Drag and Drop - The Compatibility of Existing Landscape Theories and New Virtual Landscapes

Jrg REKITTKE

Abstract
Landscape is collectively perceived as a synonym for a supposedly untouched nature, naturalness or rusticity. Landscape's association with nature and reality make it seem, at first glance, an alternative to, or even the reverse of those phenomena that increasingly confront us in our so-called digital age, the nature of whose existence only allows them to be described as extant in a non-material, virtual form as a possibility. Should this impression be confirmed, the dynamics of the perception of landscapes would have arrived at a terminus marked by the interface between physical reality and non-material virtual reality. The author intends to show that such a terminus need not be feared in the field of landscape aesthetics. Rather than looking at practical examples, which would show that landscape has long proved its compatibility with the digital age, the author bases his argument on the theoretical paradigms that underlie that which we term landscape. In view of the fact that our digital age has been shaped to a considerable extent by new media, it seems reasonable to consider, in addition to the findings of landscape theory, developments in art and media theory. It transpires that landscape, by virtue of its inherent intellectual or virtual nature, is ideally suited to being experienced and conveyed through digital media. Furthermore, it is evident that the new digital technologies are opening up a broad spectrum of activities for the profession of landscape planners and architects, provided that these are equal to the challenge.

Introduction

Landscape planners and architects are frequently and unfairly reproached for having developed a profession based on a romanticisation of the past. The reason for this allegation is illustrated by the fact that, as soon as the word landscape is mentioned, the image that comes to most people's minds is the clich of a pastoral scenery largely spared mankind's technological dominance landscape as a synonym for a supposedly untouched nature, naturalness or rusticity. By contrast, the fact that mankind has actually subordinated his environment on a massive scale, so that the external manifestation of that which we term landscape today is to a large extent the result of an artificial 'over-forming' by man, is often ignored. Landscape planning has always been concerned with these over-formed, genuine landscapes, and thus has always been challenged by actuality, the new and unknown, both regarding physically real landscapes and the field of theoretical landscape aesthetics.

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For this reason it may be postulated that landscape planners and landscape architects, far from being backward looking and historical as is often supposed, have always needed to be active in considering the latest societal and technological developments and tendencies in the way they think and act. This article aims to demonstrate some theoretical approaches that support this claim. Furthermore, this article seeks to show that that which we collectively term landscape is ideally suited to being experienced and conveyed in the technologically generated reality of digital media in the form of digital or virtual landscapes. Theoretical considerations often lag behind the facts of reality, and this is particularly true for the analysis and understanding of the effects that arise from the achievements of the socalled digital age. The half-life of products in the information technology sector is becoming ever shorter, hence the adage: nothing will be as old tomorrow as the software of today. Even the so-called new media, which developed untended behind the back of society, so to speak, were late in being considered. By the time Marschall McLuhan published his visionary book Understanding Media in 1964, there was already a television in every second living room. (cf. ENZENSBERGER, 2000). Landscape theory has dedicated itself until now only diffidently to the phenomena of the digital age. Beyond intimating that we can expect changes in the field of landscape aesthetics, questions surrounding the reason for these changes have until now remained largely unanswered. Gert GRNING (1998) recognises this deficit and formulates in his Kursbuch Neue Landschaften the following challenging question: What effects, if any, would the greater number of virtual landscapes anticipated in cyberspace in future have on the attendance and perception of that which others regard as real landscapes, for example? But then, who wants to think in such [...] media-based terms when creating a landscape, let alone make them the basis of their planning activities?

Landscape as a media product

The crucial step in the direction of a collective European understanding of landscapes was taken at the moment in which landscape received a visual, media-based facet through art. Only the reflection of landscape in a visual medium enabled, over the course of time, a broader social base to develop the notion of a landscape. It can be shown that landscape was inextricably linked with media from the very hour of its intellectual and social inception the collective perception of landscape was first rendered possible through media such as poetic language, the written word and panel painting; the collective landscape view was first opened up through a technical interface. The painter Claude-Gelle, known as Claude Lorrain, whose paintings implanted the image of landscape described in Latin poetry permanently in the European consciousness, is largely credited with having created the classical landscape genre, and is to be thanked for having elevated landscapes to a genre equal to historical painting (cf. HONOUR & FLEMING, 1999).

