samarobryn / W. Sze Tsang

Presentation as part of the 2018 Musicological Society of Australia conference at Edith Cowan University, Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia.

Abstract: Landscapes can invoke deep, visceral emotions within artists, often acting as a conduit for creative inspiration. Working within landscapes can be an immersive experience, and there is an oft-mentioned sentiment of being drawn to a particular place or type of environment. There is also a sense of multi-layered narratives, with the features and history of the physical landscape intertwining with the inner emotional landscape of the artist. The infusion of geography of place into composition can be a powerful mechanism evoking the emotionality of place, while also reflecting on the geographical features and stories of an area. This paper will discuss how the landscape can be used to portray an artist’s lived experience, and discuss strategies through which facets of the landscape can be transformed into compositional elements within audio-visual works. These strategies include using field recordings, field footage, tracing the contours of the landscape to create graphical scores or percussive lines, and combining recorded material with live performance. The paper will discuss these strategies in relation to the artist’s own work exploring their relationship with landscapes, and how landscapes can be a gateway for reflections on their personal history.

Landscapes are fertile places for creating and inspiring works. Being immersed within a landscape can be a powerful experience, with past and present constantly intersecting as an individual traverses a place. The act of immersion into a landscape can lead to the creation of multiple forms of dialogue – firstly, within the artist themselves as they process thoughts and emotions a landscape triggers within them, then secondly between the artist and the landscape as they forge navigational methods over the land’s geography.

The landscape shapes much of the human experience of the land – for instance, in the ways in which we use physical demarcations and descriptions for place, and also how we determine our movements within these boundaries. Much has been written about landscape and the human experience, particularly in regards to psychological and spiritual connections and landscape as a cultural construct. How a landscape is interpreted is heavily dependent on cultural context, or as Schama describes as, “…constructions of the imagination projected onto wood and water and rock” (Schama 1995).

Art historian W.J.T Mitchell writes that landscape should be thought of as “a process by which social and subjective identities are formed” (Mitchell, 1995). In his theses of landscape, Mitchell notes that “landscape is a medium of exchange between the human and the natural, the self and the other” with a “potentially limitless reserve of value” (ibid). Further in his theses, Mitchell writes that “landscape is a natural scene mediated by culture. It is both a represented and presented space, both a signifier and a signified, both a frame and what a frame contains…”(ibid)

The idea of walking as a way of forming relationships with the land is also echoed in John Wylie’s description of his walk along the South West Coast Path. As Wylie made his way around the Path, he observed the “close, visual, tactile and sonorous relation with the earth, the ground, mud, stinging vegetation” (Wylie, 2005), and also the sounds emanating from him as he continued down the Path – “…the sound of breathing and the rustle of the rucksack shifting about awkwardly…the affirmation…of intentional action and effort”(Ibid). The combination of these sensations felt to Wylie, “as if the pre-established boundary between self and landscape, subject and object, could become soluble, osmotic, in the engaged, involved practice of walking”(ibid).

One context in where the process of forming dialogues with the environment can be explored is through psychogeography – the exploration of identity through emotional attachments and connection to place.  Originating in the 1950s as part of the Situationist movement in France, psychogeography was a way of exploring the psychological experiences of urban spaces on individuals, as well as offering critiques about how certain spaces were used (gentrification in particular). The original psychogeographers advocated the act of becoming “lost” in the city, through the dérive (“drift”), or an unplanned journey through a landscape. Through a dérive, the intention was to allow participants to “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there”, while letting go of everyday preoccupations.

The term ‘psychogeography’ was re-discovered in the 1990s, and more contemporary uses of the term has now broadened the concept to encompass a wide range of approaches regarding how places are viewed – aka the “thinking of places”. Psychogeography was also taken beyond its urban roots and towards places in general, particularly natural settings and rural landscapes.

In the context of working within landscapes, psychogeography is a particularly pertinent concept, as it allows an artist methods of reflecting upon the geography of a place. For instance, the contours and resonances of the land can be captured and expressed through field recordings, i.e. the rushing cascade of water onto rocks, the wind through trees, and the animal sounds highlighting its inhabitants. These aspects can then be used by the artist in the creation of artefacts that channel these emotions and memories. A psychogeographic compositional practice is a way of mediating knowledge and imagination, where concepts of landscape, place and meaning can be situated together.

A contemporary sonic artist in psychogeography who has been influential in my practice is Drew Mulholland, who alongside an established solo career has also worked as Composer-In-Residence with the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow. Much of his work is based on documenting and exploring the emotionality of a place through sound, with his works based on his affective impressions of a place. As observed by Mulholland during an interview about his work and process:

…you can’t help but bring your own reaction to it [the place], and maybe that’s where part of the strength of it is: the fact that the place is kind of channelling something for you…it’s a kind of conduit if you like.

