Communicating multisensorial engagement with landscape via the photobook

Abstract

This PhD research investigates the potential of applying landscape phenomenology and Arnold Berleant’s concept of the ‘participatory landscape’ to the photobook as an alternative to the Cartesian dualisms which underpin the typical Western representation and understanding of landscape.

Rather than organising and viewing the landscape as discrete images taken from a fixed, isolated distance, the medium of the photobook is used to communicate a multisensorial engagement with landscape (in which multiple senses are stimulated simultaneously), and elicit a participatory response from the reader.

The research contributes in four key ways. First, through the use of a number of published case studies, this project explores how various image sequencing and design choices may be applied to the tactile and experiential medium of the photobook to construct narratives that communicate the embodied experience of walking, consistent with the concerns of landscape phenomenology and Berleant’s participatory landscape.

Second, it extends the growing area of autoethnographic research by proposing the photobook as a form of performative autoethnography, and introduces a novel form of autoethnography to elucidate the process of sequencing and designing photobooks.

Third, the research positions the author’s practice in relation to the concept of flow, and through exploration of the intersections between flow, Vipassana meditation and long distance walking, makes the case for the photobook encounter to be considered as a meditative space and potential flow activity.

The fourth and final contribution relates to the extension of the critical discourse relating to the photobook itself. This is achieved by providing detailed practical analyses on photobook sequencing and design, and the application and synthesis of two previously unrelated phenomenological approaches to the photobook.

Date of Award	Sept 2024
Original language	English
Sponsors	Vice Chanchellor's Research Scholarship
Supervisor	Brian Dixon (Supervisor)