OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Van Heerden, Etienne"

Browsing by Author "Van Heerden, Etienne"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 20

Open Access
By hotter winds : the road to Samarkand
(2014) Tait, Brian; Fox, Justin; Van Heerden, Etienne
We decided to go to Samarkand. Why Samarkand? No-one was certain, but it sounded exotic, and that was good enough for the four of us. We packed up our lives in London, bought a hardy vehicle, learnt some Russian, obtained letters of invitation from ministries of the interior, and set off. Along the way we ran into some trouble: treason in Croatia; psychosis in Serbia; sedition in Azerbaijan; starvation on the Caspian. And we weren’t even in Central Asia yet. We still had to negotiate desert roads and traverse the Pamir Highway, second-highest in the world. Before reaching Samarkand we’d have lost ten kilogrammes each, seen a hundred busts of Lenin and been harried by a thousand officious border guards and ex-KGB policemen. We discovered a region that is as beautiful as it is mystifying. Stranded ideologically between the Kremlin and the Koran, Central Asia is a baffling league of rival states. Held together loosely by the accident of geography and a common hatred for Russia, the alliance goes no further than that. Turkmen oil and gas merchants, Uzbek nationalists, Kyrgyz mountain folk and Tajik peasants all live in close and unfriendly proximity. Stalin pencilled in their borders on a whim, and with the fall of communism in 1989, many were left stranded, minorities under foreign rule. This is the world of Robert Byron, Colin Thubron, Fitzroy MacLean and Marco Polo; the Samarkand of Omar Khayyam, Timur the Lame, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan; the fantasy of Christopher Marlowe, Edgar Allan Poe, Wole Soyinka and James Elroy Flecker. We wanted to see the land and its people through their eyes, but also through our own. Our journey took us through a land of extremes: over the snowy peaks of the Hindu Kush and through the parched Karakum Desert; across the ancient Amu- and Syr-Darya Rivers, known in the West as the Oxus and Jaxaertes; and ultimately to our destination – the great Silk Road capitals of Bukhara and Samarkand. The last, sad caravanserai had made their final journeys from the turquoise gates many years ago. What would the cities be like now? When the journey was over, and I’d experienced the road to Samarkand for myself, I put my version of it in writing. By Hotter Winds captures the exhilaration and tedium of travel and the shared experience of a journey by car. At the same time it offers narrow glimpses into the history of the faded Silk Road, its cities and its people.
Open Access
The Convert
(2014) Dyer, Dorothy; Van Heerden, Etienne
Open Access
Die advertensie
(2016) Muller, Frederick Johannes; Van Heerden, Etienne
"When does a language die?" This question leads to the central, overarching theme explored in the novel. The protagonist is a naive twenty-something who runs a boutique advertising agency in the bustling heart of Cape Town. As a published author he has a passion for Afrikaans literature but he knows that due to the socio-economic climate of the current postapartheid South Africa, making a career out of his passion, is futile. It is this reality that is investigated in the text, posing a secondary question: Can a passionate, gifted individual follow his or her artistic ambitions in South Africa's current socio-economic environment? The story unfolds with a car crash that leaves the protagonist paralyzed and dying in the middle of nowhere. With this scene, the protagonist becomes a metaphor for the Afrikaans language - a language paralyzed by its historical baggage, dying in the middle of nowhere (the southern tip of Africa). The protagonist also represents the passionate, young artists and writers who naively dream of achieving artistic success and saving the language. A young girl stumbles upon the lead character in this deserted landscape (almost as one would stumble upon a new piece of literature). The girl's father is "out of town", and therefore can't help. So, she tries to save him herself, giving him nourishment and accompaniment. The missing father figure, or more specifically, the missing leader figure, is also fundamental to the theme. It intensifies the concept that the burden is upon the younger generation to save themselves, their language and their culture. The plot of the novel drives this theme. The protagonist is given the chance to save himself, his family and his language - everything he holds dear - by an opportunity created by a business tycoon. This character is depicted as the quintessential leader figure. He has the desire to create a long-lasting legacy by saving the language and he has the financial means to see it through. He briefs the protagonist as well as other agencies to conceptualize a marketing campaign that will ensure the survival of the Afrikaans language for generations to come. In the final chapter, the protagonist dies, not being able to save himself, his family, or his language. The young girl that discovered him, now buries him with his notebook (which is filled with his literary writings sporadically featured throughout the text). The metaphor is thus that as he (the young, passionate writer) dies, the language dies. The theme's crescendo is reached in the final three sentences of the novel, where it is professed that the Afrikaans language will not die some unforeseeable time in the future, but that the language is in fact already dead. And there is nothing the passionate, naive young artists can do to save it. By dying, the protagonist himself becomes the concept of his marketing campaign. He becomes the billboard, the advertisement (Die Advertensie), for a language that cannot be saved.
