a twist of thought
a twist of thought
From Topography to Topology 2019 – 23
A Twist of Thought explores how the processual use of smartphone photography engages with the fabrication of a geographical landscape. The work takes place in Dungeness, Kent, a Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. As a coastal site with a remarkable geological formation, it is marked also by the vegetal and animal habitats it sustains; the historical exploitation of its natural resources and the impact of increasing tourism.
How can an art practice based upon lens imaging help us to question landscape as a pictorial category fixed in space and time? I propose that we respond to place as a network of dynamic forces that can be gathered up and enfolded temporarily, but which as ongoing processes of change, always surpass human spatial and temporal framing. The work tracks a process of situated making using the smartphone camera as the fulcrum of a performative activity. Starting with walking in the landscape, the camera in panoramic mode records the landscape as a series of glitched images which also incorporate the physical movement of the photographer. The resulting images are first printed on paper, shaped to become three dimensional objects and repeatedly photographed and re-printed such that each new iteration bears the visual imprint of its history. As the material surfaces of the artwork flex and the imagery complicates so the landscape can be understood as a diffracted and continuously re-morphing process of change. The work consists of digital paper and acetate prints, paper collages, three-dimensional objects and two short films. The series concludes with a digital work ‘Composite’, assembled from waste material left over from the making of the work. It has also been published in essay form exploring the methodologies of digital photography and processual practice of landscape.
Collage series 1/6
Composite (extracts) https://youtu.be/NOvzC8RPCgY
Links
‘From Topography to Topology’ in Fragmentation of the Image in the Digital Age. ed. Rubinstein, Daniel. Routledge History of Photography. Routledge London and New York 2020. ISBN 978-1-138-49349-0
‘Landscape as a Twist of Thought: A Line of Enquiry’ Philosophy of Photography 10, 2. 2020. ISSN 2040-3682
https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/view/creators/Trangmar=3ASusan=3A=3A.html