Hengst: Paysages morts/vivants (completed)

Dr. Lutz Hengst: Paysages morts/vivants. Landscapes Between Storages of Dormant Forces and Imaginaria of Possibilities

In theses, the starting constellation of the project can be summarized as follows: If we regard rooms in romantic tradition as landscapes, we are looking for places that are supposed to appear like harmonized results of eternal processes, as far away from conspicuous shaping work as possible. However, the fact that exemplary landscapes of this type of perception is based on past and at times brute landscaping, is overlooked in the process of aestheticization. Nevertheless, landscapes are seldom perceived solely as aesthetic and contemplative, but also as physical reservoirs of energy, which are and have been used accordingly. In the view of spaces that surround us, this results in an ambivalence, in a parallel search for 'Paysages morts/vivants'. Landscapes between storages of dormant forces and imaginaria of possibilities.

On the one hand, the project with the working title of the same name starts with the environmental-historical concept of landscapes as archival records. On the other hand, it applies approaches that investigate current forms of appearances and appropriations of landscapes using the concept of iconoscape. This is essentially based on two assumptions:

1. a variety of media formats have generated and continue to configure a continuum of image-space by virtue of their visualization capabilities.
2. the pictoriality of space interacts in a complex way with physical space and its dynamics of arrangement.

On this basis, the project aims to grasp the reciprocity of both traditional and newly formed images and formations of landscape, taking into account current practices of planning and artistic remodelling.