PLACE, PLACENESS, PLACELESSNESS: REFLECTION

This study of placelessness and placeness was particularly intriguing to me, as my first project was so sentimental and personal. I chose to explore the Dandenong Ranges and find a place that provided me with sanctuary, despite the fact that I had no familiarity with the place whatsoever. I wanted to explore the concepts of safety and danger through sound and image, and venturing into a place I hadn’t been before seemed like an interesting place to conduct my study.

I grew up on the outskirts of suburbia; 30 minutes from the city, 30 minutes from the ocean, and 30 minutes from the mountains. When you’re in your 20s, theres so much pressure on you to have direction and a clear concept of where you’re going. As soon as I could drive, I wanted to explore the world and capture it on film and image, and all those places that weren’t so far from home were finally accessible to me. Assessment 2 allowed me to capture the confines of a home and the coziness of the environment that I grew up in. For Assessment 3, I wanted to reconfigure the wilderness and encapsulate a setting that is generally quite frightening and intimidating, and layer it with tranquil forest sounds to soften the atmosphere and evoke feelings of “directionlessness”. I used that word to encompass the idea that not having a direction can be okay, and there is peace to be found in that.

I wanted to draw on the ideas of line and texture that we covered in class and utilise the presence of these notions in nature to convey the two contrasting concepts of sanctuary/safety and danger/wilderness, which os heavily present in the images that I captured below.

The feedback that I received from Robbie was positive in the sense that he was impressed with the images that I captured and sequence of the film portion. Going forward and moving into my final tasks for the semester, Robbie would like to see me expand my horizons into more research to reinforce my final products, as well as the following:

  • Creating a juxtaposition ominousness through sound and image (cicadas humming to contrast with serene imagery, taking the naked and vulnerable body into the forest which is a place that you wouldn’t anticipate to see nudity, disarm the viewer)
  • Scale and symbolism
  • Perhaps looking into bush stories, artworks, or poems to inspire the creative portion of the assignment
  • Research the history of Australian bush
  • The Road Less Travelled Poem by Robert Frost
  • Frederick McCubbin painting called “Lost” (1907), of children lost in the bush and the displacement of something so innocent in the wilderness

 

 

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