exploratory project (week 14): landscape, text and body

landscape, body, text 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 an ideal way, to attract tourists. its 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 think my struggle with the language is captured by my struggle to mirror write it. i decided to do the writing outdoors so that i could be in the landscape and let it effect the writing – listen and feel it below me and the page, although a contained (garden) landscape. 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.

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