The Compatibility of Existing Landscape Theories and New Virtual Landscapes

Fig. 1:

The Father of Psyche brings Apollo a Sacrifice, Claude Lorrain (circa 16601670), Canvas, 175x223 cm (HONOUR & FLEMING 1999)

Lorrain contributed to the shaping of the ideal landscape in art, composing idealised landscapes as background or scenery according to strictly rational principles (Fig. 1) thus emerged the idyllic landscape genre (cf. LUCIE-SMITH, 1990). The painter Nicolas Poussin may be named in the same breath as Lorrain he also helped subsequent generations right down to today's landscape planners and architects towards a lasting association with the Arcadian motif. Arcadia, in this case, is not the geographical region of Arcadia in ancient Greece but rather a metaphor for an imaginary land of longing and illusions, where all worries and wants of everyday life are forgotten in the experience of the beauty of nature. In his painting of 1629-30 Et in Arcadia Ego (Fig. 2), shepherds are portrayed reading the inscription Et in Arcadia Ego upon a sarcophagus. This may be translated as Even I death am in Arcadia. No ancient sources for this inscription have been found, thus it is thought that Poussin himself was the author (cf. HONOUR & FLEMING, 1999).

J. Rekittke

Lorrain and Poussin created landscape symbols and in so doing made a crucial contribution to the historical development of a consciousness in which nature was transfigured as a landscape as a realm of beauty beyond everyday The medium of Lorrain and Poussin was painting, their interface was the canvass on which they painted in oils. Although from today's standpoint we would classify this medium as classical, and although the landscapes painted in the 17th century appear especially timeless, it should not be overlooked that painters such as Lorrain and Poussin created something new, even experimental, for their time.life.

Fig. 2:

Et in Arcadia Ego, Nicolas Poussin (circa 1629/1630), Canvas, 101 x 82 cm (HONOUR & FLEMING 1999)

Pictures conveyed by today's digital new media possess the special power of being able to awaken in the observer the impression of dealing with authentic images, images that reflect reality, even though what they are seeing may have been to a large extent artificially generated or manipulated (Fig. 3). Compared to the palette of the classical painter, or a film director's analogue cutting room, today's software-based tools for creating and manipulating images represent no less than a magic box of tricks.

Fig. 3:

Cyberfee FiFi, which was advertising for SONY-Playstation. Right before, left after the digital distortion of the real model (GIESEN & MEGLIN 2000)

The Compatibility of Existing Landscape Theories and New Virtual Landscapes

The author is aware that it is nothing new in art to reproduce forms and occurrences of the real world with admirable accuracy take for example the story of Zeuxis the painter, who reportedly once painted grapes so realistically that the birds descended in their droves to partake of them. Yet there may be no doubt that the introduction of new media has made it much easier to make the unreal appear authentic. As a result, the number of deceptive images that are processed on a daily basis is much greater than in times when art and handcraft used only conventional means. Thus it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the level of authenticity of perceived images. The observer learns to live with this difficulty and becomes accustomed to a state of continual insecurity as far as regards the level of authenticity of what he sees (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4:

Real or Photomontage? Model house village of a pre-fab house company in the former stadium in Osaka, Japan (VAN RIEL 2000)

These experiences with images portrayed in the new media have already had noticeable effects on the representation of landscapes for the observer, something that is elucidated by the empirical studies of Eckart Lange, in which he investigated the validity of landscape simulations virtual landscapes compared to reality. Test persons were instructed to rate a number of images on a scale of one to five according to how realistic they were. The images consisted of three real landscape scenes, a background, a middle ground and a foreground, and corresponding computer-generated images. A further image consisted of a digital photomontage comprising a photographic foreground and a computer-generated background. The highest ratings were given to those virtual landscapes that could barely be distinguished as being computer-generated. Perhaps the most surprising revelation of Lange's experiment was that three-quarters of the test persons assigned one or more of the simulated landscapes the highest possible reality rating, while none of the photos of real landscapes received the highest rating (cf. LANGE, 1999). The following principle may be formulated for the perception of landscapes in the digital age: That which we term landscape is also perceived when that which is observed is or

