Audiovisual Techno-aesthetics and the Medium of Landscape

Abstract

By examining Godland (2022) this contribution aims to provide a joint consideration of audiovisual techno-aesthetics and the medium of landscape. Through the story of Lucas – a young Danish Lutheran pastor dispatched to a remote northern Iceland’s village to supervise the construction of a church at the end of the 19th century – the third feature film by Hlynur Pálmason conveys the perceptible experience of the landscape. In Godland’s narrative, moreover, Lucas’ passion for wet-plate photography turns out to be inadequate to capture the complexity of the Icelandic landscape. Instead, it is the audiovisual medium, through a carefully considered and techno-aesthetic use of cinematography, that provides the ideal trans-sensory engagement and immersion for the anthropo-cosmo-centric understanding of the medium of landscape. To better express the conceptual solidity of the audiovisual landscape, this contribution combines transdisciplinary perspectives from film analysis, media theory, cultural geography, anthropology, visual culture studies, aesthetics, sociology, and literature.