II Landscape and Aesthetics

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 16-30
Author(s):  
Diana Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Main Issue ◽  
Locus Amoenus ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Locus Classicus

Defining a space as landscape suggests that it is visually distinctive and interesting, that it attracts the eye, and engages the senses and faculties. Agriculture (or productivity) can be one important feature of what makes space into land and divides it up into -scapes and territories, but it is not always the main issue. Typically, classical texts featuring something akin to our ‘landscape’ showcase the natural environment supporting, threatening, or ornamenting human existence. So at the beginning of the Graeco–Roman tradition we see that the landscapes of Homeric epic, or pastoral verse (for example, the Hellenistic poets Bion and Theocritus), gain order and meaning from the inclusion of human figures, but they also contribute atmosphere and a distinctive sense of place that enriches the stories that play out against them. Chapter I introduced one particularly delightful and hugely popular topographic trope: an idyllic space where sensory and aesthetic qualities encourage harmony between humans and nature. The locus classicus or touchstone for this locus amoenus is Plato's dialogue Phaedrus. Famously, this dialogue riffs on a very specific landscape scene, one which was to have an intense and far-reaching effect on subsequent landscape discourse, and which provides an ideal point of departure.

Music, Landscape, and the Sound of Place

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Grimley
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Cultural Geography ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
British Library ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Final Time ◽  
Walking Tour ◽  
Meaning Representation ◽  
Critical Literature

One of the most poignant scenes in Ken Russell’s 1968 film Delius: Song of Summer evocatively depicts the ailing composer being carried in a wicker chair to the summit of the mountain behind his Norwegian cabin. From here, Delius can gaze one final time across the broad Gudbrandsdal and watch the sun set behind the distant Norwegian fells. Contemplating the centrality of Norway in Delius’s output, however, raises more pressing questions of musical meaning, representation, and our relationship with the natural environment. It also inspires a more complex awareness of landscape and our sense of place, both historical and imagined, as a mode of reception and an interpretative tool for approaching Delius’s music. This essay focuses on one of Delius’s richest but most critically neglected works, The Song of the High Hills for orchestra and wordless chorus, composed in 1911 but not premiered until 1920. Drawing on archival materials held at the British Library and the Grainger Museum, Melbourne, I examine the music’s compositional genesis and critical reception. Conventionally heard (following Thomas Beecham and Eric Fenby) as an imaginary account of a walking tour in the Norwegian mountains, The Song of the High Hills in fact offers a multilayered response to ideas of landscape and nature. Moving beyond pictorial notions of landscape representation, I draw from recent critical literature in cultural geography to account for the music’s sense of place. Hearing The Song of the High Hills from this perspective promotes a keener understanding of our phenomenological engagement with sound and the natural environment, and underscores the parallels between Delius’s work and contemporary developments in continental philosophy, notably the writing of Henri Bergson.

scholarly journals Pásztori múzsa a nagyvárosban

2018 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Gergő Gellérfi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Locus Amoenus ◽  
Bucolic Poetry

The title of my paper refers to a remark of Charles Witke, who specifies Juvenal’s Satire 3 in his monograph of Latin Satire as the eclogue of the urban poor. The interlocutor (who is also the main speaker in this case) of the satire says farewell to a friend before leaving his home for good, just like Meliboeus in Vergil’s First Eclogue. Both dialogues take place in natural environment, so to say, in a locus amoenus, however the setting of the satire is somewhat different from the traditional bucolic scenes. In my paper, I present the aforementioned bucolic features of the beginning and closure of Satire 3, after a brief summary of the other Juvenalian Satires showing the influence of bucolic poetry.

