Achieving the three-dimensionality of stereoscopic images, such as those taken by Tony Oetterli, requires a clear foreground, middle ground and background. Such landscape views are rare in Antarctica.
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William Fox writes (2000; 51) about the Great Basin of Nevada.
He could be writing about Antarctica.
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…on LANDSCAPE:
The Chinese word for landscape is comprised of two elements, shan for mountains and shui for water. The ritual for the propitious placement of buildings and gardens is feng shui, wind and water. No where are these principles more evident than in the deserts, a space in which these contradictory and complementary elements play out their relationships in full view of the observer. Surmounting the cognitive difficulties is the challenge.
…and on PERCEIVING CHANGE through WALKING and CLIMBING it:
In order to distinguish…the spatial and temporal scale of the changes wrought upon mountains… by the erosion of wind and water, you have to be able to gauge how large the mountains, the gullies, and the crenelated ridges really are. To do so means you have to climb them and establish, for yourself and through direct contact, how long it takes to trace their features, and thus what size they are in proportion to your body. Every other knowledge of terrian, hense of landscape and possible relations to it, is theoretical.
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Fred Elliott climbed, photographed and drew the ice and mountains around Mawson, in Antarctica.
Tony Oetterli moved through it’s nearby ice caves, and took stereoscopic photographs.
Both men experienced a full winter there.
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Fox continues (51-2):
“What I am beginning to sense is that the closest we can come to understanding the land without actually walking and climbing it is, oddly enough, not through the science of measurement, through cartography, but through art…
Landscape art can only represent the void and architecture (and installations) only simulate it.” (my italics).