Perceptions of Found Landscapes

The Perception of Found Landscapes: In Stillness and Motion Our perception of the landscape—what we consider sublime, beautiful, or grotesque—and what we might imagine for its future are largely shaped by the culmination of a lifetime's experiences. This course aims to contribute to this bank of experiences to influence the perception of the landscape. Similar to found objects or found art, which are created from undisguised but often modified items or products not normally considered materials from which art is made, found landscapes are spaces that have no counterpart in traditional landscapes, awaiting a new aesthetic reading to rediscover what we already have but may elude our recognition and appreciation. This course will examine landscape architecture through the lens of aesthetic theories and closely study how we perceive, interpret, and conceptualize our natural and built environments. Students will conduct primary research using still and moving images to elicit new meanings through motion, seek unexpected encounters, ironic juxtapositions, and unusual uses of spaces in the landscape, and reimagine the landscape's potential for reconciling opposite forces: natural and artificial, growth and decay, beauty and the sublime, being and becoming.