Describing Landscape

Landscapes have been known to inspire poetic expressions for their ‘scene- like’ affordances. This sense of authorship, whether magnified or brought into focus by the choice of the poet’s words or the strokes of the painter’s brush, is already intrinsic in the landscape. It is merely frozen in time, and might be made more ‘human’ through insertions of artefacts that gave a sense of scale or human interactions.

In this day and age, these captured representations include photographs, which of late are outcomes of the high degree of technologically-

enhanced resolution, to those of real-time video captures. Whichever is the case, these ‘en-framed points of view’ are still read as a means of

74 In another instance, research by Brent Lovelock and Kirsten Lovelock

analyses perceptions against assumed givens, providing a window into expectations of what “a sense of arrival” means (Lovelock, Lovelock, Jellum, & Thompson, 2011). Comparing expectations from locals and immigrants, they conclude that not only are landscapes and the environment vastly perceived visually, but the meanings portrayed, and absorbed are actually very much based on culturally-influenced emotions and eidetic memories.

Hall considers language as “patterned reminders” (Hall, 1966, p. 94) on which memories might be released, while the landscape writer Ann Whiston Spirn defines language as a medium that “makes thoughts tangible and imagination possible” (Spirn, 2002, p. 125). Taking the stand that since perceptions are varied across a wide spectrum of interpretations, creating something different and fresh could create a new form of familiarity and perception. The idea lies in allowing landscapes to be re-defined, even though its ambit is still one that straddles from being symbolic to pragmatic. These ‘patterned reminders’ are considered crucial in framing the key concepts of my research, as in Section 2.5.

Would this be where the use of language be pertinent? Adopted as a way to reflect observations and describe new definitions, would such focus on using metaphors, derived from abstract readings of landscape’s elements, be a means of deciphering new connections? Such deciphering might also be relevant in the process of framing the key concepts of my research (see Section 2.5).

Moore considers the importance of the role of language as the final piece of the puzzle when it comes to designing. Explaining that for a complete and comprehensive communication of design ideas, a verbal presentation clarifies and explains the image (Moore, 2010). Moore cites the psychologist Liam Hudson, who argues that “to examine the use of words is to plunge into a muddle, innuendo, ambiguity, fantasy and internal contradiction” (Moore, 2010, p. 148). Moore explains further that narratives hold the power to inspire and show things that one would have otherwise never noticed or knew existed. Would incorporating language as part of inventorying, and in turn,

75 using it as design prompts, then be a way to overcome intrinsic qualities that could not be captured graphically?

Such strategies might not necessarily imply that memories of the existing landscapes be completely ignored or be wiped away by those of the interventions. Rather, they could serve as another layer on which current readings are based. In fact, they might even be the much-needed punctuations that disentangle knotted depictions that have long been entrenched. Corner refers to such uses of language as yet another layer in the “topographic palimpsest”. Other than the primary purpose of

graphically representing possibilities, would it not be liberating for the designer to also be conversant in the language of landscape? Spirn feels it would. She writes, “[T]o know landscape poetics is to see, task, hear, and feel landscape as a symphony of complex harmonies” (Spirn, 2002, p. 128).

This research detects reverberations in Mugerauer’s description of the

significance of language in encounters with the world and the environment. Calling such associations “environmental hermeneutics and signs of

interpretation”, Mugerauer succinctly writes that “how we describe it, so it reveals to us” (Mugerauer, 1985, p. 52). Reiterating the importance of fitting words through which the environment is able to appear, Mugerauer focuses on the sense of relativity. He cites the writer Samuel Woodworth Cozzens, who considers the manner in which the landscape is described would influence the way it is perceived.

To an extent, language, as a means of perceiving the environment, is not mere labels. Instead, it is a means to scream out exciting possibilities as much as an inscription of meanings. In stressing the importance language plays in connecting the present to memory, Mugerauer aptly gathers such diverse views into an ensemble in saying that words are but “the evocation of what things are and how they are related to other things in the web of particular lives and places” (Mugerauer, 1985, p. 59). Two examples are shown in Figure 21. In these instances, the genius loci and the elements within the site have been made central. It should be noted, however, that due to cultural diversity, language might be equally diverse. As such, certain interpretations might lead definitions astray. Though the use of

76 dialects might, as Spirn suggests, be one way of relaying precise

descriptions, the landscape designer might still benefit from the preparation of a repertoire of referents. This set of tools might build the pace up in creating the ‘un-familiar’ in the designer’s mind. Such inventorying might itself take the form of being liminal.

Figure 21 Poems by Edward Thomas (Left) and Graham Lindsay (Right) underscore the importance of the landscape, and its elements, as the words are used as reminders of the level of affiliation and affinity that people have for each location

One thing is certain: that liminal landscapes present opportunities for new meanings. This search for new ways of relating to, and engaging

landscapes, in turn, demand a fresh set of tools. From the discussions of the three relevant angles of experiencing the landscape, it becomes clear that they collectively direct towards the amalgamation of the perception of physical space with that of its real-time and metaphysical affordances. Correlating the past and connecting to future possibilities would create a sense of continuity, making each place rich with a unique sense of identity.

Inserting designs that keep re-inventing the concept of the ‘familiar’, creates a sense of continuation; one that is ever-changing, ever-dynamic and ever-

77 engaging. This, in turn, constantly seeks new interpretations, and re-

interpretations. In the words of Wylie, landscape is ‘seen’, with this key idea shifting towards the setting up of new ways ‘to see’, taken from the

standpoint of both designers, as well as the ‘engagers’ (Wylie, 2007). Both positions are considered equally important. The former, being the ones who inventory and eventually insert the interventions, need to ‘see’ beyond the visual. The latter, being the ‘engagers’ and the ‘experiencers’, would not only feel the landscape and the environment, but would also be the ones experiencing the juxtapositioning of the interventions with, and in them.

In short, what might be intriguing is the opportunity to engage landscape in a new way that allows both designers and people to re-define and re-assess the importance of how different things can be. These might be liminal entities, in the form of tensions between the ideal, where things are

perceived visually or through memory. These ‘re-engagements’ might also be the ‘real’, where things are sensed, realised, and comprehended “in- person”, and where the un-familiar could become the ‘new familiar’.

As summed up by Hall, the experiencing of the environment is a source of the much needed excitement and ideas in life, to be found in one’s

relationship to the environment, and to oneself (Hall, 1966, p. 186). To which, Seamon and Mugerauer echo that “(W)ith self-conscious understanding and intention, our experiential bonds with the world can widen and deepen. In turn, the environment and the world as experienced can expand in dimensions and meanings” (Seamon & Mugerauer, 1985, p. 5).