Open Access
Die karnavalisering van die geskiedskrywing in die roman Sirkusboere
(2014) Barnes, Marsha Bernely Luané; Van Heerden, Etienne
This study focuses on Sonja Loots's novel Sirkusboere (2011) as carnivalesque text and metahistorical novel. Emphasis is placed on the carnivalesque discourse and how various aspects of the the carnivalesque are used to debunk a conventional approach to historiography. The problematisation of historiography has become a prominent discussion over recent decades in Afrikaans literature. The emphasis which the novel places on historiography makes it especially relevant in a modern literary context. Sirkusboere brings to light various aspects of historiography by recreating and retelling certain historical events in a satirical manner. The novel tells the story of the military circus show which took place in St. Louis (America) in 1904 and was based on battles fought during the South African War (1899-1902). The novel also focuses on the colonial history of South Africa but it highlights the history of the South African War. A primary aspect which is emphasized in Sirkusboere is the grotesque and satirical manner in which historical events pertaining to the war are recreated and retold and especially the manner in which history is 'carnivalised.' In this study various aspects of the carnivalesque such as the grotesque, satire, parody, the circus and the carnival are emphasised and discussed. Further emphasis is placed on the extent to which these carnivalesque aspects are used to debunk conventional ideas concerning historiography and the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, as well as more recent theorists, are used to elaborate on the carnivalesque. Sirkusboere contributes to the carnivalesque discourse and with its carnivalesque approach, it offers a unique way of viewing historiography. :: Opsomming: Hierdie studie fokus op Sonja Loots se roman Sirkusboere (2011) as karnavalesketeks en as metahistoriese roman. Aandag word hoofsaaklik gewy aan die karnavaleske en hoe verskeie aspekte van die karnavaleskediskoers gebruik word om 'n konvensionele benadering tot geskiedskrywing te ontluister. Die problematiek van geskiedskrywing het 'n prominente fokuspunt in Afrikaanse literatuur oor die afgelope dekades geword. Die fokus op geskiedskrywing maak die roman dus relevant binne 'n moderne literêre klimaat. Sirkusboere bring verskillende aspekte van geskiedskrywing onder die soeklig deurdat dit gebeure uit die verlede op 'n satiriese wyse herskep. Die roman handel oor die militêre skouspel wat in St. Louis (Amerika) in 1904 opgevoer is. Die skouspel was gebaseer op verskeie veldslae wat tydens die Suid-Afrikaanse oorlog (1899-1902) plaasgevind het. Die roman fokus ook op die koloniale geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika, maar dit beklemtoon die geskiedenis van die Suid-Afrikaanse oorlog. 'n Hoofaspek wat in Sirkusboere uitgelig word is die groteske en satiriese wyse waarop oorlogsgebeure deur sirkusvertonings herskep en uitgebeeld word en daarbenewens die wyse waarop die verlede 'gekarnavaliseer' word. Derhalwe word verskeie aspekte van die karnavaleske soos die groteske, satire, parodie, die sirkus en die karnaval uitgelig en in diepte bespreek. Daarbenewens word ook uitgebrei oor die mate waartoe hierdie aspekte van die karnavaleske in Sirkusboere gebruik word om kommentaar op geskiedskrywing te lewer. Die problematiek van geskiedskrywing, wat sentraal in die roman staan, word dus deur die lens van die karnavaleskediskoers benader. Die werk van Mikhail Bakhtin, asook resente teoretici, word gebruik om uit te brei oor die karnavaleske. Sirkusboere voed die karnavaleskediskoers en met die karnavaleske inslag, bied dit 'n unieke manier om geskiedskrywing te benader.
