Matrix of Movement and Haecceity: Walking in Spatiotemporal Landscapes

Abstract

Apparently featureless ancient Northern landscapes have long been represented as places of darkness, disease and death within Western culture. Despite an increasing acknowledgment for the need to readjust our perceptions of these spaces and to acknowledge their environmental importance as living landscapes there is, as yet little publicity to promote this new way of seeing. Through my artworks I show how historic perceptions of ’The Waste’ (Defoe, D. 1726) can be challenged through cross-disciplinary fine art practice.

As we search for the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch, our legacy and presence as a civilization will be defined through the very fabric of the earth. The scale of environmental damage caused in the name of ‘progress’ will be visible as a stark measure of how detached we have become from the land on which we live. My artwork communicates the forgotten possibility of a deeper and more intuitive understanding with the earth beneath our feet offering images, which are thought-provoking, sensory responses to places encountered through walking.

By exploring the relationship between the aesthetic, handmade surface and the capabilities of the developing digital era it is possible to explore a wider relationship between artist and new technology and how in turn that can affect, reimagine and challenge preconceptions of a wider social understanding of our place in the world. My aim is to show the beauty in walking these unique northern spaces, to question our interpretation of and to be cautious of the digital data sources on which we are increasingly reliant but above all to invite encounters with forgotten landscapes, landscapes which have shaped our past and have the capability to protect our future.