7 Gaze into the Landscape: Can Sensory Immersion, Landscape Reading and . . .
93
segmented: “in landscape, no boundary is too hard or closed to split open and connect
to surrounding areas. There is no real distinction between different places”
7 .
7.2.3 How Does Landscape Differ in Structure to Text?
Excessive use of the metaphor with text would nonetheless be fallacious for two
reasons, and inevitably based on a double misunderstanding: firstly, the idea that
perception functions according to the same model; and secondly, an incomplete and
erroneous conception of the word “text”. Strictly speaking
8 , a text, like a language,
is an instrument of voluntary communication between several given players. Structurally, it is a precise, codified breakdown of discontinuous units in the continuous
flow of the possible sounds of speech (phonemes, words) or its written transcription
(graphemes). These units correspond to units of meaning (semes
9 ), broken down into
the fields of meanings we give things in the world. A sign can thus be the association
of signifier and signified. Signs are structured into systems relative to human groups,
governed by strict rules (alphabet, dictionary or index, spelling). And everything is
intentionally produced—to communicate. Without testing a set of examples against
this model, there is no doubt that lending any of these characteristics to landscape or
its components would be a misuse of language.
10
7.2.4 “Immersive” Landscape Reading
Conversely, a landscape designer does not decode or apply any prejudged grammatical rules to the landscape; he designs his own way of “reading” as a sensory and
intuitive immersion into the area perceived. The metaphor is rightly aquatic: “first,
‘free-floating attention’ should be given, to absorb the site and its surroundings during long visits, at various times of day and in all weather conditions. We ‘soak it in’,
from the ground to the sky, almost to boredom”
11 . Thus, reading through immersive
absorption in or by the landscape should be understood to be the same as immersion
7 Michel Corajoud, op.cit.
8 Meaning in terms of communication systems science, semiology.
9 To use Prieto’s term in Messages et signaux, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1966.
10 For development on the critical examination of the textual model applied to landscape, and the
interpretation of landscape from a semiological point of view, as a structure and signifier system
(particularly on landscape units and indicators), see C. Ronzani, Se fondre dans le paysage. Le
camouflage, lecture avertie des signes paysagers, ou mise en question des méthodes paysagistes?
Analyse sémiologique de l’oeuvre camouflée de Pierre Gatier à la batterie des Mèdes, Porquerolles.
PhD thesis in Landscape sciences and architecture, École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de
Versailles, 2013.
11 Bernard Lassus, “Pour une poétique du paysage”, in Maîtres et protecteurs de la nature, dir. Alain
Roger, François Guéry, Éd. Champs-Vallon 1991.
93
segmented: “in landscape, no boundary is too hard or closed to split open and connect
to surrounding areas. There is no real distinction between different places”
7 .
7.2.3 How Does Landscape Differ in Structure to Text?
Excessive use of the metaphor with text would nonetheless be fallacious for two
reasons, and inevitably based on a double misunderstanding: firstly, the idea that
perception functions according to the same model; and secondly, an incomplete and
erroneous conception of the word “text”. Strictly speaking
8 , a text, like a language,
is an instrument of voluntary communication between several given players. Structurally, it is a precise, codified breakdown of discontinuous units in the continuous
flow of the possible sounds of speech (phonemes, words) or its written transcription
(graphemes). These units correspond to units of meaning (semes
9 ), broken down into
the fields of meanings we give things in the world. A sign can thus be the association
of signifier and signified. Signs are structured into systems relative to human groups,
governed by strict rules (alphabet, dictionary or index, spelling). And everything is
intentionally produced—to communicate. Without testing a set of examples against
this model, there is no doubt that lending any of these characteristics to landscape or
its components would be a misuse of language.
10
7.2.4 “Immersive” Landscape Reading
Conversely, a landscape designer does not decode or apply any prejudged grammatical rules to the landscape; he designs his own way of “reading” as a sensory and
intuitive immersion into the area perceived. The metaphor is rightly aquatic: “first,
‘free-floating attention’ should be given, to absorb the site and its surroundings during long visits, at various times of day and in all weather conditions. We ‘soak it in’,
from the ground to the sky, almost to boredom”
11 . Thus, reading through immersive
absorption in or by the landscape should be understood to be the same as immersion
7 Michel Corajoud, op.cit.
8 Meaning in terms of communication systems science, semiology.
9 To use Prieto’s term in Messages et signaux, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1966.
10 For development on the critical examination of the textual model applied to landscape, and the
interpretation of landscape from a semiological point of view, as a structure and signifier system
(particularly on landscape units and indicators), see C. Ronzani, Se fondre dans le paysage. Le
camouflage, lecture avertie des signes paysagers, ou mise en question des méthodes paysagistes?
Analyse sémiologique de l’oeuvre camouflée de Pierre Gatier à la batterie des Mèdes, Porquerolles.
PhD thesis in Landscape sciences and architecture, École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de
Versailles, 2013.
11 Bernard Lassus, “Pour une poétique du paysage”, in Maîtres et protecteurs de la nature, dir. Alain
Roger, François Guéry, Éd. Champs-Vallon 1991.