Cinematographic approaches towards the eco-sublime landscape – A practice-led enquiry

Laity, Adam

Abstract

This thesis investigates visual representations of the evolving nature of sublime landscapes through the practice of digital cinematography. The enquiry is contextualised through discussion of philosophical understandings of the sublime – Longinus, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant – and analysis of historical visual representations of sublime landscapes, from painting (J.M.W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich), photography (Edward Burtynsky, Chris Burkard) and cinematography (Andrei Tarkovsky, Werner Herzog, Emmanuel Lubezki). The thesis is specifically concerned with the temporal and physical dimensions that cinematography brings to the study of sublime landscapes.

The enquiry is based on detailed autoethnographic field-notes made during filming in various locations, principally Dartmoor and the Arctic. They make explicit the tacit or embodied knowledge drawn from my cinematographic practice by exploring the technological and practical aspects concerning how sublime landscapes might be captured (including the use of drones and camera stabilization) and my own emotional experiences of these landscapes, drawing on a turn towards affect.

The understanding gained from my cinematographic practice is explored through the construction of two essay films, whose blend of words and images offer the most appropriate way to represent the insights gained, and in the thesis artefact, the film-poem A Short Film About Ice. These practice elements contain the central argument of the thesis and its contribution to knowledge: that the global threat posed by anthropogenic climate change is now so pervasive that the contemporary sublime landscape must be reconceptualised as an eco-sublime landscape, representable most affectively through cinematography. Moreover, there is no affective distance, temporally or physically, between the eco-sublime moment and the representation of that moment.

The enquiry concludes that humans can no longer afford to think of ourselves as separate from landscapes and the nature they represent. This recognition, the thesis argues, must be reflected in how the eco-sublime is now visualised, which needs to encompass our interconnectivity with the natural world and a heightened sense of responsibility towards it.

Citation

Laity, A. Cinematographic approaches towards the eco-sublime landscape – A practice-led enquiry. (Thesis). University of the West of England. Retrieved from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/8185742

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Nov 30, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 25, 2022
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/8185742
• Award Date: Apr 25, 2022