Titolo della tesi: Virtuality of Landscape
Academic debates concerning landscape convey different definitions, that vary on the discipline, where
the term is used. This dissertation attempts to shed light on the understanding of what encompasses the landscape in the artistic project. Using the notion of virtuality as the alteration to what has been so far established, the research will open
the debate on what architects and designers can learn from artists and their way of thinking.
Through the analysis of literature from the fields of study: art
history, philosophy, sociology, and architecture, the research focus is to examine artistic practice on landscape. The shift of perspective enriches the design porcess, and at the same time is complementary to the study process by architects and designers.
Virtuality, as potentiality transcending its technological aspect, is the
idea borrowed from the field of philosophy- deriving from the theories
of Gilles Deleuze, that appear as
the problematics of the theories of emergence. Landscape, as a social construct, is analysed from the perspective of Henri Lefebvre's theory of The Production of Space, together with perceptual theories of Lucius Burckhardt and John Berger, will
be applied here to comprehend the phenomenon of nature, as seen by artist.
The research endeavors to challenge existing paradigms and explore alternative narratives of the relationships between humans and nature, which are subsequently mirrored in selected case studies of contemporary art. In this context, virtuality functions as a catalyst for transformation, creating a platform for diverse perspectives, a phenomenon of seeing certain things differently. This process supports a deeper
focus on the artistic understanding
of landscape and how it resonates with society at large in times marked
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by climate change, systemic risk, uncertainty and it's attendant apparatuses of power in the contemporary world. To grasp the multiplicities of today's landscape, there is a need to examine the volatile context of the 21st century, where technology and digitalization establish the knowledge-based economy system we have access to. Landscape, scientifically, is considered as an objectified perspective on territory, that at any time is under threat of turning into a product of capitalism and power.
Those issues are present in the contemporary art, that often serve as a reference.
Sciences, with its various forms
of representation, encompass landscape in a different manner, from cartography through representation, to the descriptive definitions. The
goal of this research is to show the possibilities,coming from learning from all of those perspectives. As
the product of artistic manifestation, landscape can take forms borrowing from all of the disciplines testing the concepts to bring new thoughts into being.