“Lost Space” and “Artialised Space”: Analysing Photographic Representations in Paris A Plan A Master’s Thesis in Environmental Design Xiao Hou | Michigan State University | December 2017 Committee Members: Jon Burley, Chairperson, Landscape Architecture Pat Crawford, Committee Member, Landscape Architecture Mark Wilson, Committee Member, Urban & Regional Planning
Literature Review
Art, Picturesque and Environmental Design Visual, Representation and Landscape Artialisation Researching Visual Materials
Art, Picturesque and Environmental Design
Art Culture
Ecology
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Picturesque: 18th century, artistic composition to landscape design: “Three-dimensional realization of an artist’s idealized version of nature” Visual → Two dimensional surfaces The Modern period: communication After the Modern period: a rational, interdisciplinary approach considering cultural, social, physical and ecological conditions
Landscape
Stourhead, England https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stourhead_garden.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VillaSavoye.jpg
Social
Villa Savoye, France Le Corbusier
Visual, Representation and Landscape ●
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1920s, Carl Sauer, qualitative study of landscape perception in human geography, the collective transformation of the landscape produced cultural landscape 1972, John Berger, Ways of seeing: Seeing is culturally constructed 1977, Susan Sontag, On Photography: question the power of photography to document and bear witness Landscape can reflect or represent culture, visual representation can also influence landscape
Visual
Culture
Landscape
Artialisation ● ● ●
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1990s, French philosopher Alain Roger Landscape is a perceptual interpretation of nature, art is in the process of transforming nature “the selected presentation of a real environment using a characterization of the environment by selectively choosing what to present” (Burley & Machemer, 2016, p363) Artialisation is embedded in our image-making process when we make choices, painting and photogarphy
Art Culture
Landscape
Researching Visual Materials ● ● ●
Interest in fields such as art history, sociology, tourism studies, environmental communication, computer science, … Valid to use photograph to study perception of the real environment Expert and lay people perceive the environment differently
Art
Represent Human
Landscape
Visual
Visualize
Ecological
Social
Cultural
Purpose of Study To examine and explore how and why a city is represented in people’s photographs differently.
Research Questions 1.
How do different people represent the same city in photographs?
2.
How is the city presented in the shared photographs different than the images of a real city? Why?
3.
How do we understand photographic representations in an urban context?
Research Methods
Research Design
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Paris, France Collecting first group of photos from students (IRB, consent) Collecting second group of photos (location) to see other parts of Paris
“The Long Walk”
Hypothesis ● ● ●
People will share a certain type of Paris with their photographic representations. The places to be shared will have a certain type of quality that is different in the places where no photos were shared. The photos will not be distributed evenly across the research area.
What I found
The First Group
2015, 7 students 95 photos in total
2016, 7 students
Locating each photo based on location using Google My Maps
Determine areas to collect second group of photos
Photos are clustered at a city scale.
The Second Group
Zone A
Zone B
Zone C
Zone D
44 photos in total
This set of photo looks distinctively different from the first set.
Zone E
First Group: photos of theme, diverse content
Second group: random street photos, similar content
One is selectively represented, one is not.
“Pile sorting� the photos for analysation
2015 photos grouped by location
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
2016 photos grouped by location and student name
Clustered Photo Locations
2015
2016
The same city could be experienced in similar and different ways
Landmarks in the City
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Landmarks are shown with contexts: city streets, architecture details, the view to and from it (river, green space), food, and people enjoying life. They are landmarks to be seen, but also provide different seeing opportunities. Because we are Landscape Architecture students?
Distribution around Eiffel Tower
Similar Photos (2015)
A2
A6
C1
B4
E2
G2
Similar Photos (2016)
H3
I3
L1
H4
Is it similar or different than sketching?
I5
L3
Conclusion
“Artialised Space” and Visual “Lost Space” First group: selectively presented space, or “artialised space” Second group: visual “lost space” Lost Space, Roger Trancik, “the area unused by pedestrians or not occupied by buildings or streets”
Implications ● ● ● ●
Collect more data to bridge the gap between real and the represented Representations don’t replace real experiences, design for people Open our eyes to the mundane Qualitative and quantitative study of photos for decision making (User-generated data and machine learning)
Limitations and Future Research ● ● ● ●
Photo collecting techniques, data My own understanding of photos to interpret results deeply Mixed method with larger samples Google Arts & Culture?
Screenshot from Google Arts & Culture Experiment:
Thank you!