I am constantly asking myself questions that I investigate and communicate with through visual arts practice. This is one project of many and what is presented here was preceded by approximately three years of experimentation, one of which was undertaken as part of a Practice as Research Doctoral investigation through mainly photographic practice into relationships with land that is understood as sites in a constant state of change, In flux.
There is no doubt that there is much contemporary anxiety about the environment, many questions are being asked about the role of humanity in areas such as climate change and environmental degradation. Many photographers deal with these subjects in their practice. Investigating the ways that this is undertaken and subsequently framed by critics and theorists, I detected what I see as an underlying question that is not being addressed, fundamentally, how do we understand the environment as we encounter it in our everyday lives? How does the individual perceive and relate to the environment, to land? This relationship became, in this project, a question of what are the perceptual mechanisms of experiencing land.
Key to this is understanding is the formation of connections to land that are developmental processes, constantly occurring through time. Increasingly contemporary life styles do not allow for these processes, as lives are lived away from the land, in built environments, inside and through the screen in various forms. Direct engagement is relegated to leisure time, when all to often the individual is a visitor, an outside observer, rather than one who engages in the environment through action on a regular basis.
Land is not static, except when considered cartographically, as a point on a map, but is constantly changing. The individuals inhabiting it are also changing, moving temporally and spatially in the course of increasingly multi-centred lives. Human and non-human life, the animate and the inanimate, all impact on land and our understanding of it in a complex matrix of interactions, all that form the essences of place and space.
This research began by investigating the terms place and space in the work of cultural geographers, principally Tuan and Massey but also the work of the archaeologist Tilley. This progressed to a grounding in the philosophy of phenomenology, through Husserl and Bergson to Merleau-Ponty, in an investigation of the mechanisms of perception as it relates to the environment as a temporal experience and the interpretation of it through photography and visual art. This, in turn has led to current interests in the view of relationships to the environment from an anthropological perspective drawing on the work of Ingold and of perception from a psychological perspective in the work of Arnheim. There are many other influences and sources in this research, that is ongoing.
The purpose here in the context of this blog is not to present this background research, this is being dealt with elsewhere, but to present and discuss the practice that arises from and interacts with ideas and contextual research. It will on occasion discuss ideas drawn from research, particularly how it has formed and influenced the strategies of creative processes.
Key to this is understanding is the formation of connections to land that are developmental processes, constantly occurring through time. Increasingly contemporary life styles do not allow for these processes, as lives are lived away from the land, in built environments, inside and through the screen in various forms. Direct engagement is relegated to leisure time, when all to often the individual is a visitor, an outside observer, rather than one who engages in the environment through action on a regular basis.
Land is not static, except when considered cartographically, as a point on a map, but is constantly changing. The individuals inhabiting it are also changing, moving temporally and spatially in the course of increasingly multi-centred lives. Human and non-human life, the animate and the inanimate, all impact on land and our understanding of it in a complex matrix of interactions, all that form the essences of place and space.
This research began by investigating the terms place and space in the work of cultural geographers, principally Tuan and Massey but also the work of the archaeologist Tilley. This progressed to a grounding in the philosophy of phenomenology, through Husserl and Bergson to Merleau-Ponty, in an investigation of the mechanisms of perception as it relates to the environment as a temporal experience and the interpretation of it through photography and visual art. This, in turn has led to current interests in the view of relationships to the environment from an anthropological perspective drawing on the work of Ingold and of perception from a psychological perspective in the work of Arnheim. There are many other influences and sources in this research, that is ongoing.
The purpose here in the context of this blog is not to present this background research, this is being dealt with elsewhere, but to present and discuss the practice that arises from and interacts with ideas and contextual research. It will on occasion discuss ideas drawn from research, particularly how it has formed and influenced the strategies of creative processes.
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| Tree-fall #1 Version #1 |
The Strategy
The principal questions on embarking on in this project is what kind of environment should be considered? and how is the practice structured?
After investigating various types of marginal sites I fixed upon the woodland, forest, or copse, as my areas of interest. These sites are simultaneously natural and cultural environments, with many resonances in European (and other) cultures as a primordial space, suitable to this project as a site to investigate the experiences and mechanisms of perception over time, both as a dynamic and changing environment where many forms of interactions occur and as a landscape with rich cultural resonances within a wide temporal heritage.
My strategy is to investigate a number of sites, reflecting our multi-centred lives, and to re-visit them, photographing elements of change that are encountered, often repeatedly. These are also sites of experimentation where ideas and subsequent techniques are investigated practically. The central method involves the gathering of many individual photographs of a single scene (sometimes over 200), observed from a static position that are then digitally com-posited using automated and manual techniques within commercially available photographic software.
The work began with seamless uninterrupted scenes where the process of construction was not made apparent. They do not conform to usual photographic depiction as often the entire picture plane is in focus. As this practice proceeded the I decided to make this construction apparent. The results have disconcerting breaks, distortions and tonal variations that are not apparent in single exposures. My intention was to move away from a sense of the transparency of a photograph to gaze in on another world. I wished to bring the making process into view within the work, with it my own presence as maker and perciever. For this process of making in land alters my perception of it. I am not in the same state when I start making as when I finish. My position in the environment is changed, I emerge in a state of hightened awareness. I realised that undertaking processes in land makes me a being within it, where my own identity is inextricably tied to the environment I inhabit. I become connected to land.
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| Tree-fall #1 Version #2 |
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