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portrays not a real landscape, but is rather a representation reminiscent of or optically indistinguishable from familiar landscape scenes (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5:

Computer Generated Fantasy Landscape, Software Bryce 4 (COREL Corporation)

Clearly, differences will remain between the direct perception of real landscapes and the perception of representations of landscapes. Some considerations by Walter Benjamin on the subject of the reproducibility of works of art go some way towards clarifying this fundamental difference. If we consider both natural, untouched landscapes and landscapes created by man as works of art a picturesque, as if painted, surface of ground which may be viewed as work of art (cf. HARD, 1991), then Walter BENJAMIN's expositions (2000 [Original 1936]) appear as a key to understanding the specific aesthetic effects of landscape representations whether be are genuine or artificially generated landscapes: Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. [...] The situations into which the product of mechanical reproduction can be brought may not touch the actual work of art, yet the quality of its presence is always depreciated. This holds not only for the art work but also, for instance, for a landscape which passes in review before the spectator in a movie. In the case of the art object, a most sensitive nucleus namely, its authenticity is interfered with whereas no natural object is vulnerable on that score. The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.

The Compatibility of Existing Landscape Theories and New Virtual Landscapes

One might subsume the eliminated element in the term aura and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a symptomatic process whose significance points beyond the realm of art.

Landscape as a synthesis product

Petrarch, thanks to records of his historical ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336, is generally considered to be the first to view nature consciously as landscape though he did not know the term and did not use it explicitly thereby introducing a new perspective to the concept of nature that predominated in the philosophy and science of the time. Rather than climbing the mountain out of necessity, Petrarch dedicated himself to this gruelling enterprise purely because it was his wish. The novelty of the motive viewing nature for reasons of enjoyment is reflected in the incomprehension of a shepherd whom Pertrarch encountered, and who was unable to fathom why anybody would climb a mountain without having a practical reason for doing so. In the field of landscape aesthetics it is generally assumed that landscape is generated through a process of synthesis in the human mind separate perceived objects in nature are collated in a synthesis by the all-embracing term landscape (cf. KRAUSE & KLPPEL, 1991). Landscape does not exist as an individual element; only the mental composite of separate landscape elements may be described as a landscape. Here we find first indications of a parallel to the process of synthesis which allows us to perceive a landscape namely the synthesis processes found in information technology, whose perceivable results are a composite of individual parts information which on their own are meaningless.

Landscape as virtual reality

When people refer to a landscape, they are talking about something that conjures up specifically individual images in the mind of the conversation participants. According to Lucius Burckhardt, landscapes are to be sought not in the nature of things but in our own minds. Landscape is a construct that serves the perception of a society that no longer lives directly from the earth. (cf. BURCKHARDT, 1978). Landscape may be understood as a collective heritage that results from the ability of the Roman poets, late-renaissance painters and English landscape gardeners to depict landscapes (cf. BURCKHARDT, 1978). Through the continuing estrangement of technologically advanced nations from their natural environment and the intensive consumption of visual media, landscapes are very often perceived in a filtered form primed for the media. In this manner, observed nature is experienced by people not first-hand but second or third-hand. Second-hand experience of landscape is, for example, a landscape that is filmed through a camera and shown on television. An example of a third-hand landscape experience may be found in a situation in which an observer recognises a computer-generated scene visualised in three-dimensional form as a landscape, although a direct connection to nature, such as a television camera would form, is lacking. Due to landscape's essential characteristic of demonstrating a collective heritage, the observer is able to perceive landscapes second or third-hand and recognise them as

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landscapes even without a direct connection to nature. The valency of such perception of landscapes will not be explored here, suffice it to say that at the moment in which an observer identifies or interprets something as a landscape, a landscape is present in the mind of the observes and therefore exists (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6:

A virtual landscape: Last section of a Fuji-Film negative strip, original size 24x36 mm (Photo: Jrg Rekittke)

