The view: a historicised and contemporary socio­‐political mediation

This research develops an understanding of the ‘view’ as a historicised and contemporary socio‐political mediation. What is posited as a view, and its signification, as a view, is how we experience, understand and relate to others and the world around us. The thesis offers a re‐interpretation of accepted modes of viewing, what is viewed, and a re­‐presentation of viewed imagery, in order to question and propose how might we better relate to, and function in, the production of social space.

The premise of the enquiry is that the ‘view’, is a visual, spatial, and conceptual ideologically political position that shapes our relationship as citizens societally and to public space. The ‘image’ of, and as, a view, and point of view, permeates society. In our contemporary times of socio‐political instability, it becomes prescient to question the ‘view’, how it is constructed, and how it operates.

The approach of this enquiry is interdisciplinary using a dialectic process of theoretical and practical sources. It draws on theories of space exploration, film studies, religion, photography, popular culture, geography, politics, contemporary visual culture, historical painting, architecture, and urban regeneration. The practice of lens‐based moving and still image, and the contexts within which the works have been created as research, are temporal and spatial. Journeys have been undertaken to acquire ‘views’ by hot­‐air balloon, by cable car, up tall buildings, by train, and by foot as a key method of investigation. The rhythm of the text in the thesis reflects this method of temporality, and spatiality. With the practice interlinked throughout, and with the text, in the guise of image inserts, the structure of each of the three chapters enacts a positionality from the perspective of a visual, spatial, and conceptual vantage point as a means of guiding the reader/viewer through the research.

A print copy of this thesis is available to read in the library of Central Saint Martins only.