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Considering the Sublime in the Twenty-First Century

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The Poetics of Remote Transmission: Considering the Sublime in the Twenty-first Century Author Gunter, Alannah Margaret Published 2016 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School Queensland College of Art DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/1254 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367896 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au THE POETICS OF REMOTE TRANSMISSION: CONSIDERING THE SUBLIME IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Alannah Gunter BA (Hons) Photography Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom MFA Fine Art Massey University, New Zealand Queensland College of Art Arts, Education and Law Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2016 ABSTRACT Within a short space of time, the spread of the Internet has completely altered the world in which we live. In our high tech, real-time streaming society, Michel Foucault’s panopticon has been realised within the digital realm (Foucault [1975] 1991). It is easy to get lost in this frenetic, consumerist—and, at times, tyrannical— computerised environment. However, as film theorist Andrew Utterson has observed, the “webcam’s intermittent streams of visuals encourage in the spectator/user a distinct sense of reverie” (2003, 197). This reverie generates an alternative space, a place of imagination where one may lose themselves, where new landscapes can be visited, and where endless horizons traversed (if only in a virtual manner). Informed by this concept, this doctoral research project explores the transportive capabilities of outdoor streaming webcams, not only in regard to vicarious travel but also in the manner that the spaces of the imagination and the virtual can overlap and interweave. Specifically, I have investigated the aesthetics of pixelated scenes in relation to the ‘sublime’, both as a multi-faceted, evolving, philosophical concept and as a visual, codified, art-historical trope. This research contends that the webcam belongs to the lineage of the panorama and other optical devices of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that enabled the viewer to escape into another world, relating it to our enduring desire to see beyond the horizon. Through considering the webcam within the genealogy of vicarious travel, this research explores how one’s perception of place can undergo a transformation as the line between ‘here’ and ‘there’ becomes blurred, and questions the ways in which the mesmerising and transportive powers that these shimmering pixels possess differ from other forms of vicarious experiences. The overarching theoretical framework draws upon the writings of a number of disparate theorists, and analyses the historical development of several concepts and ways of understanding the world. I consider the evolution of the vicarious experience and the poetics of the virtual experience. I then focus on the concept of the sublime and its power upon an individual’s imagination, examining how the notion was conceived during the Enlightenment through Edmund Burke’s and Immanuel Kant’s treatises on the sublime. I also i address the sublime as a codified system of representation—analysing the tropes used to denote the sublime. Finally, I reflect upon the webcam and the aesthetics of technology, considering how the sublime has evolved to exist in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I then move on to discuss the work of several artists who have been pertinent to the different strands of concern within my own research: James Turrell, Anish Kapoor, Olafur Eliasson, Lynne Marsh, Eva Koch, Lisa Reihana, Wolfgang Staehle, and Susan Collins. Finally, I discuss the methodologies and outcomes of my studio work. The bodies of work encompass photomedia works and installations. The studio research engages with the formal characteristics of the webcam’s relayed digital images and investigates the aesthetic experiences that one undergoes as their consciousness shifts between physical, virtual, and psychological spaces. Through critical inquiry and reflective practice, this visual art research suggests the formation of a new, or at least particular, digital, vicarious, aesthetic experience that could be described as offering a new sublime. ii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. _____________________________ Alannah Gunter iii LIST OF FIGURES Unless otherwise noted, all works are by Alannah Gunter. Fig. 1 Jökulsárlón Mila Live from Iceland, webcam screenshot, 13 April 2011 www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/jokulsarlon/ 1 Fig. 2 Google Cardboard stereoscopic viewer 9 Fig. 3 Book illustration engraving from Camille Flammarion, L’atmosphère Météorologie Populaire (Paris: Hachette, 1888), 163 10 Fig. 4 Camera Obscura, book illustration engraving from Athanasius Kircher, Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, in Decem Libros Digesta (Romae: H. Scheus, 1646), 806. Collection of Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology. 