It seems necessary, in today's digital age, to formulate a broader understanding of landscape that considers and integrates all possible forms of landscape perception, and according to which landscape is recognised as everything that can be collectively identified, interpreted and described as a landscape, even without a direct connection to nature. Even a digitally generated virtual landscape, recognised and described by the perceiver as a landscape, is, on an intellectual level, a landscape. Landscape must be understood as non-material property, which arises from the sum of a multitude of perceived factors. Thus landscape is the result of the same aesthetic process that takes place in the perception of technologically generated virtual reality. Virtual reality is remarkable because it is interpreted by the perceiver not as a secondary representation or reproduction of an object, but as a special form of primary reality. VRtechnology is able to create a perfect illusion that allows the observer to experience the representation as reality (Fig. 7).

The Compatibility of Existing Landscape Theories and New Virtual Landscapes

Fig. 7:

A phobia patient, after the use of a therapeutic VR-installation, is capable of overcoming, in reality, her fear for bridges (SMOLAN & ERWITT 1998)

Technologically generated virtual reality must be understood as a three-dimensional, realtime interaction with a computer model. VR is based on two aspects: first, the immersion through which the illusion is created in the observer, or operator, with the help of stereoscopy, eye-movement tracking and other techniques, that he is within a world that, though admittedly computer-generated, he perceives as reality; second, navigation the possibility of manoeuvring oneself within the perceived computer model (cf. RHEINGOLD, 1992). VR refers to the entire hardware and software employed to provide the user with a three-dimensional input/output space in which he is actively implicated, and in which he can interact with autonomous objects in real time at any moment. VR allows people to view artificial worlds from within and as a part of themselves the interface between people and artificial reality is diminishing for the human consciousness (cf. RTZER, 1993). While immersed in virtual reality, doubts about the artificiality in the mind of the perceiver are completely suppressed the total suspension of disbelief [...] (DELEON & BERRY, 2000). Landscapes may also be interpreted as a perfect illusion if one robs the mental construct landscape of all its imaginary and illusionary components, only the perceived subject nature in the broadest sense remains.

Landscape as a means of enjoyment

As indicated above, the ability of the observer to consume from a distance the view of nature with pleasure, be it first, second or third hand, is an essential prerequisite for landscape perception. It comes therefore as no surprise that the most advanced digitally generated representations of landscapes are found in the cinema or as a backdrop for countless trivial computer games. The leisure aspect' of the perception of landscapes provides an interface to the recreational and consumerist habits of legions of computer gamers, who fight their way through landscapes of varying degrees of imaginativeness with an array of martial-looking weapons and tools.

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Landscape is entering the alternative worlds of virtual reality by a 'trivial route', thereby demonstrating its potential for effect as non-material property and proving the scope for the imaginative development of landscapes perceived 'third-hand' (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8:

Scene from the computer game Supreme Snowboarding (Photo: Infogrames)

The techniques of representation used by film and games designers can be picked up on, developed and implemented for professional planning purposes the prerequisite for this is simply a general openness and willingness on the side of planning professions to break the mould of conventional thought. It is to be hoped that we will not leave these future design challenges regarding new landscapes in alternative realities to the Hollywood studios, multinational advertising companies or the throngs of amateurs, but that we will accept them as a new sphere of professional activity and exploit them as a multiplier of landscape philosophy.

Discussion

Should not the field of landscape planning and architecture take heed of its tradition and conventional tools and limit itself to acting in material reality under consideration of recognised values? Does not dealing with natural resources categorically exclude the possibility of dealing with completely artificial environments? Are not nature and real landscapes the very opposite of computer technology and virtual reality? Do not the artificial worlds of the digital age appear a poor substitute, devoid of content, for material reality?

