Custodians of the Solar Landscape.
Eidetic Montage:
Communicating an evolving Landscape.
a method of drawing or imaging needed to be resolved, one that communicates to both architects and community whilst still allowing room for speculation. In establishing a form of eidetic visual for the visualisation of the Solar Farm, previously captured photographs were layered behind “blank” perspectives of the solar structures - embodying a sense of the design project whilst allowing the audience to speculate and imagine this infrastructure within the landscape. Whether audience members are architects or people of the community this type of imaging inaugurates engagement and participation with the evolving landscape - empowering and instilling agency in the community whilst alluding to the landscape being a narrative with a visual consequence. Hence, the architect brings more than agency, but rather, a plural skill in collating various aspects of different disciplines to progress the participatory and engagement processes of design within the community.
James Corner asserts that “Landscape and image are inseparable. Without image there is no such thing as landscape, only unmediated environment.” (Corner, 1999) The design project of the Community Solar farm resulted from the interpretation of the landscape of Mulranny as an outsider; “… the tourist, the spectator, the state, the administrative authority, the designer and planner – views landscape as an object, a thing to behold, and not only scenically but instrumentally and ideologically.” (Corner, 1999) The relationship between inhabitant and outsider has been one of division, misunderstanding and alienation on the Irish landscape – with the outsider kept at a “safe and uninvolved distance” and the inhabitant bending to the rules of “synoptic management of land”. (Corner, 1999) When conversing with Sean Carolan and Carol Loftus it transpired that one of the lessons they have learned from engaging with their community in the past is that “…when visualisation is done so well its extremely powerful…and it enthuses people when they see what is possible ... it does encourage other people to imagine what we’ve been thinking. You get enthusiastic when somebody else shows you what is possible visually. With Sean adding: “I think it would create a lot of positive outcomes to show people a community-led holistic design rather than developer and land owner led. At the moment, development is very much individually led.” This suggests the impact of architectural visualisation on everyday inhabitants and its utilisation as a tool for negotiating relationships between the various stakeholders on this evolving landscape.