A touchable, physical landscape experience, between the user and the environment around them, something in which they find themselves completely immersed, affirming the senses.
Becoming conscious of one’s physical surroundings and taking joy in that, contemplating the touchable, the visible, the smellable, the heard, the felt.
Focus away from an cerebral appreciation for larger, invisible processes. Meditation moment to moment, not upon someone else’s concept, not key-finding to unlock meaning. Meaning becomes irrelevant as the power of body experience takes over, challenging the user to re-think (only afterwards) what is important in landscape, to them.
While understanding a system abstractly as a dynamic interweaving of larger untouchable processes is still valid, still true, it is not the purpose of this project. This project directs one back to the capabilities of one’s own body to experience a physical realm.
Perhaps this is not always pleasurable experience, such as being pricked by a thorn, stung by an insect, fatigued from a difficult climb, being unable to see where one is, disorientation, overwhelmed by heat and thirst. A reality, not an implied reality. A respect for the user’s commitment to living in the moment, either out of necessity when navigating a difficult ski slope, or out of choice by stopping to examine a particularly engaging plant species.
Abstraction is of little interest to this project. Physical manifestation is of paramount importance. A playground mentality.
This project responds to the casual treatment of detail in landscape today, as emphasis on larger processes, under the pretense of intellectual rigor, strips attention given to physical resolution. At the end of the day we are human beings, who breathe, walk, touch, and do much more than just absorb through a screen.
