IN FLUX: Land, Photography and Temporality
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This work has been submitted to NECTAR, the Northampton Electronic Collection of Theses and Research. Thesis Title: IN FLUX: Land, Photography and Temporality Creator: Sunderland, J. S. Example citation: Sunderland, J. S. (2015) IN FLUX: Land, PhotogRraphy and Temporality. Doctoral thesis. The University of NorthampAton. Version: Accepted version http://nectarC.northamptTon.ac.uk/9735/ NE IN FLUX Land, Photography and Temporality Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy At the University of Northampton 2015 John Samuel Sunderland © John Sunderland 2015. This thesis is copyright material and no quotation from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. 1 Abstract This thesis accompanies a practice as research doctoral project that investigates the perceptual mechanisms and conceptions of land as a site of constant change. It utilises photographic practice as a form of visual communication. The aim is to examine the roles of movement and memory in the perceptual experiences of the environment through a phenomenological framework that involves the consideration of the concepts of place and space from a temporal perspective. The principal theme is how the moving and changing environment can be interpreted through the stasis of photography and what this implies about the individual’s relationship to it. The research methodology is a Rhizomatic multi‐site and multi‐process approach, utilising various methods and investigating site types appropriately as an interwoven practice. This has resulted in five separate bodies of work that deal with different forms of movement. The work employs close range photogrammetry techniques liberated from the empirical traditions of archaeological photography and time‐lapse to investigate the human‐scaled aerial view and visually interpret embodiment in the environment. An exhibition, titled Continuum derived from this practice was also shown at Avenue Gallery, Northampton University, UK, from 27th October 2014 ‐ 7th November 2014. A catalogue of works, titled In Flux; Land, Photography and Temporality accompanies this thesis as a PDF on the disc provided (appendix # 1). The research concludes that a consideration of time and space as durational and flowing can be interpreted through the stasis of photography. Through this the changing nature of the environment can be investigated. This is achieved by extending the duration of photographic processes and making them evident in the resulting works. It is also enhanced through curatorial sequencing in a body of work that mimics environmental temporal experience as perceived by the mobile individual. 2 Contents Abstract 1 List of Figures 5 Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 8 Landscape and Land 9 Environment 12 Space and Place 12 Time and Change 15 The Practice Methodology 16 The Artworks 16 Chapter One The Research Narrative 19 The Picturesque and the Sublime 20 Archaeological Sources 27 Place and Space 27 Place‐learning and Wayfinding 28 The Representation of Place 29 The Importance of Space 30 The Philosophical Framework 31 The Relevance of Cognitive Psychology 33 3 Time 38 Memory 39 Summary 40 Chapter Two Evidence and Evocation 43 Archaeology as a Process 47 The plan view (I): Cartography 49 The plan view (II): Aerial Photography and Satellite Imaging 50 Field Walks 56 Close‐range Photogrammetry on the Archaeological Site 60 Ground Work 64 Chapter Three The Region and the Space Between 70 Methodology: The Multi‐site Approach 71 The Region of the Project 76 Identifying a suitable context for investigation: The Site Type 81 Lines of Movement: The Space Between Sites 87 Chapter Four Perception and Memory 98 Work in the Field 102 The Interplay of the Senses 104 The Shape of Visual Perception 109 The Investigation of a Site 113 The Stimulus to Make a Work: Case Study 1 116 4 The Stimulus to Make a Work: Case Study 2 121 The Compositing Process (I): Field Work 123 Body – Camera – Environment 125 The Compositing Process (II): Computer Work 133 Chapter Five Stasis and Movement 143 The Chronometric Interpretation of Time 146 Flow Motion: Movement and Stasis in Photography 148 Cycles of Repetition 155 Time Compaction 159 Narrative 161 Conclusion In Flux 165 The Nature/Culture Divide 166 Temporalizing Space and Place 167 The Representation of Place 170 Memory 173 Movement 175 Time 177 Contributions of New Knowledge 178 Implications of this Research 181 Bibliography 183 Appendix #1 In Flux: Catalogue of Works 2011 ‐ 2014 Inside the back cover 5 List of Figures Figure All images by the author except where credited Page 1 Track‐way # 9 in a domestic setting 17 2 A Deer in the Wood 25 3 Image from Prairie Scrolls Terry Evans 55 4 ` Field Walk with Dogs # 1 57 5 Aerial Walk # 1 58 6 Aerial Walk # 1 (detail) 59 7 A photogrammetric representation of an articulated human skeleton 61 8 Example of an archaeological feature photograph 