following on for our writing workshop on monday night, i have been going through my work and posts over the last few months and writing down key words to do with my making and reading. i am not sure if the words become less ‘key’ as the list expands but i think i need to write them all down as a way to feel my way around my territory from centre to perimeter. i guess that they can’t all be ‘key’, but i’d like to see how they resonate (or not) with each other to get a sense of how they might connect. so starting with the obvious ones and then in no particular order except how they occur in my posts, the some and the many of my ‘keys’ …
key words: landscape, body, gender, movement, lens, gaze, looking, perspective, embodied, encounter, experience, haptic, optic, relationship, video, print, media, capture, stereo, dual, vision, still, moving, non-binary, binary, brain/body, male/female, inside/outside, nurture/nature, culture, identity, domesticity, compound, eye, touch, eye-contact, scale, distance, phenomenology, film, skin, still, moving, layer, combining, overlapping, imagery, representation, ideal, real, spectatorship, audience, distance, intimate, point of contact, immediate, time, time-based, present, past, possibilities, analogue, digital, materiality, visuality, complete, incomplete, perception, gaze, multiple gaze, singular angle, far and near, transparencies, masks, focus, blurry, meet, intersect, separate, apart, pairs, whole, mix with the eye, translation, positive, negative, expose, reverse, identity, process, living, mind’s eye, direct and indirect experience, mediated, negotiation, lens and the present body, real and hyper-real, a body-lens, tactile, non-binary, film a link of body and mind, fluid connections, whole body, sensuous, senses, erotic, external, distance, closeness, surface, depth, penetrate, below, simultaneously, tension, balance, rhythm, the perceiver and the perceived, blurring, mode of perception, surface, muscle, bones, screen, embodied spectatorship, light, see the seeing and the seen, cinema, content, potential, discover, multi-sensory media, optic space, smooth space, abstraction, compass, reference points, striated space, mesh-works, flow, hierarchies, oppositions, mimesis, submission, ‘and’, seeing, sequence, slide over each other, negative, positive, ink, photograph, hanging, completing, finish, logic, illogical, scope, stencil. echo, split, vertical, horizontally, tones, fold, scroll, irish identity, irish history, irish landscape, curl, unfurl, cutting off, steps, format, text, macro and micro scale, narrative, exposure, explore, travel, walk, perform, not-thinking, line, telling, trace of hand, gesture, straight, gestural, internal mental picture, action, stream of time, instrument, extends, reveals, looking at and looking with, invisibility and visibility, abstract, symbols and signs, yielding, control, drawing, writing, hand, threads, ropes, tension, organic, meandering, top, summit, below, information, knowledge, testing, open, hand-pulling, frame, cut, physically, texture, bitmap, exchange, show, share, correlate, opportunities, adhere, gallery, extend, reach, 2d, flat, post, convenient, unknown, global, local, document, dynamics, move, listen, lead, be led, instinct, impulse, place, respond, embodied response, core, craft, video, intact, outline, finding, public, private, belong, show, share, shape, digital culture, speed, fast, new, elements, prescribed, enquiry, sound, heartbeat, constant, human versus nature, seconds, one-off, moving, image, edit, mediate, removed, less is more, overlaid, blink, screen saver, silence, beat …
yes the some and the many of my keys
key questions: what is the relationship between lens and landscape, between lens, landscape and body? what is an embodied process/practice? how could the lens be an embodied process/practice? why should the lens be an embodied practice? is it for the maker, the audience? how or why should the landscape be an embodied practice? if the lens is an embodied practice, is the lens gendered? are all gazes gendered? is the lens a point of contact or separation between the body and landscape? how does the lens as an embodied practice relate to an embodied practice for the audience? what part can the lens play in part of an immersive experience, as part of the making or for the audience? back to – how does the lens relate to the body, how does the lens relate to landscape? how does lens based work relate to the audience? what about analogue and digital lens based processes – how do these relate to landscape as experience and the body? how do single or multiple-channel lens based work relate to landscape as experience and landscape as representation. how does landscape as embodied experience or encounter relate landscape as re-presentated experience, image or representation. how does moving image and still image relate to body, to landscape? how do i define landscape? how do i select landscape? what is the relationship between an outdoor landscape and inside landscape of domesticity? are these questions part of a struggle between gendered space, belonging, identity, equality? is this in an irish or specific context? and anyhow who cares? is it enough that i care? does that lead to a responsibility to me and/or other/audience?
yes the some and the many of my questions also
some kind of thesis?: landscape and the lens: lens on the landscape is as an embodied practice and as such, it is gendered. landscape and the lens as an embodied practice is gendered and an embodied practice is not necessarily and embodied audience.
some kind of structure?:
intro:
point/part 1: the relationship between landscape & the lens – time and space, brief historical context, contemporary / my work.
point/part 2: relationship between landscape, lens & body – movement – embodied practice, phenomenology
point/part 3: relationship between landscape, lens, body, gender – gendered gaze of an embodied practice.
conclusion:
possibly too broad?
point/ part 1: the relationship between landscape, lens and body – embodied practice : how we experience the landscape through the lens – relationship between lens and body, how lens is an embodied practice
point/part 2: the relationship between landscape, lens, embodied practice + gender: landscape and lens as an embodied practice – how this relates to gender, a gendered gaze or gendered space?
point/part 3: the relationship between landscape, lens, embodied practice, gender + audience: how landscape this translates/relates to others – to audience – media, moving/still image, analogue, digital, video/print
possibly just the same in another order? and still way too broad
what i want to say/argue/ question/try to discover –
point 1: lens based processes are an embodied practice
point 2: using lens based processes to look at/encounter the landscape is part of an embodied practice
point 3: as an embodied practice, using lens based processes to look at/encounter the landscape is gendered, as it through the body – nurture/nature debate.
point 4: the difficulty with lens as an embodied practice is how encounter/experience translates, relates, becomes encounter for audience
let it sit – enough for the moment
elaine crowe 
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