User:Enrico
enricopiffer.com lostandfoundcollection.org
SEPTEMBER 2024
HARBOR VISIT 1
Looking for narratives in Rotterdam's harbour I found interest in the repetitive task of the cranes loading and unloading containers:
SEARCHING FOR CREATIVE PATHS
The exercise I am working on this week is based on the text "Morphology of the Landscape" by Carl Sauer (1925).
On an attempt to redefine Geography as a science, Sauer suggests that Geography is the study of "Cultural Landscape" and the work of a geographer is much similar to the one of a landscape painter, choosing "salient and related features (...) in order to establish the character of the landscape and to place it in a system." Moreover, another concern expressed in the text is the connection between natural and cultural relationships in the landscape. Sauer claims the "geography is based on the reality of the union of physical and cultural elements of the landscape", and later describes culture as the "impress of the works of a man upon the area."
To continue this exercise, I am going to make use of the observed features from a landscape in the attempt of creating fiction out of the collected data. The subject of this experiment will be the view from my previous house which I photographed regularly for a year.
For each of these images I assigned a number and listed the features from the landscape that would call my attention on each scene.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Night
Night lights (windows and poles) The building Cars Street Sidewalk |
Day
Cloudy (wheatear – Wind? Rain?) Trees Different cars Street Sidewalk |
Day
Huge cloud (scale?) Passer Buses More different cars Street Sidewalk |
Early morning/Sundown
Shadows Structure Shape Geometry |
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| Day AGAING
“A new dynamic” There is a van instead of a car The opportunity for contrast Repetition Street Sidewalk |
Day
More about shapes than details Block of houses + Council building + The building |
Day
Out of frame review (bus stop is in the street) New info Space for new perspective |
Same as 7 |
Next, I am looking at each of the images and noting what are the impressions left by men in the area? Are there artifacts?
- Light
- Noise
- Colour
- Paint
- Trash
- Signals
- Lack of space
- Delivery
- Demarcations (Lines from the bus stop, as well as the architectural ones)
Finally, based on this date, I will come up with different scenes connecting the scenario from the images with my notes.
SCENE 1 - The Plastic Bag
It's a cloudy day. In the asphalt, by the sidewalk a plastic bag rests in the ground. A man is crossing the road, he notices the plastic bag and reaches for it. When he is about to grab it the wind blows the bag away further away from him. He reaches for the bag once more, and again the wind carries it even further. It's absurd, even cartoonist, but the man chases the bag as it travels through the block. When he wind blows in a different direction the bag gets carried away around the corner, the man follows. When he turns around he spots the plastic bag stuck on a fence. The man tries to reach it, he jumps once or twice, but the fence is too high. The man gives up and leaves the bag waving in the fence.
SCENE 2 - Toy pt.1
A mother is walking by the sidewalk pushing a baby stroller, when the baby drops a toy in the ground. The mother doesn't notice it and continues on their way.
SCENE 3 - Where does all this trash goes?
It is early morning. Approaching from the distance comes a garbage truck. it stops in the front of a gate. One man comes down and walks out of frame. he comes back with three fat trash bags drops in the back of the truck and walks out of frame again. He comes back with three other even bigger bags, he knocks on the side of the truck and another worker walks out following him out of frame. They come back carrying a mattress as the truck driver turns of the engine of the truck and join them walking out of frame. The three man come back two of them carrying even more trash bags and the other a chandelier. Once again the three walk out and comeback carrying a piano. They trow it on the back of the truck, jump back in and leave.
SCENE 4 - Ring Camera 1
We change perspective to the one of a ring door camera. The wide angled lens frame the entrance of a house and the neighboring one on the other side of the street. It's night.
SCENE 5 - Light show pt.1
It is night, as a few cars pass by every other minute, far in the distance, in the tall building in the horizon one of the windows start flashing a very strong light.