Open Access
Featherstream
(2016) Sutherland, Ian; Van Heerden, Etienne
Featherstream is a romantic suspense novel set at the southernmost tip of Africa during the Second World War. Returning to her father's farm at Cape Agulhas for the university holidays, Anna van der Vliet stumbles on a clandestine operation to provision enemy U-boats. Her dilemma of whether to betray family or country is further complicated when she falls in love with German naval commander Thomas von Eisenheim. Anna goes on to uncover a plot by Nazi Germany and the right-wing Ossewabrandwag organisation to blow up the Union's parliament buildings and install a pro-German Afrikaner government. The novel's landscape ranges from the remote fynbos plains of Agulhas in the Southern Cape, through the Moravian hamlet of Elim to Cape Town. Based on extensive historical research, it explores the deep ideological tensions in South Africa between supporters of the pro-war government of General Jan Smuts and Doctor Daniel Malan's Purified National Party, which were mirrored in communities and families across South Africa. The driving force of the story is a young woman's struggle to reconcile divided loyalties and emerge from the emotional stranglehold of her overbearing father.
Open Access
In the stars
(2013) Stewart, Chantal Juanita Michelle; Van Heerden, Etienne
This is a book about the nature of reality and the illusions we embrace to smooth our paths through the vagaries of life in an uncertain world. It is about the dichotomies which exist in life and how our perceptions of life define our realities. It uses the stars, moon and sky as a tool to explore these differences by counterpoising the two main characters as having different views of the same subject. Thus Gabriel is an astronomer with a rational scientific approach to the universe while Lena, though brought up in a scientific tradition, has, through her experiences and personality, learnt to question this approach and developed a more aesthetic and mythological approach to the universe. While this is explored in the tensions between her and Gabriel, her own reality is questioned through her interaction with Kingston Ingovazana Mabilu. Although she is drawn to his philosophical views on life, in the end she has misgivings about the extremes to which these beliefs will eventually take her and is unable to commit to cultural beliefs which are so different from her own. The different perceptions are also explored in relation to ideas about health, medicine, causes of illness and their treatments. This brings into opposition the two prevalent paradigms in Southern Africa of the Western medical view and the alternative traditional view. The book tries to demonstrate how these are both valid with the characters showing justifications for their own points of view. Finally, the relationship between Lena and Gabriel focuses on the delicate fragility of relationships between people, in their attempts to understand each other, to communicate, to trust and to truly know each other. In the end, these challenges may be insurmountable. The themes of the book were inspired by the everyday dichotomies of life in Southern Africa; the different languages, religions and world views. It seemed important to explore issues of life and death, health and illness, particularly in a country where, less than a decade ago, the president of the country declared that HIV was not caused by a virus. The constructs of madness also warranted elucidation, as different cultures view these behaviours very differently. The second theme of astronomy versus mythology of the universe was inspired in part by Ben Okri in Starbook and The Famished Road, where magical realism opens up new ideas about the nature of reality in an African context. I also noted the tension between these ideas and the advanced technology of the Square Kilometre Array to be developed in South Africa. The book merely hints at the political past of South Africa but concentrates on the present paradigm of differing beliefs.
Open Access
Leila word lig
(2003) Paul, Chanette; Van Heerden, Etienne
Open Access
Maal
(2009) Strauss, Nicole; Van Heerden, Etienne
Maal, a collection of short stories, addresses the displacement and state of being of individuals in different cities in Africa and Europe. These individuals often experience nutrition and food as a metaphor of psychological angst, loneliness or consolation. Food is invoked in the title as it can be seen in the actions of, for instance, a character using intravenous drugs, a character literally eating earth, or a character not being able to eat at all. On the other hand, food in its many sophisticated forms can be found in the upper class spaces of Cape Town, Paris, Zurich and other cities, whilst elsewhere it is tellingly absent. It is further investigated as a ritual - both in a familial and social sense - and as a forming and shaping force in the characters' lives, often paradoxically. Maal also refers to the way in which these characters are hurled about by their own existence, by experiences of migration, illness, family intrigue and death. Therefore life becomes a meal and characters themselves are being eaten and ground.
