Abstract
I stand and allow aspects of the space to present themselves to me. I pay attention as a mark of respect to the place I am in. I quietly focus on one point so the world can unfold around me, and I experience a shift from the sense of myself moving through the landscape, to that of the landscape moving around and through me. I see echoes of this experience in the landscape I am part of. I notice it in the way the tide approaches, covers, uncovers and retreats from the tidal pool steps. I see it in the way the seaweed lies motionless on the tidal pool floor, until the waves rush in and lift it and it floats and swirls amongst the water before eventually being gently laid down again.
This paper will discuss creative processes in the area of performance and landscape, and will propose that such practices offer experiences that subvert and resist an anthropomorphic
engagement with the environment. The paper argues that such practices offer alternative ways of experiencing and interacting with the landscape; ways that could result in a shift in cognitive and perceptual structures within the participant. The creative practice will be examined through the frame of ideas from cognitive scientist Francisco J. Varela (1993) and the anthropologist Tim Ingold (2000, 2011).
As part of the paper I will discuss the process of working on a film installation I co-created in 2012 entitled On Vocation, made at a disused tidal pool on Whitmore Bay in Barry, and reflect how
attunement was a key element in both its making process and its form. As performer and co-deviser of the piece I will reflect experientially and critically upon it in order to explore the implications of an approach to making that utilises ecological principles such as the interdependence and interrelation of body and landscape. Within this approach the participant is seen as working collaboratively with the landscape, engaging in practices that progressively generate an experience of attunement in their encounters with non-human and material elements.
This paper will discuss creative processes in the area of performance and landscape, and will propose that such practices offer experiences that subvert and resist an anthropomorphic
engagement with the environment. The paper argues that such practices offer alternative ways of experiencing and interacting with the landscape; ways that could result in a shift in cognitive and perceptual structures within the participant. The creative practice will be examined through the frame of ideas from cognitive scientist Francisco J. Varela (1993) and the anthropologist Tim Ingold (2000, 2011).
As part of the paper I will discuss the process of working on a film installation I co-created in 2012 entitled On Vocation, made at a disused tidal pool on Whitmore Bay in Barry, and reflect how
attunement was a key element in both its making process and its form. As performer and co-deviser of the piece I will reflect experientially and critically upon it in order to explore the implications of an approach to making that utilises ecological principles such as the interdependence and interrelation of body and landscape. Within this approach the participant is seen as working collaboratively with the landscape, engaging in practices that progressively generate an experience of attunement in their encounters with non-human and material elements.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 31 Mar 2015 |
| Event | Spaces of Attunement: Life, Matter and the Dance of Encounters Symposium - School of Planning & Geography, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom Duration: 30 Mar 2015 → 31 Mar 2015 |
Conference
| Conference | Spaces of Attunement: Life, Matter and the Dance of Encounters Symposium |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| City | Cardiff |
| Period | 30/03/15 → 31/03/15 |