context for this post: this post relates to the video piece ‘i see and i saw’ which i developed about real and romantic ideas about landscape using text and the body.
idyllic landscapes: some of the texts i have been reading about landscape discuss how the natural landscape has been idealised and romanticised for various reasons; to show man’s ownership and power over the natural world, to represent the identity of a people and connect them to a place or to align the landscape to ideals for women, connecting them to nature, beauty and purity.
the pragmatic and the poetic – weather forecasts: without knowing exactly why or what i will do with them, i have been collecting recordings of the weather forecast on and off for the last few week. the language of these forecasts seem to combine sensual language with mathematical and scientific terms. this strange mix of the poetic and pragmatic seem to connect with ideas about an imagined and idealised landscape with a real landscape, often wet, cold and uncomfortable for the body that moves through it.
weather forecast recording:
some extracts: i have extracted some phrases from the many recordings i have taken. they are a mixture of different recordings. there are a few ways i might work with theses recordings, either through text and print or through sound. they might also influence my 3d processes.
visibility moderate to poor
fog six miles
gale warning in operation
wintry showers with risk of thunder
warning of a heavy swell
rising slowly
small craft warning in operation
snow shower 8 miles 1021 steady
reaching gale force
east to northeast winds
a cold and unstable easterly airflow
pressure building from the north
moderating force six or seven
wintery showers with a risk of thunder
gusts 37 knots
rough decreasing slight
outlook for a further twenty four hours
moderate becoming moderate variable later
wintry showers dying out
landscape and binaries: thinking about the way the real & ideal can exist side by side and also connecting with ways of disrupting binaries in terms of landscape and gender i did a little experiment working with this text and writing with both my hands in different direction. what interests me watching back is the hesitation forming the letters backwards – right/left side of the brain workout. i’ll try some more again. i like the idea of a big roll of paper stretched out in the landscape and writing til i am stretched to my limits.
i redid and inverted the video so that it can be read and also because it the original was blurred. i also cropped the image so the paper fits the frame but somehow the video frame is smaller? anyway its a working sketch so just for quick experimentation.
further development: continuing to explore binary relations relating to landscape, gender and body. developing on from the last time where i used text from the weather forecasts to mirror write, this time i used text i came across describing the irish landscape in a very idealised and romantic way, i guess to attract tourists. it’s odd how this text plays against the sounds i recorded in the garden when writing – an aeroplane flying overhead, dogs barking, birds, traffic, bells, bin day collections – a real landscape soundscape playing over the language of idealised one. i hadn’t anticipated the sound being a way of exploring those dynamics. i think my struggle with the language is also somehow captured by my struggle to mirror write it although it got easier as i got better. i decided to do the writing outdoors so that i could be in the landscape and let it effect the writing – feel it below me and the page, although it is a contained (garden) landscape. this inadvertently set up the sound scape also. i also pitched this ideal landscape with some text from the weather forecast on the day i recorded which indicated that visibility was moderate to poor – as if all the lovely landscape descriptions would never be seen that day anyway. i initially did this weather forecast text in mirror writing and added it to the end but this needed to be separate and different to all that went before so i added it as title text at the end. and as for the other titles – i thought about the body of two hands and one text or two hands and one landscape described in different ways. maybe because there are a few things at play in this video – things i want and don’t want, things i believe and don’t believe, things i strive for and reject about landscape real or idealised, bouncing over and back in my mind and body like the writing itself … it seemed obvious then … a kind of conflict … changing … i see and i saw.
some text i found relating to: IRELAND LANDSCAPE – SPECTACULAR SCENERY
‘A lifetime would be too short to truly appreciate all of the different Ireland landscape and that is not even counting the islands which are delightful pocket sized versions of the mainland. And what is really remarkable and the stuff of Hollywood legends are the dramatic differences in colour that can happen with the play of light or weather on these lovely vistas from one minute to the next. If you are into photography try to come to Ireland in early May when it is at its greenest or in late September when the light is low and places like Connemara are completely magical.’
… and so it continues but i extracted some phrases for my text work.
next steps: perhaps this is where i’ll take it next but i started to write two different texts at the same time – one describing an ideal irish landscape and the other the real weather conditions – a real struggle to concentrate on where i’m going and what i’m trying to write.. very different (and challenging) experience. think i’ll include some of these texts as physical work with my submission. also think i could try to do them on clear acetate and see how they switch over and back or see and saw … i see and i saw different
just playing around with the text on clear acetate so i can see what it looks like against a landscape. kind of like the soundscape and the electric lines – real landscape
links:
http://www.met.ie/forecasts/sea-area.asp
http://www.irelands-hidden-gems.com/ireland-landscape.html
elaine crowe 