The Senses of Smell and Sight in Glossina swynnertoni

1937 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Napier Bax
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Blue Background ◽  
Human Eyes ◽  
Dark Blue ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
Main Attraction ◽  
Glossina Swynnertoni

1. Male G. swynnertoni were placed in a cage in the middle of a grass enclosure (to curtail their sight) and their powers of smell tested by recording their reactions when a span of six oxen (with two men) passed to windward outside the enclosure. Reactions were obtained at the ranges of 110 and 180 ft. but failed at 300 ft.Female G. swynnertoni reacted at 110 ft. but were not tested at greater ranges.2. Men in groups of two and eight were substituted for the oxen, and human scent was found to be attractive, but in spite of this there was evidence that the oxen and not the men with them were the main attraction in the scent experiments with the oxen.3. The scents of kamba (onion-scented bark rope), hessian and manure were tested at 110 ft. and were not attractive. There was evidence, however, that the exhaust of a lorry at 300 ft. was attractive.4. The tsetses did not react to shouting, the trampling of oxen or the noise of a lorry.5. These results are discussed and the experimental conditions compared with the conditions in the natural environment.6. Wind of a strength from 1½ to 5½ m.p.h. outside the cage (i.e., from about ¾ to 2½ within it) successfully bore the scent of the oxen at a range of 110 ft. to the tsetses. Lower and higher velocities were not tested.7. The powers of sight of male G. swynnertoni were tested by passing the span of oxen to leeward of the enclosure, from the circumference of which an arc had been cut. The direction of the wind ensured that the tsetses could receive no scent. A maximum tonal contrast was obtained (to human eyes) by using black oxen against a light background and carrying out the experiments in bright sunshine. Positive results were obtained up to and including a range of 450 ft., but at 600 ft. there was no reaction.Female G. swynnertoni reacted at 110 ft. but were not tested at greater ranges.8. There was evidence that as the tonal contrast between the oxen and their background became less (through a weak sun or the background in semi-shadow) so the distance at which the tsetses could see diminished. This was supported by an experiment at 110 ft. in which the effect of a dark-blue background was greatly to reduce the reactions.9. A small dark screen at 110 ft. gave as good reactions as the span of oxen.10. The results of the sight experiments are discussed and the experimental conditions compared with those in the natural environment.

scholarly journals THE INFLUENCE OF USER ACTIVITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS DIMENSIONS ON SENSE OF PLACE IN CITY PARKS

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Ivan Danny Dwiputra ◽  
Angela Christysonia Tampubolon ◽  
Hanson E. Kusuma
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Numerical Data ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Environment Design ◽  
Environmental Characteristics ◽  
City Parks ◽  
User Activity

City parks have certain environmental characteristics and accommodate various types of activities that affect the sense of place of the user. This study was conducted with the aim of identifying the dimensions of user activities and environmental characteristics, and sense of place levels related to city parks, as well as the causal relationships between them. Qualitative research was done using an online survey with open-ended questions. The collected text data were analyzed using content analysis. Quantitative research was done using an online survey with closed-ended questions that were compiled based on the results of the qualitative research analysis. The collected numerical data were analyzed by factor analysis and multivariate regression analysis. The analysis revealed four user activity dimensions (recreation, social interaction, work, and sports and hobby), seven environmental characteristics dimensions (natural environment, design, facilities, comfort, location, proximity, and entertainment), and two sense of place dimensions (compatibility with a place and dedication to a place). The dimension compatibility with a place tended to be influenced by the accessibility and visual quality of a park (location, natural environment, and park design), while the dimension dedication to a place tended to be influenced by user engagement (sport and hobby, and facilities).

scholarly journals Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines - audio files

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albrecht Diem ◽  
Matthieu van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Edition ◽  
Ideal Point ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Read Aloud ◽  
History Of ◽  
Audio Files ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Eternal Salvation ◽  
Point Of Departure