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These and similar questions arise when classically trained landscape planners and architects enter the indefinable and uncertain territory of computer-generated virtual reality. Two terms, supplement and extension, are particularly appropriate for qualifying these issues and justifiable doubts, though they cannot answer or eliminate them completely. The new technological possibilities of the digital age only rarely form a complete substitute, but the possibilities for supplementation and extension in almost all professional and private areas of activity seem virtually inexhaustible. Researchers have responded to this feature of digital technology by supplementing the term 'Virtual Reality' with the term Augmented Reality (cf. ARVIKA, 2000). In order not to have to compose tearful farewell letters to reality, the term Expanded Reality also provides a useful alternative (cf. ZIELINSKI, 1993). Augmented Reality implies the possibilities opened up by the supplementary implementation of digital technologies. As members of the landscape planning professions are not experienced in the avant-garde adaptation of new technologies, we must allow our imagination and creativity to be inspired by the examples of other professions. Groundwork in the research and application of AR technology has been carried out in military, medical and industrial fields in particular in the automotive and aerospace industries. The soldier of the future will be increasingly networked, his capacity for perception and fighting ability will be increased through numerous hi-tech components, but he will still have to be above-averagely fit and his business will be no less bloody than before (Fig. 9). The doctor of the future will act increasingly in cyberspace, his hands and eyes will be complemented technologically in a variety of ways extended, as Marshall McLuhan was wont to describe it (cf. MCLUHAN, 1995 [Original 1964]). Nonetheless, operations will continue to be performed on living people, and, as technology can fail, conventional methods must continue to be mastered (Fig. 10).

Fig. 9: Future Warrior 2025, Study U.S. Army (Photo: SBC COM ONLINE)

Fig. 10:

Surgery in Cyber space. Work in the research laboratory "Surgical Research Unit OP 2000" of the Robert-Rssle-Klinik at Max Delbrck Center (MDC), Charite, Berlin. (Photo: Robert-Rssle-Klinik)

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Vehicles of the future will possibly see and monitor much more than the driver. Navigation, traffic flow, early warning and 'smart' braking systems, to say the least, will become standard fittings on every vehicle. Yet road traffic will continue to pose risks and there will continue to be traffic jams and accidents but in some circumstances problems will be able to be solved more easily than is possible today (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11:

Print media advertisement for the Telematik-System BMW ASSIST plus, that in addition to a navigation system presents a broad scope of information (SPIEGEL 50/2000)

Landscape planners and architects are also fighters of a kind, not in a military but in an ecological sense. At the same time they are doctors, in a figurative sense; though they do not perform operations out on people, they must nonetheless intervene in the process of nature and landscape with the dexterity and precision of a surgeon. Furthermore, they are mobilists, they must continually move through landscapes in order to perceive them. Landscape planners increasingly need technical assistance in order to understand and interpret essential factors of nature and landscape that are not visible from the surface. We can see that new and emerging technologies may be implemented to the advantage of nature and landscapes. In order to ensure their compatibility however, our profession must be prepared to keep up to date with current developments in the field of digital technology and, if necessary, develop solutions tailored to its needs. This requirement supplements and extends the classical professions of landscape planners and architects, without calling into

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question their conventional areas of activity or their necessary knowledge of nature and landscape.

Conclusion

We opened this article with reference to the frequently voiced criticism that landscape planners and architects have developed a profession based on a romanticisation of the past. In closing, we can note that this reproach is not just unfounded exceptions confirm the rule but can also be disproved in the light of theoretical considerations. Since the beginnings of a collective perception of nature in terms of landscape, landscape has stood for something that has nothing to do with conservatism or static thinking, on the contrary something that has always required the mould of conventional thought and patterns to be broken. That Petrarch was an experimental, avant-garde thinker is shown in his perception of landscape otherwise he would just have observed nature, as did his contemporaries, without ever reaching the intellectual level of landscape contemplation. History has shown that the perception of landscapes is inherently dynamic and futureoriented not just due to its relation to nature, which is never static. Today, areas that once appeared the antithesis of a landscape are now merited as idyllic scenery (cf. DINNEBIER, 1995). Take, for example, the industrial landscape of the Ruhr area, which according to our current social values has been recoded from a desolate terrain to a new type of landscape ideal (cf. MILCHERT, 1998). In the dawning post-industrial digital age of humankind as well, landscape is proving its contemporary potential. Landscape images of reality seamlessly cross over into the alternative worlds of virtual reality, where they can develop further in as yet inconceivable ways. In this manner, then, the landscape is playing out its central characteristic that of being in essence a purely intellectual, virtual, synthetic product. Landscape is virtuality. So in fact, what could be more topical or future-oriented than that which we term landscape?

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