Visuality / Materiality: Images, Objects and Practices

210 Pages·2012·3.166 MB·English

by  Gillian Rose, Divya P. Tolia-Kelly (Eds.)

Visuality/Materiality
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Visuality/Materiality
images, Objects and Practices
edited by
Gillian rOse
The Open University, UK
DiVya P. tOlia-Kelly
University of Durham, UK
© Gillian rose and Divya P. tolia-Kelly 2012
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Gillian rose and Divya P. tolia-Kelly have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court east suite 420
union road 101 Cherry street
Farnham Burlington
surrey, Gu9 7Pt Vt 05401-4405
england usa
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Visuality/materiality : images, objects and practices.
1. Visual communication. 2. Visual literacy.
3. Geographical perception. 4. Human ecology.
i. rose, Gillian, 1962- ii. tolia-Kelly, Divya Praful.
304.2-dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Visuality/ materiality : images, objects and practices / by Gillian rose and
Divya P. tolia-Kelly., [editors].
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 9781409412229 (hardback) -- isBn 9781409412236
(ebook) 1. Material culture. 2. Visual perception. 3. Visual
communicaiton. i. rose, Gillian. ii. tolia-Kelly, Divya Praful.
Gn406.V57 2012
302.2ꞌ3--dc23
isBn 9781409412229 (hbk) 2011037642
isBn 9781409412236 (ebk)
III
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the
MPG Books Group, uK.
Contents
List of Figures vii
About the Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Visuality/Materiality: introducing a Manifesto for Practice 1
Gillian Rose and Divya P. Tolia-Kelly
2 Metallic Modernities in the space age: Visualizing the
Caribbean, Materializing the Modern 13
Mimi Sheller
3 Visuality, “China Commodity City”, and the Force of things 39
Mark Jackson
4 Tristes Entropique: steel, ships and time images for late
Modernity 59
Mike Crang
5 Citizen and Denizen space: if Walls Could speak 75
Nirmal Puwar
6 seeing air 85
Caren Yglesias
7 intra-actions in loweswater, Cumbria: new Collectives,
Blue-Green algae, and the Visualisation of invisible
Presences through sound and science 109
Judith Tsouvalis, Claire Waterton and Ian J. Winfield
8 Materialising Vision: Performing a High-rise View 133
Jane M. Jacobs, Stephen Cairns and Ignaz Strebel
9 Melancholic Memorialisation: the ethical Demands of
Grievable lives 153
Karen Wells
vi Visuality/Materiality
10 indifferent looks: Visual inattention and the Composition
of strangers 171
Paul Frosh
Index 191
list of Figures
2.1 alcoa advertisement, 1930s 18
2.2 Boris artzybasheff, alcoa steamship Co. advertisement,
Holiday magazine, 1948 25
2.3 James r. Bingham, alcoa steamship Co. advertisement,
Holiday magazine, 1954–55 28
2.4 tavares strachan, still from “orthostatic tolerance: it might
not be such a bad idea if i never went home” 33
2.5 Jamaican recycler 35
3.1 Old woman and the promise of things 41
3.2 Old sock market, now disused 45
4.1 absent witness 63
4.2 Hidden worlds of wasting large enough to be seen from space 64
4.3 the afterlives of steel: ships cable becomes reinforcing rod
for buildings 66
4.4 the labour of reduction 68
4.5 a parade of ships becoming steel 70
4.6 toxic tropics: tropes of exotic toxicity 72
5.1 Monkeys 77
5.2 st stephen’s Hall, Westminster 79
5.3 Mark Wallinger, State Britain 81
5.4 anish Kapoor, Shooting into the Corner 82
6.1 From imitation to expression 87
6.2 an imaginative Material Projection 90
6.3 literal and selectively literal 93
6.4 emotional representation: an uneasy feeling 96
6.5 Paul Cézanne, Montagne sainte-Victoire 99
6.6 total activity 102
7.1 the twelve transects followed during the echo-sounding
surveys of loweswater 122
7.2 Photo of boat on the lake. First echo-sounding survey of
loweswater 123
viii Visuality/Materiality
7.3 example echograms recorded during the daytime and night-
time echo-sounding surveys of loweswater 124
7.4 a Chaoborus larva of approximately 10 mm in length 126
8.1 the red road estate, Glasgow 133
8.2 le Corbusier’s unclad high-rise apartment block, showing
the enlarged eye and the diminished human occupant 137
8.3 William ross, then secretary of state for scotland, and his
wife, at a red road window on the occasion of the estate’s
official opening 138
8.4 red road resident explaining how to clean her window 143
8.5 Red Road resident explaining her first experience of her view 143
9.1 Memorial to Jean Charles de Menezes 157
9.2 Billy Cox’s street name ‘remer’ on his estate in the days
after his death 157
9.3 a stencil painting of Billy Cox’s portrait on the walkways
of his estate 159
9.4 The final memorial to Billy Cox 159
about the Contributors
Editors
Gillian Rose is a Professor in Cultural Geography at the Open university. she is
a significant author within the field of visual culture. Her particular interest is in
considering visuality as a kind of practice, done by human subjects in collaboration
with different kinds of objects and technologies. Her current research includes
working with architects on uK research Council funded project Architectural
Atmospheres which follows from the research project Urban Aesthetics. she is the
author of Visual Methodologies (Palgrave, 2001) and Doing Family Photography:
The Domestic, the Public and the Politics of Sentiment (ashgate, 2010).
Divya P. Tolia-Kelly is a reader in Geography at Durham university, uK.
Her research has focused on visual cultures, material cultures, landscape and
race-memory. in collaborations with landscape artists Melanie Carvalho and
Graham lowe and through ethnographic investigation she has co-curated several
exhibitions including An Archaeology of Race, Nurturing Ecologies and Describe
a Landscape … . Her recent research monograph is entitled Landscape, Race and
Memory (ashgate, 2010). she is currently collaborating with artists on research
entitled An Archaeology of Race at the Museum. Here she critically engages with
the universalizing, imperial accounts of the theories of art and material culture
from a postcolonial perspective.
Chapters
Caren Yglesias is a Professor in landscape architecture at the university of
Maryland. she has expertise in landscape architecture design and practice. Her
most recent monograph (2012) is entitled The Complete House and Grounds:
Learning from A.J. Downing’s Domestic Architecture. Caren is currently holder
of an American Association of University Women (aauW) fellowship (2012–13).
She is also a significant contributor to contemporary dialogues on architectures for
living via her blog: www.homesforliving.blogspot.com.
Claire Waterton is a senior lecturer in sociology at lancaster university, uK.
Her research interests include: investigating the making and politics of scientific
knowledge on nature and the environment; public perceptions of environmental
issues and environmental risks; the relationship of scientific knowledge to