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Cultural techniques of the green surface agriculture, plant physiology and the planetary living image

Cultural techniques of the green surface agriculture, plant physiology and the planetary living image
Cultural techniques of the green surface agriculture, plant physiology and the planetary living image
This research presents a vegetal genealogy of the contemporary interweaving between the surfaces of the Earth and their visual mediations. Based on the media theoretical framework of cultural techniques analysis, it proposes an excavation of an agricultural past in the notion of operational images. To do so, the study explores three specific historical cases where imaging practices were interweaved with the observation and measurement of vegetal growth. First, a large>scale agricultural programme in the middle of the 20th century is analysed in relation to its use of aerial photogrammetry. Second, a series of photographic experiments in plant physiology related to the development of industrial agriculture at the turn of the 20th century is scrutinised. Finally, the notion of the biosphere as it developed as an up>scaled planetary surface after these researches in plant physiology is examined in relation to current material accounts of the image. As a practice>based research, this project is developed as a critical technical practice in the context of media art. In particular, it explores a space of operations that are produced beyond the surface of the screen, exposing material aspects of the current entanglement between imaging techniques and the transformation of the surfaces of the world. In this vein, the aesthetic dimension of cultural techniques is explored through the presented practices. In this regard, the research unfolds the links with agriculture and plant physiology as a series of chains of operations where the visual emerges as a layered interplay of materials and scales. That is, this interplay is explored in a series of installations and screen>based works that address critically the image> based mediation of the surfaces of the Earth in terms of elemental cultural techniques.
University of Southampton
Gil-Fournier Martinez, Abelardo
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Gil-Fournier Martinez, Abelardo
16de5515-ccf4-4bde-a983-170bfa5f1c02
Parikka, Jussi
cf75ecb3-3559-4e53-a03e-af511651e9ac
Dawson, Ian
3b598f16-b350-4fbc-89aa-ef92eba6abfa

Gil-Fournier Martinez, Abelardo (2019) Cultural techniques of the green surface agriculture, plant physiology and the planetary living image. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis, 204pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

This research presents a vegetal genealogy of the contemporary interweaving between the surfaces of the Earth and their visual mediations. Based on the media theoretical framework of cultural techniques analysis, it proposes an excavation of an agricultural past in the notion of operational images. To do so, the study explores three specific historical cases where imaging practices were interweaved with the observation and measurement of vegetal growth. First, a large>scale agricultural programme in the middle of the 20th century is analysed in relation to its use of aerial photogrammetry. Second, a series of photographic experiments in plant physiology related to the development of industrial agriculture at the turn of the 20th century is scrutinised. Finally, the notion of the biosphere as it developed as an up>scaled planetary surface after these researches in plant physiology is examined in relation to current material accounts of the image. As a practice>based research, this project is developed as a critical technical practice in the context of media art. In particular, it explores a space of operations that are produced beyond the surface of the screen, exposing material aspects of the current entanglement between imaging techniques and the transformation of the surfaces of the world. In this vein, the aesthetic dimension of cultural techniques is explored through the presented practices. In this regard, the research unfolds the links with agriculture and plant physiology as a series of chains of operations where the visual emerges as a layered interplay of materials and scales. That is, this interplay is explored in a series of installations and screen>based works that address critically the image> based mediation of the surfaces of the Earth in terms of elemental cultural techniques.

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PhD Cultural Techniques of the Green Surface - Version of Record
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01 Reading stones
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02 Marching ants
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03 The quivering of the reed
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04 The growth of the eye
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05 An earthology of moving landforms
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06 Still life with screensaver and landscape fabric
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07 When the auroras descended to the earth
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08 Mawat
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Published date: May 2019

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 437715
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/437715
PURE UUID: 265a827e-0de2-4b29-b409-5bd1248544f9
ORCID for Jussi Parikka: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2248-6377
ORCID for Ian Dawson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3695-8582

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 12 Feb 2020 17:34
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 05:02

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Contributors

Author: Abelardo Gil-Fournier Martinez
Thesis advisor: Jussi Parikka ORCID iD
Thesis advisor: Ian Dawson ORCID iD

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