Vision completed - The symbolic image of landscape analysis
Introduction - the explanatory powers of vision
In parts of the landscape discourse, it seems that vision is regarded as a fundamental reduction of the landscape concept. In this paper, I will argue that this stand appears as just another version of reductionism, ignoring the symbolic potential of the visual. The aim of the paper is to offer a conceptual as well as methodological approach which does not excuse the limitations of vision, but rather profits from the rich explanatory powers of the image.My main argument will be that landscapes are made visible through the presence of images, images which merge narrative ideals and material sensations into symbolic landscapes.
Trysfjorden – dialogue and symbolic image formation
The landscape of Trysfjorden is currently being altered due to the planning of a new motorway which will cross the fjord. Last year, some members of the planning team and representatives of regional and national cultural heritage authorities inspected the area of the fjord in order to assess its potential values. In retrospect, I find this trip, very suitable to highlight some of the more general tendencies which could be subscribed to vision and image formation.
Shared vision - Perceptions are revealed in conversations and conserved in language
When I, as a landscape analyst, am investigating the land, the surface never meets me as a neutral screen or as an indifferent piece of ground. I am aware the context in which I am acting. I am performing a symbolic act of seeing which transforms this land into a landscape. From the conversation which takes place on the trip, I realise that this experience does not differ much from my colleges’. Every perception is revealed in the conversation and then conserved in language.We are all inscribed into the world of ideals and impressions.
Symbolic vision - Perception follows culture
Apparently being the only one which apprehends the beauty of the fjord, I still recognise that I am not the only one which perceives this land as a landscape. The archaeologists are continuously spotting the parts near the fjord which once were suitable for habitation. The biologists are equally eager to identify habitats for rare or more typical species. They are simultaneously exposed by the same atmospheric and climatic phenomena, but they are nevertheless simultaneously applying different ways of seeing at the same piece of ground.
The cultural, or rather subcultural, field of action, their traditional knowledge and current motivation transforms this area into a landscape. Some parts of the land arehighlighted; others are totally overseen and neglected. Their images are products of their culture and their subculture, their mainstream way of belonging and their choice of emphasis.Ideals are paired with impressions, impressions with ideals.
The fusion between cultural meaning and raw matter transforms any piece of land into human symbols. As Hans Georg Gadamer explains, symbols let something absent become present (Gadamer 2010:140). In this case, the transformation must include the both the cultural narrative and the sensuous piece of land. Vision offers an opportunity to mediate between the world of the organic sensations and that of the universal ideals. Vision does not work as an optical device; a passive receiver of light rays and colours. Vision is rather an active actor. It engages in everything visible and keeps its interest in correspondence to different motivations.
Mobilised vision – narrating the land through sensations, words and ideals
If we remove the influence of land totally, all that is left is the verbal utterance. Nevertheless, for the participants of the trip the image of the land is still present. If we change the setting, the piece of land actually explored, they will probably still look at the current land with the same motivation in sight.If we keep the setting, but change their motivation, the perception of land will necessarily change.
The members of the group and the actual site just lend themselves to the instructions of the manuals, the reports, the annual plans or to influential voices in the ongoing debate.Some, like the engineers, perceives the area idealistically. They narrate, incorporating the features of the land into their standards and manuals.Others, like the archaeologists, perceive the land with the companion of an already articulated narrative. They re-narrate, recognising the arguments of the reports in the available view.And some are just enjoying the trip, being on board.
The conceptual resilience of the symbolic image
The conceptual landscape approach
As we have witnessed from the trip to Trysfjorden, landscape analysis is a shared enterprise. It comprises both the analyst’s ability to narrate the land and to prepare any reader of the analysis to a re-narration of the land. Thus, the practice of analysing landscapes aims at bridging the gap between the collective dialogue and the subjective perception. The challenge of the analyst is not to make an inventory of the physical features or to collect personal statements of the land, but to make sure that the image formation can take place between a shared motive and an individually perceivedmotif.
Additionally, the analyst has to deal with the limitations of the analysis situation. The narrative, which on site was produced in dialogue and sight, is as document produced in text, illustrations and diagrams. The image as such, resides just in the eyes and memories of the beholder.Accepting these premises, the analyst has to take advantage of the symbolic potential of informativeexchange through visual means. In a way, the landscape analyst is the professional ancestor of earlier entrepreneurs like William Gilpin, who honestly admitted that:
The following little work proposes a new object of pursuit: that of examining the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty; opening the sources of those pleasures which are derived from the comparison (Gilpin 2005:15).
The combination of an academic theoretical tradition and an investigation of the contemporary field of action is the essence of the conceptual approach and the fundamental role of theory.Without a theory, there will be no characters to look for, no image to develop, no ideals to articulate. A theory is the vehicle of both sight and insight, weaving the ephemeral impressions and the standing ideals together to a coherent landscape narrative.