Open Access
'n Klein lewe
(2011) Adriaanse, Wilhelmina; Van Heerden, Etienne
The retrospective story of a white middle-aged woman in South Africa born in the late 1950s, the novel traces, amongst other things, the development of her political consciousness from her early years as the daughter of a farmer in the Kalahari. Being a so-called 'little history' the story relates her exposure to other races during a time of strict division, important incidents such as a visit by the notorious Hendrik Verwoerd, the deaths of family members, a move to the Western Cape and the effects of growing up in a sternly Nationalist and Calvinistic household. The novel strives to portray the life of a woman locked into the constraints of a society burdened with restrictions, but who always keeps a keen and wary eye on 'homeland' policies, the expat generation, motherhood and life in Africa, etc., always filtered through the precarious discourse of whiteness.
Open Access
n Ondersoek na die invloed van rekenaar-bemiddelde kommunikasie op Afrikaans met verwysing na internasionale gevallestudies
(2005) Brunette, Christiaan; Van Heerden, Etienne
This study considers a range of literature resulting from research in non-English computer-mediated communication and compares the findings with observations of Afrikaans computer-mediated communication. Case studies in Arabic, Japanese, Swiss, Catalan, Greek and Portuguese computer-mediated communication are drawn upon to determine broad characteristics of non-English computer-mediated communication. Examples of Afrikaans computer-mediated communication, sourced from several synchronous and asynchronous digital environments, are then compared to these general characteristics. The study concludes with a proposed set of general characteristics of Afrikaans computer-mediated communication.
Open Access
n Postmodernistiese verkenning van LitNet se meningsruimte, SêNet, van die tydperk Januarie 1999 tot Oktober 2001
(2002) Maartens, Naomi; Van Heerden, Etienne
The researcher of this thesis reflects upon and analyses the nature and essence of a phenomenon within the context of the South African website environment: a socioliterary online discussion room reflecting the linguistics, the language and the thought processes of the postmodernism. As webmaster of the SÃªNet (http://www.mweb.co.zallitnet/senet) website - the online discussion group of the website LitNet (http://www.mweb.co.zallitnet) - the researcher examines the character and nature of this website within the context of the World Wide Web.
Open Access
Padmaker
(2008) Le Roux, Cornelia Christina; Van Heerden, Etienne
This novel narrates the lives of the white working class in the years following 1950. It is a fictionalised autobiography which, as an ego document, narrates the experiences of a family of "padmakers" (road builders). These blue-collar workers built and maintained South Africa's roads in the years between 1951 and 1980 and lived transient lives, moving from town to town, unsettling their families. The author, being the child of one such a family, researched the craft of road building extensively and brings to the story the textures and living conditions of the nomadic, marginalized existences of families in the road camps of those years. The protagonist in the novel is an adult woman journeying through the countryside, researching her past, worrying about the veracity of memory, and trying to understand her own childhood trauma within her family. She remembers her father as the hardworking, approachable parent in whom she found comfort and solace. Despite his own burdens - especially an accident in which a child was killed with a road grader ~ he tried to lighten the household where his dysfunctional wife ruled. During her journey - both literal and figurative - the protagonist learns about the destructive and complicated condition - Munchaussen Syndrome - her mother had always suffered from. Learning more and more about herself and discovering the past and the influence it had on her as an adult, the protagonist comes to an understanding of her mother.
Open Access
Split
(2014) Loots, Debbie; Van Heerden, Etienne
Set in the seventies and eighties of Apartheid South Africa, Split tells the story of a middleclass Afrikaans family who –driven by disillusionment and unrealised personal ideals - frequently move house to start afresh somewhere else. In the process, both the family’s mother and father end up with a new spouse or partner. Not only does this result in physical excursions to new places, it invariably leads to a journey fraught with disappointment and unrequited dreams. All while the seething political realities of their country, itself struggling for emancipation, are safely tucked away in the shadows. The main focus of the story, divided into two parts, is the separate efforts of Vera and her daughter, Lien, to uproot entrenched traditions and forge fresh paths for themselves in a patriarchal society. The first part tells Vera’s story; a young wife and mother of three who, due to her husband’s numerous love affairs, has become distrustful of men, emotionally guarded, and disinterested in her environment. She finds short 5In the seventies and eighties, due to sanctions and stringent laws, South Africans got their cultural fix in small and censored jabs. Throughout the novel, selective examples of musical influences are used to illustrate division: between a country and the rest of the world, the difference between local and foreign contemporary music in the seventies, which made way, in the eighties, for a blossoming, not only in Afrikaans music, through the Voëlvry phenomenon but also in the written word, like the Vrye Weekblad newspaper. The raw and charged lyrics of the angry musicians taking part in Voëlvry, became the anthems of a youth culture lost in transition, waiting for their captain, hungry for emancipation. So the beginning of a new wave in Afrikaans music was initiated. While the country slowly dragged its heels towards democracy, its people, like the family in the novel, are forever trying to find a new place to call home.-lived solace in the arms of her neighbour, but this leaves her guilt-ridden and she blames her sexual wrongdoing on the infiltration of the very foreign literature she found liberating at first. And so, Vera runs back into the arms of the devil she knows. Part two shows Lien’s struggle to break free from her apparent imminent destiny: her fight against perpetuating her family’s female legacy of jumping into a shot-gun marriage at 18, and her wish to study art. Searching for identity and acceptance in a new world, the city of Johannesburg, Lien becomes her own worst enemy when she falls into promiscuity and eventually looks to be saved. She learns though, that she has to free herself. The decisions confronting her to win that freedom, and the split she has to enforce, proves to be the most difficult in her life.
