"REFLEXIVE LANDSCAPE"
MANIPA JAYAWAN
(WRITING) REAL ESTATE / LANDSCAPE


Humans have interacted over long distances for thousands of years between spatial, social elements and ecological conditions of nature at any one time through various dimensions. Even though it goes far beyond the professional sphere, it is not too far from our perceptions, especially in every location we are standing at, we would perceive from our surroundings, from lighting to darkness, from warmth to bleakness, from breeziness to sadness. All the feeling affects the sentiments straight through the senses. Cullen Gordon meaningfully defines Townscape as "an art of giving visual coherence and organization to the jumble of buildings, streets and spaces that make up the urban environment. It has been a major influence on architects, planners and others concerned with what cities should look like." Consequently, the cultural landscape is simply potent for the entire physical sense. We could say that landscape and townscape are both created by human and nature, and are both comprised of composition, structure, function and dynamics.

Since the ancient times, we have been trying to understand and direct the nature from observation and evidence, owing to create the cartography. Painters were assigned the role of transcribing new findings from explorations onto a map. Since the technology of the time was not very accurate, painters always had to contribute their own opinions and emotions into the works, resulting in some ancient cartography which, despite being based on the factual information, also embodied the painters’ wild imaginations.

Geographer periodically studies the earth landscapes through aerial photograph dating back 50 years earlier. All the data helps them to analyze the pattern in the landscape. While we are watching the transitions, this world keeps changing over time. Every outcome is affected by technology, economy and the society in each period and produces endless effects. Since we need to restructure the landscape from translations of a certain moment in daily life and distorted landscape of global economy and politic through contemporary art, three aspects will be considered in this project; 1. Active VS Passive Relationship 2. The transition of the landscape 3. Sense of place, place of sense.


1.
Active V.S. Passive Relationship
Active and passive relationships are rational coherence, similar to the equilibrium state for a perfection of imperfection that George Soros refers to in his Theory of Reflexivity regarding the world's economy system. The circular relationship between causes and effects is a process which can create a positive or a negative response, and will continue in a loop until it reaches a breaking point. This is called 'Reflexivity in action'. Eventually, the entire loop would become unstable and unable to support itself, and the bubble burst will as a usual flow of life circle. Furthermore, this REAL ESTATE / LANDSCAPE is interpreted into two depicted contents. First is the geographic space and the interaction between human and nature by way of a temporal dimension of time, which leads to the fifth dimension of repercussion. Especially to a geographic result in a developed country, a distance between past, present and future is definitely longer than those in developing and underdeveloped countries' perspectives, where metropolitan recognizes it as a Denial of Coevalness.

Active/Passive relationship and Agent are semiotic connections between thoughts and reality in all circumstances. For example, constitution, tradition, laws and acts are explicit representatives for social control. Nevertheless, as Michel Foucault refers in his semantics and discourse analysis, a matter of ideology and discourse may also be implicitly represented as an act of domination and striving for social norm.

The space and development of human civilization concurrently becomes a starting point in the study of a brand new knowledge for the future that we are going to analyze through four factors; 1) Physical dimension as a starting point to understand ourselves and the nature. 2) Innovation in an appropriate technology for the sustainable development are enable with eligible material and process. 3) The political interaction which claims for autonomy and emotional attachment creates social engagements. 4) Dimension of time is leading us to the transition where humans have been searching for a meaning of sustainable space.

2. Transition of the landscape
Every second from now on is latterly becoming the past of the following second. The forth dimension depends on each circumstances, especially to a physical environmental changes from nature to human actions. Nowadays, our planet earth has been moving around the orbit for 4.54 billion years. In the past 50 years, our world has faced a tremendous change according to sociocultural and technological evolution which is based on the dimension of time, along with the analysis of the Reflexivity Theory. Moreover, we also see a different speed of evolution than Fernand Braudel who divided the influences of history of Mediterranean world in post-World War Two into three levels from diverse disciplines, from geography, climatology, anthropology, to archaeology. However, nowadays we intentionally propose to divide it into four levels as 1) Geo-History, which he claimed as a motionless framework of the imperceptible environmental changes that continues apace by nature and human creations. 2) The slow but perceptible rhythm of time which comprises of long-term social, economic, and cultural history, where socioeconomic includes social groupings, empires and civilizations. This gradually then changes to competitive economy and monopoly capitalism. 3) The time of surfaces and deceptive effects of events, politics and people, due to a shorter life cycle of politics by freedom of thoughts, which is promptly faster than Braudel would have thought about. The last level is proposed to include 4) Innovation and technology-based history influences recently uttermost transition to a new era.

Coherence: Transition and connection
Bridge, access, road or vehicles are the factors resulting in all convenient transportations. The Silk Road which connected Asia, Africa, and Europe together became a transformative power of translocal exchange. Migration turns into a way to experiencing, benefiting and surviving, similar to the way of life of invertebrates such as insects, butterflies and bats which are the pollinator for unmovable plants. However, cultural landscape of urban and rural society has drastically changed in this past two centuries. The evolution of the world economy from the world organizations’ or government policies creates a great change through globalization. Therefore, migration is changing the mainstream in order to reform into an internationalized society which leaves intact and even buttress the fundamental constitutive elements of receiving the unity of societies.

Moreover, philosophy, religion, language, the arts, and other aspects of culture spread and get mixed as nations exchanged products and ideas, which in turn creates the flows of capital, culture and economy. In the midst of the recent transnational social space, the geographical, cultural, economic and political penetration goes beyond organizational mutuality. Migration brings out relocated, transformed and integrated cultures within globalization. The amount of blended cultures gradually merges into the unity. For example, a ‘China Town’ is a well -known Chinese community which exists in many countries around the world. The global movement of people, goods, and ideas have expanded significantly in the recent centuries. The process of the shrinkage of the world in this globalized era has made distances getting shorter and closer. It is related to the increasing ease of people on one side of the world who are able interact with somebody on the other side for their mutual benefits.

A new perspective to the today’s social and economic structure
Social and economic structure is more focused on horizontal relationship than the past. In the meantime, freedom counterbalances many kinds of human right and enabling it to become more flexible: i.e. self-expression or gaining self-benefits. It sometimes disturbs the human and nature system in virtue of endless human needs, which in turn has drastically changed the world’s perspective.

However, the changes seem very slow as the earth moves around its orbit. All information rapidly runs into our perceptions as a result of adaptation in a response to a new world lifestyle with any conveniences to make our lives easier. Moreover, imagination is important to the landscape reconstruction by way of artists create their art works and simultaneously reform a new outlook of the world’s citizen in order to experience new perceptions throughout imagination, religion, in the state of mind and through modes of living.

3. Sense of place, place of sense
We have been living in the place we call “earth” for a very long time. Through globalization and the breaking down of barriers between cultures due to capitalistic hegemony rather than any mutual blending of ideas and philosophies, we are able to meet and enrich one another. Intimate experiences lead to social engagement as a factual sense to spontaneously conquering a place. The level of ownership can be measured by individual judgement in virtue of each experiences, upbringings and cultural capital where each society underlines the standard of value and taste. Eventually, a sense of place can reveal a trace of relationship between a person through their experiences and mutuality of their homeland. What may seem like prefabricated single-families which look identical to one another in the modern society still has ties through an invisible bond during routines or situations found in urban life. Everyone would naturally feel comfortable with the things they had experienced before.