In Mulholland’s work, the emotionality of a place is expressed not only by being inspired by being in a place, but also through deriving compositional elements from the place by using elements from the landscape itself, i.e. through field recordings. With such a practice, the landscape becomes an integral part of the compositional process.

The concept of landscape channelling emotions is one that Mulholland often states about his work. There is no separation of artist and place – the artist is an active agent while in the place, bringing with them past memories and experiences as they engage with the land. This intertwining of the histories between artist and place is an important facet of the creative process. During another part of the interview, Mulholland noted the power of landscape on memory, particularly on the impact on interpretations of place. In this section, the question of psychological emptying was raised, and subsequently rejected by Mulholland:

The practice of psychogeography involves walking through various places, with the body arguably becoming a “research instrument” (Bridger, 2013) on recording a person’s experiences and relationships between themselves and place. Sonic-based psychogeography practices is about musicians explicitly reflecting upon the multiple geographies informing their practice, and the infusion of geographical aspects of a place into works (Mulholland, Lorimer & Philo, 2009). Psychogeography therefore is a way for artists to invoke the emotionality of a place, while reflecting on an area’s geographical features.

In the same vein as channelling emotions through the act of immersion into the landscape, psychogeography can also be used as a powerful tool for channelling experiences of trauma. The interactions of the artist with the landscape, the use of elements from the landscape and performance from the artist in response to these materials can offer a visceral response to past trauma. It can also be used to examine the responses of both artist and place to the event. One example is Kathryn Smith’s work, Psychogeographies: The Washing Away of Wrongs, a series of twelve prints where the artist documents her visits to the former homes of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Through documenting her journey and observations of the area, Smith intended to find and record any ‘traces’ left by Nilsen on the place.

Twenty years after the murder, Smith attempts to document any traces of Nilsen on the area. Through this exploration, Smith’s work highlights the multi-faceted nature of psychogeography – her work is simultaneously deeply personal as she explores her own interest in the murders (through her photographs and handwritten notations of her journey to the area of the murders), as well as delving into the history and trauma surrounding the murders. Her photographs are marked in their muted quietness and emptiness, and contained within Smith’s work is the constant motif around absence and erasure. Her photographs are markedly devoid of people, despite them being public spaces. In her works, the place seems to reflect a constant, insistent need that life must still go on despite their past notoriety, and a desire to forget the circumstances that caused woundings in the place. The works also reflect the complexities surrounding trauma, with its overlaying of past and present. In Smith’s works, there is always an unsettling incongruity in the scenes, where a place exists both as inoffensive suburbia and murder sites.

In some ways, the landscape itself is a co-creator of the work, through its presence as a powerful, elemental, dynamic entity. This relationship is also seen as on-going and evolving where the landscape is more than an external object, but one where people and land are engaged in constant co-constructing of relationships (Wylie, pp 144).

In the same vein as channelling emotions through the act of immersion into the landscape, psychogeography can also be used as a powerful tool for channelling experiences of trauma. The interactions of the artist with the landscape, the use of elements from the landscape and performance from the artist in response to these materials can offer a visceral response to past trauma. It can also be used to examine the responses of both artist and place to the event. One example is Kathryn Smith’s work, Psychogeographies: The Washing Away of Wrongs, a series of twelve prints where the artist documents her visits to the former homes of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Through documenting her journey and observations of the area, Smith intended to find and record any ‘traces’ left by Nilsen on the place.

While trauma has been acknowledged on a macro level as one of the central concepts within musical modernism, but there is comparatively less discussion on musical representations of subjective, post-traumatic experiences.

Discussion Of Works

During my time on the grounds, I was mindful of another passage from a separate interview with Mulholland where he describes his process while in the field. In this interview, Mulholland emphasises the capturing of moments in time in his practice, noting:

I was particularly interested in using elements found in the landscape as way to mediate the intertwined experiences from my personal life with that of the history of the Ruined Farmhouse. I noted some keywords of my initial impressions – fear, anxiety, shock, anger. Using these keywords as touchstones for the work, I went about taking photographs and field recordings of my time there.

Conclusion

With this approach, the landscape becomes the way in which personal narrative is channelled and expressed. The landscape is not an Other or otherwise separated from the composition.

Much of this approach is inspired by composer Maggi Payne, who Sabine Feisst eloquently describes her approach as being less interested about documenting human domination over a landscape or, conversely, projecting a landscape as the Other, but rather emphasises both the interconnectedness of humans and nature. On her works about the desert in particular, Feisst notes: