Coping with the landscape: an aesthetic analysis of the intermediate zone

Abstract

Numerous studies have been conducted into the aesthetics of landscape, both through objects (sculptures and installations) and through pictorial devices (painting, printmaking, photography, etc.). The fact being that, as long as the horizon line is interrupted these studies by artists will continue in hope of understanding and changing their own reality. Aligning with the history of the photographic land survey, the emphasis of this work is to direct the reading of landscapes towards an aesthetic analysis of the modern mobile landscape. Considering the accumulation of capital as the driving force of the aesthetic change in the landscape, this analysis will focus on the geography of the highest concentration of visible indicators, the intermediate zone. Within this transitional space, as is similarly true with ecological systems, the highest concentration for diversity has the ability to manifest at the edges of converging zones, due to the overlapping of multiple systems in one geographic locality. Accumulation of indicators, both those failing in the system and those entering the system will be present. Recognizing that this survey considers the use and misuse of utilitarian objects and architecture as a method of evaluating time, purpose, and relative availably to the general population, it will present an argument for the intentional denial of the legibility for this landscape, leading to a further lack of understanding within the general population. This result will further lead to the alienation of the population from its landscape.