Ideas of Landscape and Film
Barbara Pichler
1.Termin: 27.10.2015, 13:00 – 16:30
Abt. Landschaftskunst
Film screening von LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF
(Regie: Thom Andersen, USA 2003, 169 Minuten)
30.10.2015, 10:00 pünktlich
ÖSTERREICHISCHES FILMMUSEUM
Augustinerstraße 1, 1010 Wien (im Gebäude der Albertina)
Landscape is a notoriously vague term but architect Carl Sauer’s description of the material landscape as „an iconographic index of the mind“ seems a good starting point in many respects: It defines landscape as an expression of ideas, ideologies, cultural values and actions inscribed in a place. Landscape is a construction and also a question of interpretation. In this sense it becomes the material of artistic reflection and/or representation – both ideologically and aesthetically.
In film landscape is ubiquitous, it was a central visual element from early cinema onwards, transcending all restrictions of genre. This course will focus on films that can only be connected by a term that might be as vague and flexible as the term landscape itself: Essayistic forms in the widest sense. The essay as an open and decidedly subjective form with its associative narrative seems a particularly fitting way of thinking about and also with landscape imagery. Films by, among others, Patrick Keiller, Andrew Koetting, Ruth Beckermann, Thom Anderson or Peter Mettler will be discussed in regards to their subjective interaction with and consequent construction of filmic landscapes.
The focus of the course will be the films and the individual artistic process, connected to different ideas of and some theoretical perspectives on landscape.
film still: Los Angeles plays Itself, (USA 2003, Thom Anderson)