The resilience of the motif and the pastoral tradition
The pastoral tradition provides an aesthetic theory that is both contingent to human struggles and dynamic in its visual versions. According to Leo Marx, this is exactly one of the fundamental characteristics of the pastoral:
The American case illustrates the extraordinary resilience of pastoralism – its capasity for adaption to new times, new places, new social and political situations. […] Now pastoralism was embodied in fresh, New World images of an ideal liminality, a potential harmony between society and nature (Marx 1992:213).
The resilience of the pastoral motive is even more evident in the landscape theory by the German philosopher Joachim Ritter. Ritter (1974) argued that the aesthetic functionality of landscape in modernity actually is its ability to keep the aesthetic unity active between the individual and nature. According to Ritter, landscape emerged as a part of western modernity. When science conquered nature with its laws and enterprise duplicated matter with its machines, a void was left for the more intimate connection between man and materiality. The aesthetic function of landscape is then for every individual to fill this void with his or her vision of the unity of nature.
The free forces of nature recognized in the presence or absence of human intentions
According to Ritter, perceiving the land aesthetically as a landscape is to give attention to the free forces of nature in whichever shape they are present. These free forces of nature can also be identified in more durable structures than the ephemeral variations of light and shade, seasons and climatic occurrences. They can be notices in the natural land form and can even be given shape by the way humans have evaluated and then arranged the land.
Simultaneously, in order to be relevant, what to look for must be accompanied by how to capture the image of the unity of nature. Hanna Arendt (1998) gives us some helpful terms along the last path. She divides between the human modes of work, labor and practice.
From modes of activity to types and signs of landscape
What I realise is that every mode of activity corresponds to a type of landscape. The type of landscape can be identified as the visible density of human activity in an area. Work, the substantial life processes, thus corresponds to the wilderness. Labor, material production, corresponds to the outcome of the clearing, while action, the mode of reflection, can be recognised in any form of building.
Additionally, the modes of activity may be used to arrange the conceptual signs of natural unity. In my analytical narrative I will use the three terms natural variations, landform and practice to describe the influence of natural unity on the image.
The ephemeral mode of work corresponds to the visible cycle of nature like seasons, weather conditions, night and day. The material and lasting mode of labor corresponds to the visible state of the landform. And the intellectual mode of action refers to the visible display of human practice, say the production of food, timber, electricity or transportation.
As in Trysfjorden, I have to scan the surface of the earth. And with Ritter’s theory in mind, my eyes are affected by the features which touch, not only the face of the country, but also the nerves of the concept.I am enacting a scene where I am expecting the presence of natural variations, landform and practice. I am looking for these characters, but at the same time, I am expecting these characters to appear in different versions. In the city centre of Oslo, I easily recognise the wilderness in areas overgrown with weeds. But I just have to raise my eyes and modern buildings of glass and steel suddenly covers all my view shed. Similarly, I recognise the man made landscape in the valley of Tunsbergdalen. But after some minute walk, the one kilometre dam construction disappears out of sight and I am left in the woods, moors and terrain last shaped by the ice some 12000 years ago. Single scenes might be distributed and applied on larger areas as well.
Evaluating the landscape
Landscape perceived through human activity opens up for a specific engagement with the presence of the natural world. Using the landscape types and the conceptual signs of landscape, I might be able to identify the density and influence of different appearances of natural unity. But I also have the opportunity to evaluate in which ways the images reveal and potentially motivate human engagement with the unity of nature.
Conclusion
The method should offer engagement through image formation
The resilience of visual experience appears as a critical component in this analytical action. The method relies on the analyst’s capacity to communicate conceptual statements through images exposed by words, photographs or maps. These images may be traced back to sensory experiences like smell and touch, as well as subjective memories and collectively shared stories attached to the land. In other words, vision is not accepted as a general impression of what everyone sees, but as an intermediary image, initiated by the analyst, and optionally perceived by the public. The method should always be directed at the engaged subject. The method should function like a visual guide. The analyst has the privilege to point out an area’s potential as landscape, but the final commitment to the claims is always left to the individual. In this way, vision may function as a node of exchange between the traditional world of the analyst and the everyday world of anyone.
References:
Arendt, H. (1998):The human condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (2010): Sannhet og metode: grunntrekk i en filosofisk hermeneutikk. Oslo, Bokklubben.
Giplin, W. (2005): Observations on the River Wye. London, Pallas Athene.
Marx. L. (1992): Does pastoralism have a future? In The pastoral landscape (ed.J.D.Hunt). Washington, University press of New England, Hanover and London.
Ritter, J. (1974):Subjektivität: Sechs Aufsätze. Frankfurt a.M, Suhrkamp.
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