Editing Robert Smithson (section)

====Non-sites====
In 1967 Smithson began exploring industrial areas around New Jersey and was fascinated by the sight of [[dump truck]]s excavating tons of earth and rock that he described in an essay as the equivalents of the monuments of antiquity.<ref name="writings" /> This resulted in the series of 'non-sites' in which earth and rocks collected from a specific area are installed in the gallery as sculptures, often combined with mirrors or glass. Works from this period include ''Eight-Part Piece (Cayuga Salt Mine Project)'' (1969) and ''Map of Broken Clear Glass (Atlantis)'' (1969).<ref name="Hobbs" /> In September 1968, Smithson published the essay "A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects" in ''Artforum'' that promoted the work of the first wave of [[land art]] artists, and in 1969 he began producing land art pieces to further explore concepts gained from his readings of [[William S. Burroughs]], [[J. G. Ballard]], and [[George Kubler]].<ref name="writings" /> The journeys he undertook were central to his practice as an artist, and his non-site sculptures often included maps and aerial photos of a particular location, as well as the geological artifacts displaced from those sites.<ref name="Roberts">{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=Jennifer L. |title=Mirror Travels: Robert Smithson and History |date=2004 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=0-300-09497-3}}</ref><ref name="writings" /> Of these travels, several on-site works were produced including Mirror Displacements<ref name="Hobbs" /> a series of photographs that illustrated his essay "Incidents of Mirror Travels in the Yucatan" (1969).<ref name="writings" />