Open Access
Stinkafrikaners : romanteks en besinning
(1999) Dreyer, Tom; Van Heerden, Etienne
Open Access
Stoornis
(2001) Bennett, Nerina; Van Heerden, Etienne
The main purpose of this dissertation was to create a series of short stories based on a feminine point of view. STOORNIS, a collection of eighteen widely diverse stories, concentrates on making women the focal point in a diverse discourse and thematic register. The emphasis is placed on the role of esotericism (compare NAKENNIS and DIE BESOEKER), the influence of modern technology and computers (DIE MEESTER and STAATSGREEP), the juxtaposition of criminal modus operandi and the creative muses (BLOEDGELD and DIE SMOKKELROETE), the role of women in a military environment (MYNVELD and DIE GENERAAL EN DIE SIENER) as well as the occurrence of psychological aberration in women (LeERS and STOORNIS). Many facets of women's sexual identity, such as abortion (DIE SLAGDING) and lesbianism (WAG OP DIE KONINGIN), are scrutinized. No formal distinction was made between theory and criticism in the feminist discussion of STOORNIS. Theory and criticism were mutually regenerated and applied in the individual texts. Based on an assumption, the main point of feminism centres around the destruction of the phallus: through decontruction, men in the texts are "unmasked" on many levels. Theoretical feminist terms, such as stereotyping, prejudice, patriarchalism, sexism, chauvinism, phallocentrism and androcentrism were used to execute the "unmasking" process. · Through the use of metaphoric destruction of the phallus it was attempted to deconstruct the authorative manipulation of men (which women are succumb to) and to strive towards a reconciliation process between man and woman, in other words, the androgynous ideal of feminism.
Open Access
Sweisbril
(1999) Botha, Jaco; Van Heerden, Etienne
In Sweisbril het ons te make met die middelklas en submiddelklas wereld van die voorstede onder andere Springs, Vereeniging en Kroonstad: die fisiek en geestelik gestroopte wereld van scrapyards, Seven Elevens, karavaanparke en plotte. Die karakters is onteiendes, sukkelaars en dromers; haarkappers, petroljoggies, bankklerke, ensovoorts. Algar produkte van hul omstandighede, gelyktydig slagoffers en slagters; in hierdie wereld is daar geen ware good guys of bad guys nie. Die optrede van die karakters is bloot simptomaties van iets wat veel dieper strek as wat hulle self besef, iets wat ontstellend en onherstelbaar is: 'n onhoudbare uitsigloosheid, waarteen blink planne, vol whisky-flesse en selfs 'n sweisbril maar min verweer bied.
Open Access
Tyd as struktuurelement in speur- en misdaadfiksie met spesifieke verwysing na drie tekste deur Deon Meyer
(2013) Head, Pepler; Van Heerden, Etienne
This study explores the structure of crime and detective fiction. It takes the view that certain texts do not adopt either form specifically, but often adopts a combination thereof. It looks at the role which time plays in the structure of these forms by examining the time strategies that are present therein. Attention is given to the criteria used to distinguish the two forms from each other as well as how time manipulation differs between the forms. Deon Meyer’s novels 13 Uur, Infanta and Orion are analysed as example texts to establish whether the use of time is sophisticated enough to merit crime fiction, detective fiction and the combination text as a worthy field of study. The analysis looks at 13 Uur as detective fiction, Infanta as crime fiction and Orion as a combined text to show the integral part that time plays in crime and detective fiction. What this study demonstrates is that the thread of time is deeply rooted in the puzzle that is present in crime and detective fiction. The complex time strategies that Meyer makes use of, demonstrates that the proses of constructing and telling this puzzle is not a simple one, and is therefore worthy of being researched.
