Aesthetics Of Geography

AESTHETICS OF GEOGRAPHY

Anand jha 2005jds6005

Aesthetics Of

Geography

Why this topic Aesthetics of geography does’nt just create the room for a valid discussion on influences of nature on our perception of beauty and its appreciation but also on built geography, of created spaces. It is relevant to discuss this process as a cyclic phenomenon where influences produce the object, the reality, and this reality is processed again as an influence. This paper would like to assume a fresh ground in understanding the concepts of geography and aesthetics with their connects, without isolating them.

Defined as Aesthetics: concerned with beauty of arts and understanding of beautiful things. Geography the scientific way of study of earth’s surface, physical features, divisions products population etc.

1 Aesthetics is studied in the light of a journey undertaken from witnessing a reality to reproducing it. The reality could be physical or emotional. Geography is studied in the axis of space and time and in the dimension of space and time the elements that we evaluate are objects and systems which travel on to produce culture.

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Aesthetics Beautiful things have always inspired us to create a more liberal more livable world. While saying that it is the action of reproduction of a reality, it is important to know that it is not just any reality which is being reproduced. While we see various aesthetic things around us, the underlying elements which help creating an object of beauty remain the same. Unity

contrast proportion rhythm

harmony balance

visual illusion.

The way nature creates ,it never creates an object, it creates an emotion which comes from reacting to an environment; there is sound there is the animal, there are the trees, its kill and its predator, it is not an exercise in isolation because it cannot be interpreted in isolation (one reason why we can make a zoo but not a jungle). The above stated principles work towards creating that code, that response, first a sensory experience then a cognitive experience and then the act of valuing it and placing it in a context. Perhaps that is why we connect a series of paintings, or occasionally we have the same response towards the beauty of two different things.

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An observation into these principles of aesthetics makes us ask some questions. What are these principles ,are these thoughts that should guide you as you are composing something or they are elements or properties of an object, for example, proportion is more like the property of the object but unity is a principle of composing these elements, we can always say that there should be a unity in proportion but never the other way round. This gives us a clear idea that there exists a hierarchy not necessarily vertical ,more like a list to do where you set priorities or short term and long term objectives. Unity is a long term objective, harmony rhythm are long term objectives, they need to come in frame while we are bringing creative elements like lines, colour, texture, proportion(we are talking of inherent proportion of the element and not how it is scaled as compared to other objects, the relative idea of proportion is again something that is like a long term objective). These principles are not just there for visual but also for other senses of perception. All of these are applicable across the disciplines, in music, in dance, in sculpting , in painting, in a social setup......and is music just an audio experience, or is there no dance in sculpting. As we live with these elements we see them encompassing our lives, making every reaction critical , a joy to freeze and look at . Aesthetics intents are accomplished with grace, whether we talk of balance or rhythm, we are talking of something effortlessly beautiful. In films when we witness a performance which is balanced, sits out in contrast or blends in as demanded (lack of contrast should be a decision and not an accident), has a rhythm and an element of illusion in it ,we say it is natural, we find it effortless. Since i am a student of industrial design my interest was in natural visual entities and that is where geography comes into picture.

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Geography Can natural environment be segregated from built environment and can we talk of geography as just an investigation into flora fauna and physical entities which keep them. We as humans have become very significant to be considered as an important element. We are building, we are destroying and creating and interfering with nature on a bigger scale than ever and therefore demography becomes a strong point of view to be understood.

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While we talk of understanding geography in terms of objects and systems in the axis of space and time we are talking of a span in which nothing can remain static. When we talk of space we talk of physical and emotional space and though physical has an emotional character and emotional spaces cannot be talked without the physical connection this classification distinguishes between things which can or cannot be touched. While emotional spaces can be discussed in terms of activities which become engines of emotion; existence, acceptance, contemplation and collaboration, physical spaces can be discussed in terms of living and non living entities (both of them being dynamic in their own time span). We can also see the living entities as producers of built space or space themselves. While they are engaged in producing their own offsprings(which are spaces in motion) they in a way are also engaged in generating another generation of built spaces, clusters like cities ,towns and villages, products, symbols. Can we discuss these activities in terms of aesthetics, in terms of unity, rhythm and contrast. Can this set a framework for growth and future, can we say for certain that our movement towards future has the elements of balance, rhythm ,unity and proportion, is it aesthetic. Imperatively aesthetics is just not limited in judgement of visual beauty, it is also important to look at the aesthetics of a framework which is governing most human activities...

Discussing the axis of time we come at concept of nodes or keyframes which we call as events. Whenever we describe history we always talk of events and so we do when we recollect our lives in front of our grandchildren. Ostensibly there is more to time than just events which we can call as in betweens and it is this entity which is the stabilizer in the process of creation. While discussing events we look at war, migration, religion, inventions and discoveries and the confluence of demand and supply (of manpower, of leadership, of finance and of other resources). While discussing in betweens we talk of institutions like state , nation, marriage school, home; we talk of archives which are textual and non textual(people , structures etc) and then we talk of dialogues which follow events, philosophies as response to events theories and gossips and mass mandates. What is the deliverable of this investigation . What happens after we have looked into these aspects and their relationships. We arrive at a framework which helps us in understanding the thought behind a lot of individual and community endeavors that have gone into creation of beautiful things around us.

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Framework Intuition unity value resonance Rhythm modularity vibrance periodicity Harmony composition Colour texture tone

Volume space lines proportion

Sensory experience cognitive experience

Contrast/similarity placement

coding decoding (application, valuation and appropriation)

Aesthetics The consumer

The creator Nature

human

Flux(geography)

Time

Space Emotional Existence acceptance collaboration contemplation

physical Living Flora fauna people

Non living Natural entities (rivers and marine hills mountains plains desert) clusters (cities,villages etc) landmarks symbols products architecture

Events

Inbetweens

War innovation revolution confluence of demand and supply migration climatic crisis financial crisis migration for opportunity

Institutions (state marriage school etc) archieves (textual non textual) dialogues