<div>The seventh-century 'Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines' (Someone’s Rule for Virgins), which was most likely written by Jonas of Bobbio, the hagiographer of the Irish monk Columbanus, forms an ideal point of departure for writing a new history of the emergence of Western monasticism understood as a history of the individual and collective attempt to pursue eternal salvation.<br>The book provides a critical edition and translation of the 'Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines' and a roadmap for such a new history revolving around various aspects of monastic discipline, such as the agency of the community, the role of enclosure, authority and obedience, space and boundaries, confession and penance, sleep and silence, excommunication and expulsion.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Various monastic rules contain provisions on being read aloud to the community or to monks and nuns who were in the process of entering the monastery. In order to give an impression how the 'Regula cuiusdam ad uirgines' may have sounded, Albrecht Diem has provided an audio file (read by Matthieu van der Meer).</div>

scholarly journals Presentimiento de la ciudad fronteriza (sobre la Politeia de Platón)

2003 ◽  
pp. 17-37
Author(s):  
Eugenio Trías
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
The World ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Republic ◽  
To Come ◽  
The City ◽  
The Ideal

This essay tries to think with Plato (not against nor from him) the idea of justice, which structures the city and the human soul in the Republic, and the platonic self-critique displayed in several late dialogues, viewed as a basis for a philosophy that can make sense of human existence in the bordering city. The bordering city –itself a metaphor of Limit–, inhabited by intermediary characters (love and creation, reminiscence and reason, halfway between the Ideal city and the cave), is what makes possible the interchange between transcendent Being (the Good, Beauty, Truth) and Becoming (which characterizes human existence). The bordering city is Plato’s greatest discovery, through which we can think an alternative city and the corresponding human condition, and even the world (cosmos). Plato gave the necessary clues to come to this alternative conception, and his recourse to myth can be seen as a symbolic addition that allows access to truth. What is, what exists and happens, is an unceasing return of “archetypes” (ideas joined with symbols). This gives consistency to what is, what exists and what we ourselves are. Philosophical truth is the awareness of the fact that we live within these archetypes, relatively to which we determine and decide our existence. Still, Plato’s thought, as a philosophy of limit, remains distant from the sensible and changing individual, which can be recreated by Limit and the being of Limit. In fact, what is recreated in Limit is a being (perceptible by the senses, singular, and in change): a being of limit which, through ideas and symbols can become accessible to understanding.

Odours as Olfactibilia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
The Senses

It is natural to think that sight is distinctive amongst the senses in that we typically see ordinary objects directly, rather than seeing a visual equivalent to a sound or odour. It is also natural to think that sounds and odours (like rainbows and holograms) are sensibilia, in that they are each intimately related to just one of our senses. In this chapter, I defend these natural-seeming claims. I present a view on which odours are indeed sensibilia, a claim that is in need of defence when confronted with the suggestion that they are clouds of molecules. Furthermore, I argue that odours and rainbows, whilst both sensibilia, differ in ways that reflect their different roles for perceivers.

Material-Centered Interaction Design

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Wiberg
Keyword(s):  
Interaction Design ◽  
Interactive Systems ◽  
Interactive System ◽  
Radio Waves ◽  
A Value ◽  
Design Paradigm ◽  
Physical Materials ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Metaphysical Status

The growing interest in the materiality of interaction in the field of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) indicates that there is a value in acknowledging the material aspects and dimensions of interaction design. However, and if only relying on a representation-driven approach to interaction design the notion of materiality only works, at best, as a “metaphorical maneuver, while still pushing for an interaction design paradigm oriented towards the immaterial aspects of interaction design (for instance the use of symbols and metaphors in interaction design). So what would an alternative perspective and approach be? In short, can we not only shift perspectives here, but also imagine different approaches and methods to interaction design that truly accepts the digital as a design material, that focuses on interaction as the form being designed, and an approach that do not introduces any categorical distinctions between different matters. In this book I have suggested that we should make no metaphysical or ontological distinction between physical and digital materials, between atoms, bits, and cells, between “visible” or “invisible” materials, and even avoid distinctions between what might be considered as “material” or “immaterial” in the first place (like radio waves). In the same way as wood or iron are typical examples of physical materials I consider code, algorithms, sensors and processors as digital materials. Still, from the viewpoint of interaction design it is the composition and activation of these different materials as to give the interaction a particular form that is essential – not each materials ontological or metaphysical status. So, instead of focusing on what a particular interactive system represents, the material-centered approach to interaction design as proposed in this book focuses on how interaction is presented and accordingly materially manifested in the world (in all imaginable forms – from completely embedded and “invisible” interactive systems to the gadgets, pads, and tabs we surround ourselves with in our everyday lives). In this chapter I take this as a point of departure for the development of an approach to interaction design that I label material-centered interaction design.

