Art and geography (field trip, using a camera or mobile devices, or at desk)

If you need definitions of the different types of exercises or activities to be submitted on moodle, look at the User's Guide..

The text below is a 'read-only' question; it is meant to give visitors an idea of possible exercises. Registered students should click on the 'Submission' button available to them in order to move to the exercise page and write or attach their contribution.

• Find the viewing points of some of the London townscapes by Canaletto, Scott, Sandby and Girtin discussed in the Georgian Cities website, if possible on the spot in London, and otherwise by finding photos.
• take photos and attempt to make them coincide with the views.
• questions:
• what do the possible differences teach you about artistic interpretation: viewing angles, perspective? : first study those notions on the Georgian Cities website (chapter 'Artists' London/ The painters' view of London') 
• then and now: comment on the changes; what do they reveal about cities' capacities for change?
• To be done in a follow-up session on a desktop or laptop computer:
• create trails or journeys of discovery to relate them, giving a time sequence to the viewing points 
• you may find starting points in the introductory text to the exhibition Looking at the View (Tate Britain, 2013), which 'reveals how subject matter, focus, framing and composition operate in a complex relationship between viewer and view... Different viewpoints place the spectator in a range of relationships with the landscape - inside or outside, near or far, high above or immersed in detail. Such views appear natural but are, in fact, highly structured according to artistic conventions....[They] offer insights into the ways in which a viewer is engaged in the process of looking.'
  - The exhibition is related to the 'Art-maps' project which raises the question 'How are we inspired when we look at a view today and compare it with an image an artist has depicted?', on which the present exercise is based.
• you may study the theory of image manipulation - e.g. collage by looking for websites on the topic.
• for a similar issue, study the view of the Leeds and Liverpool canal by Turner
• if you are familiar with image-editing applications, attempt to edit your photos in a mood inspired by the paintings

Skills:

• identifying views
• identifying points of view
• relating past and present
• using image-editing applications
• knowledge of present-day projects using collections of digital images and mapping facilities
• knowledge of interpretative theories on digital installations
• digital image practice