midterm proposal
3.06.05

The representation of the american landscape has inspired my ideas and imagination for this midterm. Representing landscape has changed tremendously in the arts through history. I looked at some old and contemporary attitudes towards representing landscape in developing ideas for my own project. Below are the key works of interest.





Asher Brown Durand Landscape 1866



"Although Durand did not share Cole's penchant for drama and allegory, he did share his view of landscape painting as a moral enterprise. He held an Emersonian belief that nature was a manifestation of God; thus to contemplate or paint nature brought man closer to the divine and could inspire one to lead a moral life. In reference to the Great Designer, Durand wrote: "To the beautiful order of his works learn to conform the order of our lives." The purity of the American landscape, untrammeled by centuries of civilization, lent itself to this fusion of realism with religious idealism."
John McCoubrey, ed., American Art, 1700-1960, Sources and Documents in the History of Art (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 112

mark tansy- constructing the grand canyon 1990





larry johnson untitled 1990





proposal:

the mediated american landscape

Inspired by the tradition of american, especially the hudson river school, landscape artists and early 90's conceptual paining, I propose to create a video installation using a webcam of an american national park, where users will be able to text in words, which will fill the sky portion of the image. For the midterm, I will bring in a live webcam feed from the grand canyon, work on color and edge detection, and test with text from a file to fill the sky. For the final, I will add the cellphone text feature.

grand canyon

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