63 9 Under Quercus 65 10 Track‐way # 13 67 11 Settlement Infrastructure 72 12 Schematic showing relationships between scenes, sites and bases 84 13 Space Between # 1 88 14 Force Nine (triptych) 88 15 Space Between # 7‐9 92 16 Tree‐fall # 5 Visit # 2 102 17 A Fox, I Thought #4 108 18 Tree‐Fall # 1 Version #3 110 6 19 Blue Land #3 121 20 Encroaching mud 124 21 Untitled # 3 (Hinterland series) 128 22 Composite image from a single viewpoint 136 23 Partially complete version of Tree‐fall # 5 Version 2 137 24 Tree‐fall # 8 Version # 4 140 25 Tree‐fall #8 Version #1 141 26 Tree‐fall #8 Version #3 141 27 Still Running 2006 reworked 2014 144 28 Flow motion # 16 150 29 Standing Ground # 1 151 30 Standing Ground #7 152 31 Across #1 153 32 Tree‐fall # 5 Version #1 159 33 Tree‐fall #5 Version #2 159 7 Acknowledgements A doctoral research project is a long journey, many people have aided me on my way and I would like to thank them whole heartedly, without them it would not have happened. Firstly my supervisory team, Sri Kartini Leet, Helen Sear and Janet Wilson have guided me through all aspects of the research process. For accommodating me and helping in too many ways to list, Norma and Don Sunderland, Andras Schien‐illes and Zoe Plummer thanks all, for the bed, food and good advice. A thanks also to Matt Durran for long distance conversations and support. My research was funded by the University of Northampton from February 2011 until February 2014. Without this support this project would not have been possible. I would also like to thank David Watson and Twiggy Spagnuolo for their administrative and pastoral support. Thanks to Terry Evans, for kindly giving me permission to use her work (fig. # 3). Finally a very special thanks to my wife, Penny Johnston, for everything. 8 Introduction As practice as research within the fine arts, this project is a qualitative analysis through practice in combination with research. It is an enquiry through processes of practice and the artworks are the resulting artefacts of these activities. The underlying methodology of this research is to investigate through visualization via the photographic medium. As a visual arts research project it is the artworks that come first; as Graeme Sullivan states “visual arts research has to be grounded in practices that come from art itself” (Sullivan, 2010, p. xvii). The aim is to investigate and interpret through visual arts practice and communication. This text is an analysis of the conceptualisation, evolution and critical evaluation of the processes and outcomes that this entails. This research is an investigation of the perceptual mechanisms and conceptions of land as a site of constant change using photographic practice as a form of visual communication. It considers land as a temporal as well as a spatial entity. As this question is about how we understand and relate to the changing environment, then this study is narrowed primarily to the environment in the form of land, as opposed to other people or animals, or things in themselves, isolated from the environment. This research was initiated by practice carried out in the field, within the environment itself. The actions involved and results obtained have subsequently been analysed within research frameworks appropriate to the practice. Research in the field was undertaken in parallel with desk‐ based research, with a cycle of practice leading to research that leads to further practice, and so on. Each resulting body of work has been conclusively resolved as a product of both forms of research in combination. In the majority of cases, contemporary photographic art is based upon visual source material more directly than other fine art media in that it requires some form of recording, or capturing, of images 9 of the environment using a camera at a location (the one exception being the related medium of the moving image). This is followed by processing of the gathered images into artworks. These artworks then collectively form a body of work that is presented to an audience as a form of visual communication. It is this process of working from the source material to a visual outcome that is under scrutiny here, both as a form of experimentation to find the most appropriate method and approach to the task in hand, and as a way of investigating the processes of engagement with the changing environment through photographic interpretation. In making this analysis a number of key terms have been examined that relate to the way we understand the lands that we inhabit as follows: Landscape and Land Environment Space and Place Time and Change Each one of these terms is dealt with separately below. Landscape & Land Although many of the artworks (particularly those in the projects Hinterland and Continuum) could be described as within the landscape genre of photography in the way that they pictorially depict the environment (with a foreground, background, a horizon and sky), landscape is a term not often used in this thesis.