Open Access
Valsbaai
(2013) Jacobs, Monica; Van Heerden, Etienne
Open Access
Wonderboom
(2014) Smith, Maria Elizabeth; Van Heerden, Etienne
Wonderboom (Wondertree) could be considered as a dystopic novel that takes place in a post-apocalyptic era within the South African landscape. It is the time of disillusioned citizens and access to most resources is limited, except for the plutocrats. The result is that the division between the haves and have-nots is more severe than ever before and is particularly evident along the fringes of society. The protagonist, Magriet Vos, is a fifty-year-old violinist whose memory is disintegrating. Due to the fact that she is a regular performer at the ‘court’ of the despotic ruler Albino X, her impending mental incompetence pitches her at a knife’s edge, because when she will no longer be able to master her art, Albino X will have her killed and dispatched to the taxidermist in order to extend his diorama. Further to this, she has virtually no friends or relatives left in the coastal village where she lives, and she is thus compelled to migrate north, back to the Magaliesberg and the last members of her clan. Vos raids her past in a desperate attempt to survive the post-revolutionary wasteland in the hope of arriving ‘home’ safely. The text fluctuates between the territory of memoir and travelogue as the journey progresses and her sense of consciousness starts to dissipate. Aspects of her musical craft, such as rhythm, tone and tempo are synthesised in the structure of the novel. Further to this, careful consideration was given to references to existing texts by particular authors, serving the purpose of either parody or elegy. Vos’ journey commences in Betty’s Bay on the southern coast of South Africa and unfolds through four voices or perspectives: - The main narrator (illuminating the idiosyncratic viewpoint of Magriet Vos) - Magriet’s diary (memoir) - Encyclopedia (endnotes) - Disintegrating photo texts: a series of constructions/collages, which serves as introduction to each chapter and refers to the ‘image sequence’ of the British photographer Eadweard James Muybridge (1830-1904) and which is here applied as dismantling device to allow text and image to dovetail. The tree serves as central metaphor − both as axis in nature and as archaic source of ‘knowledge of good and evil.’
Open Access
Wonderboom
(2014) Botha, Lien; Van Heerden, Etienne
Wonderboom (Wondertree) could be considered as a dystopic novel that takes place in a post-apocalyptic era within the South African landscape. It is the time of disillusioned citizens and access to most resources is limited, except for the plutocrats. The result is that the division between the haves and have-nots is more severe than ever before and is particularly evident along the fringes of society. The protagonist, Magriet Vos, is a fifty-year-old violinist whose memory is disintegrating. Due to the fact that she is a regular performer at the ‘court’ of the despotic ruler Albino X, her impending mental incompetence pitches her at a knife’s edge, because when she will no longer be able to master her art, Albino X will have her killed and dispatched to the taxidermist in order to extend his diorama. Further to this, she has virtually no friends or relatives left in the coastal village where she lives, and she is thus compelled to migrate north, back to the Magaliesberg and the last members of her clan. Vos raids her past in a desperate attempt to survive the post-revolutionary wasteland in the hope of arriving ‘home’ safely. The text fluctuates between the territory of memoir and travelogue as the journey progresses and her sense of consciousness starts to dissipate. Aspects of her musical craft, such as rhythm, tone and tempo are synthesised in the structure of the novel. Further to this, careful consideration was given to references to existing texts by particular authors, serving the purpose of either parody or elegy. Vos’ journey commences in Betty’s Bay on the southern coast of South Africa and unfolds through four voices or perspectives: - The main narrator (illuminating the idiosyncratic viewpoint of Magriet Vos) - Magriet’s diary (memoir) - Encyclopedia (endnotes) - Disintegrating photo texts: a series of constructions/collages, which serves as introduction to each chapter and refers to the ‘image sequence’ of the British photographer Eadweard James Muybridge (1830-1904) and which is here applied as dismantling device to allow text and image to dovetail. The tree serves as central metaphor − both as axis in nature and as archaic source of ‘knowledge of good and evil.’