11 Fig. 5 C.V. Nielsen Copenhagen Panorama Display of Constantinople c.1882, wood engraving. Collection of the Museum of Copenhagen. 12 Fig. 6 VisitTrentino.IT, webcam screenshot, 25 August 2014 www.visittrentino.it/it/webcams/canazei+- +gruppo+del+sassolungo_w_4233#pos=25/08/20147 13 Fig. 7 Times Square Earthcam, webcam screenshot, 27 August 2012 www. earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/main_lindys.html 15 Fig. 8 Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, webcam screenshot, 24 September 2014 http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/spo/livecamera.html 17 Fig. 9 Anne Noble Deep Field #3 2008, colour photograph, piezo pigment on archival paper, dimensions variable 18 Fig. 10 Yosemite Conservancy Turtleback NetCam, webcam screenshot, 13 April 2011 https://www.yosemiteconservancy.org/webcams/el-capitan 19 Fig. 11 Sport Resort Yllas Huippu, Finland, webcam screenshot, 11 January 2011 http://www.sportresortyllas.com/index.php/kamerat 20 Fig. 12 James Ward Gordale Scar c.1812–4, oil on canvas, 3327 x 4216cm. Collection of the Tate, London. 21 Fig. 13 Etienne-Louis Boullée Proposed Cenotaph for Isaac Newton 1784. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 23 Fig. 14 Etienne-Louis Boullée Proposed Cenotaph for Isaac Newton 1784. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 24 Fig. 15 Etienne-Louis Boullée Proposed Cenotaph for Isaac Newton 1784. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 24 Fig. 16 Etienne-Louis Boullée Proposed Cenotaph for Isaac Newton 1784. Collection of Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 26 Fig. 17 Book illustration engraving from Camille Flammarion, L’atmosphère Météorologie Populaire (Paris: Hachette, 1888), 1 27 Fig. 18 Frederic Edwin Church The Icebergs 1861, oil on canvas, 164 x 286cm. Collection of Dallas Museum of Art. 28 iv Fig. 19 Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (London: Dickinson, Bros., 1854), plate 5. 29 Fig. 20 Poster for Transatlantique panorama in the Paris, 1889 Exposition Universelle 31 Fig. 21 Robert Mitchell Cross-section of Leicester Square Panorama 1801, aquatint, 26 x 44cm. Source: Robert Mitchell, Plans, and Views in Perspective, with Descriptions of Buildings Erected in England and Scotland (London: Wilson & Co., 1801) 143. 32 Fig. 22 Use of a phenakistoscope before a mirror 34 Fig. 23 John Heaviside Clark, portable diorama, 1826, painted and varnished wood, canvas, aquatint, and watercolour box. 35 Fig. 24 American grandfather stereoscope viewer, 1861. Source: Popular Science Monthly 21 (May 1882): 50. 36 Fig. 25 Eugene von Guerard Govett’s Leap and Grose River Valley, Blue Mountains 1873, oil on canvas, 68 x 106cm. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia. 42 Fig. 26 Scenic World Blue Mountains, webcam screenshot, 15 December 2015 http://www.scenicworld.com.au/explore-our-world/take-look/web-cam/ 42 Fig. 27 Salvator Rosa Rocky Landscape with a Huntsman and Warriors c.1670, oil on canvas, 142 x 192cm. Collection of Musée du Louvre, Paris. 44 Fig. 28 John Martin The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise 1823–27, oil on canvas, 77 x 112cm. Collection of Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne. 45 Fig. 29 J. M. W. Turner Valley of Aosta: Snowstorm, Avalanche, and Thunderstorm c. 1836–7, oil on canvas, 92 x 123cm. Frederick T. Haskell Collection, Art Institute of Chicago. 46 Fig. 30 Albert Bierstadt Lake in Yosemite Valley 1863–75, oil on canvas, 91 x 133cm. Collection of the Haggin Museum, Stockton, California. 47 Fig. 31 Kasimir Malevich Black Square 1915, oil on linen, 79 x 79cm. Collection of Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 48 Fig. 32 Yves Klein Relief Planétaire Bleu (RP 17) 1961, pure pigment and synthetic resin on plaster mounted on panel, 49 x 72cm. Private collection. 48 Fig. 33 Gerhard Richter Davos S 1981, oil on canvas, 70 x 100cm. Private collection. 49 Fig. 34 Dan Holdsworth Blackout #08 2010, C-type print, 226 x 177cm 50 Fig. 35 Bill Henson Untitled #13 2008–9, archival inkjet pigment print on paper, 104 x 155cm. Collection of Queensland Art Gallery. 51 Fig. 36 Tacita Dean Fernweh 2009, photogravure, 230 x 500 cm. Edition of 10, set of 8. 52 Fig. 37 Caspar David Friedrich Two Men by the Sea at Moonrise 1817, oil on canvas, 51 x 66cm. Collection of Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. 53 Fig. 38 Eugene Von Guérard View of the Grampians and Victoria Ranges from Mount Rouse, West Victoria 1861, oil on canvas, 71 x 137cm. Private collection. 54 Fig. 39 J. M. W. Turner Seascape with Storm Coming On, c. 1840, oil on canvas, 91 x 122cm. Collection of the Tate, London. 55 Fig. 40 Gustave Le Gray Marine, étude de nuages 1856–7, albumen print, 32 x 39cm 56 v Fig. 41 Hiroshi Sugimoto North Atlantic Ocean, Cape Breton 1996, silver gelatin photograph (1200 x 1200cm), dimensions variable 57 Fig. 42 Antonio da Correggio Assumption of the Virgin 1526–30, fresco, 1093 x 1195cm.
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