in the thickets, but that is the only way to make art."
Through the windshield the road stabbed the horizon, causing it to bleed a sunny incandescence. One couldn't help feeling that this was a ride on a knife covered with solar blood. As it cut into the horizon a disruption took place. The tranquil drive became a sacrifice of matter that led to a discontinuous state of being, a world of quiet delirium lost sitting there brought one into the wound of a terrestrial victim. This peaceful war between the elements is ever present in Mexico - an echo, perhaps, of the Aztec, and Mayan human sacrifices.
The First Mirror Displacement:
Somewhere between Uman and Muna is a charred site. The people in this region clear land by burning it out. One this field of ashes (called by the natives a "milpa") twelve mirrors were cantilevered into low mounds of red soil. Each mirror was twelve inches square, and supported from above and below by the scorched earth alone. The distribution of the squares followed the irregular contours on the ground, and they were placed in a random parallel direction. Bits of earth spilled onto the surfaces, thus sabotaging the perfect reflections of the sky. Dirt hung in the sultry sky. Bits of blazing cloud mixed with ashy mass. The displacement was in the ground, not on it. Burnt tree stumps spread around the mirrors and vanished into the arid jungles.
The Second Mirror Displacement:
In a suburb of Uxmal, which is to say nowhere the second displacement was deployed. What appeared to be a shallow quarry was dug into the ground to a depth of about four to five feet, exposing a bright red clay mixed with white limestone fragments. Near a small cliff the twelve mirrors were stuck into clods of earth. It was photographed from the top of the cliff. Again Tezcatlipoca spoke, "That camera is a portable tomb, you must remember that". On this same site, the Great Ice Cap of Gondwanaland was constructed according to a map outline on page 459 of Marshall Kay's and Edwin H. Colbert's Stratigraphy and Life History. It was an "earth-map" made of white limestone. A bit of the Carboniferous period is now installed near Uxmal. That great age of calcium carbonate seemed a fitting offering for a land so rich in limestone. Reconstructing a land mass that existed 350 to 305 million years ago on a terrain once controlled by sundry Mayan gods caused a collision in time that left one with a sense of the timeless.
Timelessness is found in the lapsed moments of perception, in the common pause that breaks apart into a sandstorm of pauses. The malady of wanting to "make" is unmade, and the malady of wanting to be "able" is disabled. Gondwanaland is a kind of memory, yet it is not a memory, it is but an incognito land mass that ha been unthought about and turned into a Map of Impasse. You cannot visit Gondawanaland, but you can visit a "map" of it.
The Third Mirror Displacement:
The road went through butterfly swarms. Near Blonchen de Rejon thousands of yellow, white and black swallowtail butterflies flew past the car.