dffarrelThesis

While in motion, the idea of place cannot be defined as a case in present time. The highway creates a situation where landscape is perceived, not as a picturesque panorama, but rather as a sequence of images much like that of a viewfinder. Furthermore the setting of the car presents an even more extreme condition. The landscape is framed in four distinct lenses—the windshield, the passenger side window, the driver side window, and the rearview mirror. While the driver is indeed surrounded by landscape as if it were a panorama, there is never a point in time where the driver has the capability to view the landscape in that manner. In lieu of both safety and speed, the driver cannot simply watch the landscape pass by because the sequence of perceptions is just as opportunistic as it is choreographed. Due to this condition, the traditional idea of place is slightly altered. The scope of place vastly increases while the level clarity vastly decreases. One is capable of grasping the general composition of a landscape over a 400 mile stretch; however, since the understanding of landscape within a car is only through the sense of the visual, one’s true knowledge of that composition is very shallow.

This seems to present itself as being paradoxical because to understand the landscape through the lens of a car one is sacrificing the experiences that mankind has long depended on to become familiar with place. However, the idea of a choreographed viewfinder is simply a different way of constructing place. In fact, the two are never truly linked. When one pulls over at a highway rest stop, the choreographed place is lost and the panoramic place dominates. When one gets back in the car and onto the highway the two are switched once again.

The exploration of choreographed place demands an understanding of how a sequence of events or images are compressed in a way that constructs a narrative much like the effort to construct a narrative from the sequence of events from a dream.