Encircling the land: photographic visualisations of the experience of a landscape

Abstract

This project documents my process of visual and hermeneutic enquiry centred on the Tswaing meteorite impact crater, north of Pretoria. In my visual investigation I attempt to apprehend the landscape through a cyclical process which involves walking within it, photographing it in 360° ‘visualisations’, editing the imagery and returning, often frustrated, to repeat both encounter and process. The cycle of reflection leads me to consider my circular process itself as a dialogical mode of interpretation and response to the primeval, circular landscape of the impact crater. Informed by Gadamer’s (1975) notion of a hermeneutic circle which extends interpretation and understanding, the reflexive process is extended and enriched through dialogue with the work of pertinent scientists, artists, poets and writers. Landscape is considered as an artefact of deep time, challenging entrenched traditions and notions while considering significant contemporary responses. The dissertation attempts to demonstrate the layered accretion of concept and meaning contained within the visual and theoretical components of the investigation