Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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Depending on motivation, these tools come with distinct
benefits and inherent limitations. Some will adapt and
evolve as their use and application to reveal hidden
potential or the need for further modification and refinement;
others offer benefits not yet fully realized.
The traditional tools we have relied most heavily upon
have focused almost exclusively on the visual qualities of
the landscapes we perceive.
Landscapes and Perception
When scholars talk about landscape perception, we think
of visual qualities despite the fact that experiencing a
landscape engages other senses, not just sight.
Our training is largely responsible for limiting the way we
think about landscapes. We have been taught to express
ideas through visual means and have been trained to
capture and communicate views of the landscape using a
variety of methods and media. We have not yet, however,
learned the methods that would enable us to speak
with similar proficiency about the other sentient qualities
of landscape. These qualities are vital to the way we
perceive landscapes.
Benefits of Video
We don’t need to be acoustic engineers nor animation
specialists to work with sound and motion and we also
don’t require sophisticated or specialized technology to
study these sensory cues. Digital video is readily available
technology that is easy to use and enables us to
consider sound and motion in all stages of our work from
analysis through communication.
Motion
Video is a visual medium. Much like still photography,
it captures framed images,― perspectives of landscapes
selected by its user. It differs from photography,
however, by capturing lots of frames. At 29 frames per
second, the captured images of video appear to move.
Motion can occur in two ways. It can occur within the
framed view (ie, within the landscape), or, the framed
view itself can move (ie, through the landscape). Within
the landscape, motion suggests the energy of forces at
play upon a space. The same breeze we feel when we
held the video camera animates the leaves of a tree’s
canopy. Seeing its image replayed reminds us of how
we sensed its presence as it physically surrounded us.
That memory strengthens our connection to a place and
deepens our understanding of its landscape.
When we move through a landscape, the point from
which we perceive its spaces change. Instead of absorbing
the scene from a stationary position, we enter into
the landscape, and it surrounds us. As we move through
the landscape, we experience its spaces in sequence.
Spaces unfold from one to the next; views open and
horizons broaden.
Sound
Video is also an aural medium. It captures both the ambient
and the natural sounds of landscapes. Surroundsound
technologies can position an observer within the
acoustic environment of a landscape, providing not just
ambient aural backdrop, but richly dynamic aural spatial
attribution.
Aural characteristics are seldom considered in traditional
landscape practice unless extreme conditions exist:
the quiet woods, the noisy street, the din of urban life.
Sound rarely enters into discussions about landscape.
Are the aural attributes of landscape really insignificant
or is the task of working with sound simply something we
haven’t learned to do?
Alternate Design Perspectives
One of the most promising video prospects about the
medium is its ability to inspire an alternative perspective.
When young designers view a landscape through
the eyes of a filmmaker they discover new potential for
existing elements and site conditions. These elements,
their configuration within a space and their presence
among the forces found in a landscape become newfound
objects, no less essential than props on a stage,
Alternate Viewpoints
Landscapes are understood differently by different people.
Those unfamiliar to a place will see a landscape one
way; those who live in that place may see it another way.
Traditional practice has suggested we navigate through
whatever drove of archives exists for a place and that we
conduct surveys and interviews with those who occupy
its landscapes.
With minimal facilitation, video can be put in the hands of
people who are familiar with a place empowering them to
tell the stories of the landscapes they inhabit.
Design Strategies
Video yields promising potential, not just in our perceptions
and analysis of a landscape in its existing form but
also in the processes and strategies we use to affect
its change. Contemporary practice and scholarship in
landscape, like that of all other disciplines, has fundamentally
built upon and significantly advanced traditional
approaches and practice. When video is used as a tool
that supports the conventional methods of practice, it
provides distinct advantages in inventory, analysis, interpretation,
visualization and communication.