Bigdatascape: El paisaje; Del punto de vista a la complejidad

Abstract

The scientific and philosophical paradigms of the 20th century have entered into crisis and are changing (Morin), affecting society. There have been various attempts to define these changes through concepts such as the information society or globalisation, but it is something much more complex and even more difficult to categorise. Post-industrial society is giving way to another kind of society, which necessarily affects art, and very specifically the concept of landscape in art. The interest in landscape in culture and art is not new, it begins in the Italian Renaissance. From the analysis of landscape, we will try to answer the questions (1) what is landscape today, understanding that it is a cultural construct, and (2) how can we draw valid conclusions to address the challenges we face. This research raises parallels between two important periods of transition: the one between the Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance and the current one, with profound technological and conceptual transformations and paradigm shifts. The concept of landscape, key to its survival in art, will guide the critical analysis in order to understand similarities and differences. We will analyse how the construction of landscape reflects paradigms that influence the way we perceive reality and relate to the world. When our senses face new perceptual challenges we must construct new strategies of knowledge. Technologies such as the Internet, Big Data, computers or mobile devices pose complex paradigms and scenarios that require different solutions. The research is based on the methodology of case studies of aesthetic proposals by contemporary artists such as Ryoji Ikeda and Laura Beloff that reflect the paradigm of complexity and allow us to draw conclusions about what landscape is today.