A Renaissance with Revenants: Images Gathered from the Ruins of Cape Town’s Districts One and Six

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Ernsten
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
South African ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Double Negative ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Complex Transformation ◽  
Point Of Departure

In this chapter I explore District One and District Six, two inner-city areas in Cape Town, South Africa, by means of a series of images gathered from its ruins. As a point of departure I quote Neville Lister. Lister is the first-person narrator of Ivan Vladislavić’s novel Double Negative (2011). He is a white middle-class young man from Johannesburg whose life overlaps with the city’s post-apartheid transformation. Vladislavić’s story, in which Lister becomes a photographer, was inspired by a volume of photographs of Johannesburg taken by renowned South African photographer David Goldblatt (Goldblatt 2010). As his protagonist finds himself in the post-apartheid city, Vladislavić highlights the complexities of attempts at representing a coherent visual narrative regarding South Africa’s disjunctive urban history. Over the course of the last decade or so I have visited Cape Town many times. My personal life converged with the city’s transformation as a result of fortuitous encounters I had first as a student, then as a tourist, and finally as a researcher. The six photographs discussed as part of this chapter are the product of collaborations in 2013 and 2014. Recalling the epigraph of Bettina Malcomess and Dorothee Kreutzfeldt’s book about Johannesburg, Not No Place (2013), I suggest the impressions conveyed by the images include, at best, ‘fragments of spaces and times’ representing post-apartheid Cape Town. Referring to Walter Benjamin and Thomas More, Malcomess and Kreutzfeldt describe the capture of the ‘double negative’ of the utopia (translated as ‘no place’), the materialization of ‘impossibility and always deferred potential’ (Malcomess and Kreutzfeldt 2013: 12). Like these critics, I focus on the difficulty of capturing the complex transformation undergone by Cape Town’s District One and District Six (see also Penrose, Chapter 8, for issues in capturing complex, capitalist transitions). Cape Town appeared as number one on the New York Times list ‘52 places to go to in 2014’. Journalist Sarah Khan wrote, ‘Cape Town is reinventing itself, and the world is invited to its renaissance’ (Khan 2014). It is a story about boutique shops, property values, gentrification, self-stylization, and the self-conscious craft of hipster appeal.

scholarly journals Self Writing and World Mapping in Tim Bowling’s 'Downriver Drift' (2000) and 'The Paperboy’s Winter' (2003)

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Leonor María Martínez Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Place ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Creative Non Fiction ◽  
The Human Condition

Widely acclaimed as one of the best living Canadian authors, Tim Bowling has cultivated several literary genres with great talent and verbal craftsmanship. He has published twelve poetry collections to date, two works of creative non-fiction, and five novels, including Downriver Drift (2000), The Paperboy’s Winter (2003), The Bone Sharps (2007), The Tinsmith (2012) and The Heavy Bear (2017). This article explores the epistemological power of Bowling’s fiction as a mode of knowing the self and the nonhuman environment. More specifically, bearing in mind fundamental ecocritical tenets, it analyses how his two earliest novels, Downriver Drift and The Paperboy’s Winter, evoke notions of dwelling and a compelling sense of place, as the natural environment in them is much more than mere backdrop to the narratives unfolding in their respective plots. Written in elegantly wrought language rich in poetic resonance, Bowling’s novels remind their readership that fiction is a powerful tool to investigate the human condition and our surrounding world, where the human and the nonhuman coexist on democratic terms.

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