Call for papers – no. 45 “Reinventing (landscape) / Réinventer (le paysage”

Appel à contributions

N° 45 (Spring 2025)

Intermediality. History and Theory of the Arts, Literature, and Technologies

Intermédialités. Histoire et théorie des arts, des lettres et des techniques

Guest editors :

Reinventing (landscape)

At a time when the rapid and irremediable degradation of natural environments as a result of human action is becoming increasingly apparent, leading some to refer to a new geological age, the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000), the concept of landscape is being redefined and called into question in a number of ways, far beyond the sphere of the fine arts to which it was previously confined (as a pictorial genre or as the landscape garden). What was previously conceived primarily as an artistic object is now understood as an intellectual construct that is specific to modern Europe (Cosgrove, 1984; Descola, 2005) and connected to its expansionist and industrial project, of which it could be considered the aesthetic expression (Darcis, 2022, Charbonneau, 2002). Furthermore, at the start of the twenty-first century, the gap between such a construct and the reality of natural spaces seems to be more conspicuous than ever. The dramatic ecological changes of our time only seem to confront us with damaged, uncertain “landscapes.” The wish to give aesthetic meaning to environments that have been degraded by decades of industrial exploitation or intensive agriculture, as well as the necessity to renew social and political commitment to them, seems to call for a reconsideration of the idea of landscape, acknowledging its significance as one of the “emotional conditions of our existence” (Besse, 2018). More specifically, it appears necessary to reinvent landscape: to recreate it, in order to take into account recent ecological upheavals but also to rediscover it as environment rather than as distant pictorial object, in order to restore the link between humans and the rest of the living world. This implies the elaboration of new artistic practices where creation and environmental action intersect, as well as new configurations in which intermediality plays a significant part, either through the exploration and hybridization of non-pictorial visual media (photography, film, sound, the use of sustainable or recycled materials in Eco Art, etc.) or through the use of spaces outside the traditional institutions of art that are conducive to civic debate (as in Land Art or installations).

This issue of Intermédialités/Intermediality proposes to explore this evolution of the idea and practice of landscape, from its “invention” in early modern times to its successive “reinventions,” through changing conditions of life and various ways of inhabiting the planet. It will first of all underline the historical dimension of a paradigm that went hand in hand with —and was instrumentalized by—modern Europe’s socio-economic transformations but whose relevance is undermined by contemporary environmental challenges. It will also attempt to determine the extent to which this diachronic evolution goes together with fluctuations in this construction of nature from one medium to the other. While painting prevailed as the preferred medium for landscape from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, a domination which implies parallels between the visual construction of space— notably through the use of linear perspective—and processes of land acquisition in the same period (Cosgrove, 1984), other media have contributed to the construction, evolution, and possible deconstruction of the paradigm. Medieval aural “landscapes,” landscape imaginaries in early modern illustration practices, the development of the landscape garden in the eighteenth century, Land Art in the 1970s, and the contemporary artistic use of contested, unstable, and transitional sites—such as urban waste lands, “Third landscapes” (Clément, 2004), and borderlands—are examples of practices which explore the idea of landscape, question the primacy of its pictorial expression, and enable paradigm shifts as interactions with the natural world evolve. Since the 1970s in particular, a growing number of experiments have reflected both a desire to define an alternative relationship with nature, other than in terms of visual or territorial appropriation, and a determination to highlight the diversity of experiences of the natural world, for instance by giving a new visibility to those dispossessed by colonial conquest or by allowing the expression of the non-human.

“Reinventing (landscape)” aims to enable an interdisciplinary dialogue between specialists of visual culture, philosophy, geography, history, and literature, as well as artists, about the evolution of the paradigm of landscape, its meaning in the age of the Anthropocene, but also the possibility of renewing our aesthetic appreciation of the natural world so that we may cohabit respectfully with the beings—human or non-human—that inhabit it. It will more specifically take into account the diversity of media that construct and represent nature, as well as the historical and cultural variety of aesthetic responses to it, in order to explore the many ways in which humanity’s connection to the Earth and to the living world may be reinvented, and possibly re-enchanted.

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Intermédialités/Intermediality is a biannual journal, which publishes original articles in French and English evaluated through a blind peer review process.

Proposals (350–400 words) in English or French should include an abstract, a preliminary bibliography (five books or articles), and a brief biographical note (academic program, fields of interest, 5–10 lines). Proposals will be evaluated by the journal’s Scientific Committee based on the originality of the approach and thematic relevance. They should be sent to the guest editors (helene.ibata@unistra.fr and cressman@unistra.fr) by February 1st 2024.

Completed texts should be sent before 1st August 2024. They should be no longer than 6,000 words (40,000 characters, including spaces) and can incorporate illustrations (audio, visual, still, or animated) whose publication rights should be secured by the authors.

Authors are requested to follow the submission guidelines available at:

• http://intermedialites.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Protocole-de-rédaction-Intermedialites-mai-2017-FR.pdf (Français)
• http://intermedialites.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Submission-Guidelines-2017-EN-May-2017.pdf (English)

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Bibliography

Andrews, Malcolm. Landscape and Western Art, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.