I found this summary course on the OCA learn course site. It was a useful way or getting back into the program after my 3 month deferral, as well as containing some interesting work by photographers I had not looked at, at least in any detail.
Landscape is a verb (from Mtichell’s Landscape and Power) – it is created by the artist who choses what is seen. Note that landscaping can also be a physical job of work or perhaps a work of art. Rye Harbour is landscaped to create particular habitats.
Robert Adams photographed the land as it became subject to human development. This is also how Faye Godwin approached the landscape at Rye (although her work had a different – describe better? – aesthetic). Adams described 3 varieties – geography, autobiography and metaphor. Later Pantall will consider work by Hamaya Hiroshi examining nature, geography and culture which he relates to Adams…
A map is subjective – the creator decides what to show and how. An expression of power (as a landscape can be). If landscape photography expresses ownership of the land, then the conscious and unconscious replication of previous photographs reinforces this. Rephotography, however, is attempting something different, despite (interestingly) doing the same thing albeit very accurately. It recordischange and draws attention to the forces behind that change – e.g. the repeat photography project, Gary Mcleod survey (could not find this?).
Pantall discusses Bouroissa’s Périphérique – note that this is the Zone – a separating strip between the Parisian fortifications and the Banlieue that became inhabited. Also see Imbrachio’s The Garden re Rome. These are Edge Lands or Third Landscapes.
Borders between these landscapes – English Hedgerows, stone walls, barbed wire fences, … or Sibusiso Bheka’s Stop Nonsense which makes powerful use of colour, which we do not usually notice so much at night since the rods in our eyes which we use for low-light vision do not mediate colour; the night scene hence becomes a magical realism. The images are often staged to try and express an atmosphere for the viewer (as opposed to a literal reality). They convey some of the danger of night although Bheka, still at secondary school when his first series At night they walk with me was shot, explains that he does not photograph late at night as it is too dangerous We are asked “What makes us behave a certain way in that landscape” (Pantall). My final project for Landscape considered this by mowing a line in a field to control behaviour.
The picturesque as between the beautiful and the sublime – Pantall describes the perfect viewpoint often featuring ruins, finding it “absolutely dreadful”. The point about sheep is made (I have also written about this) – that the Lake and Scottish landscapes are not natural but created and maintained by grazing introduced by humans.
Images that affect how the landscape is preserved – I note that at the creation of the National Park those images are what they were trying to keep, so this does make some sense. “The birth of the park marks the death of truly wild nature … because after all once a fragment of wilderness has been designated a park it can’t truly be said to be wilderness any longer” (Andrew Graham-Dixon, Art of America 1 – Looking for Paradise – not currently on iplayer unfortunately). Note the comment as to how these places used to be inhabited so can’t really be considered wilderness anyway…
Pantall asks the question “can you make something meaningful and beautiful”. For me that is the key challenge for photography today. It is not enough to just take pretty pictures – but equally it should be realised that it is not enough to take images just to make a point (excepting perhaps news reporting). The picture should attract the viewer in. And to survive beyond the point it should be able to stand up simply on its visual impact.
Emptiness as power (after Paglan) – O’Sullivan shows no native American settlements, as if they don’t exist, and Paglan explores this as further by looking at military installations that are hidden, off-grid or not mentioned on maps. Photographs made from many miles away (e.g.16,42) of military installations: limit-telephotography using telescopes with lenses 1300mm-7000mm. Paglan notes that he is photographing 42 miles of atmosphere – actually between Earth and Jupiter there is only 5 miles of atmostphere (out of 500 million miles distance). The atmosphere creates the distortion. For me Paglan is an example of a photographer looking at very interesting ideas but often without the aesthetic component.
Mishka Henner’s work is a little more interesting from an aesthetic point of view, finding a way to present some of the 700 feedlots (holding up to 100,000 cattle each) in the U.S. along with their waste sites while still making it look almost like an abstract work of art. Note that using satellite imagery gets around local laws prohibiting access or recording of these places. The question still needs to be asked, however, what does this art achieve? Also, to counter my argument about aesthetic the opposite point could be made that beautifying these structures goes some way to making them more acceptable – although I think on balance my premise holds.
David Maisel – the chemical sublime…e.g. lithium mining in the Atacama desert in Chile. 3g in a smartphone, 70g in a laptop, 20kg in an electric car … only enough in the desert to make 400 million cars … there are 1.45 billion cars worldwide (https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-advice/how-many-cars-are-there-in-the-world-70629). See also work by Cat Hyland. The land will still be there … we might not be ,… Geological time is very different from human time. Immersive vs god’s eye imagery – many questions here
Also see Ester Vonplon: Gletscherfahrt – whose work combines images of the shrouds used to cover glaciers in Switzerland in the summer to try to combat climate change (often these are ripped by the wind or glacial action) with recording of the glacier melting and a requiem score composed to match. The pictures are not traditionally beautiful although they have a certain aesthetic, often verging on the abstract, which is enhanced by the melancholic music to act as a requiem to the planet …
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Pantall, C. (s.d.) Where we look and what we show. (OCA video)
- Vonplon, E. (2015) Gletscherfahrt. At: https://vimeo.com/143865219 (Accessed 9.1.2023)
- https://www.afronova.com/artists/sibusiso-bheka/ (Accessed 9.1.2023)
Level 3.1 Learning Log 