AESTHETICS OF GEOGRAPHY

Anand jha
2005jds6005
Aesthetics Of
Geography Why this topic
Aesthetics of geography does’nt
just create the room for a valid discussion
on influences of nature on our perception
of beauty and its appreciation but also
on built geography, of created spaces.

It is relevant to discuss this process as

a cyclic phenomenon where influences
produce the object, the reality, and this
reality is processed again as an influence.

This paper would like to assume a fresh

ground in understanding the concepts
of geography and aesthetics with their
connects, without isolating them.

Defined as
1
Aesthetics: Aesthetics is studied in the light of a journey
concerned with beauty of arts and undertaken from witnessing a reality to
understanding of beautiful things. reproducing it. The reality could be physical or
emotional.

Geography
the scientific way of study of earth’s
surface, physical features, divisions
products population etc.
Geography is studied in the axis of space and time
and in the dimension of space and time the
elements that we evaluate are objects and
systems which travel on to produce culture.

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 Aesthetics

Beautiful things have always inspired us to create a more liberal more livable world.
While saying that it is the action of reproduction of a reality, it is important to know that
it is not just any reality which is being reproduced. While we see various aesthetic things
around us, the underlying elements which help creating an object of beauty remain the same.

Unity contrast proportion rhythm harmony balance visual illusion.

The way nature creates ,it never creates an object, it creates an emotion which comes from
reacting to an environment; there is sound there is the animal, there are the trees, its kill and
its predator, it is not an exercise in isolation because it cannot be interpreted in isolation
(one reason why we can make a zoo but not a jungle). The above stated principles work
towards creating that code, that response, first a sensory experience then a cognitive
experience and then the act of valuing it and placing it in a context. Perhaps that is why we
connect a series of paintings, or occasionally we have the same response towards the beauty
of two different things.

2 An observation into these principles of aesthetics makes us ask some questions. What are
these principles ,are these thoughts that should guide you as you are composing something
or they are elements or properties of an object, for example, proportion is more like the
property of the object but unity is a principle of composing these elements, we can always say
that there should be a unity in proportion but never the other way round. This gives us a clear
idea that there exists a hierarchy not necessarily vertical ,more like a list to do where you set
priorities or short term and long term objectives. Unity is a long term objective, harmony
rhythm are long term objectives, they need to come in frame while we are bringing creative
elements like lines, colour, texture, proportion(we are talking of inherent proportion of the
element and not how it is scaled as compared to other objects, the relative idea of proportion
is again something that is like a long term objective).

These principles are not just there for visual but also for other senses of perception. All of
these are applicable across the disciplines, in music, in dance, in sculpting , in painting, in a
social setup......and is music just an audio experience, or is there no dance in sculpting.
As we live with these elements we see them encompassing our lives, making every reaction
critical , a joy to freeze and look at . Aesthetics intents are accomplished with grace, whether
we talk of balance or rhythm, we are talking of something effortlessly beautiful. In films when
we witness a performance which is balanced, sits out in contrast or blends in as demanded
(lack of contrast should be a decision and not an accident), has a rhythm and an element of
illusion in it ,we say it is natural, we find it effortless. Since i am a student of industrial design
my interest was in natural visual entities and that is where geography comes into picture.

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 Geography
Can natural environment be segregated from built environment and can we talk of geography
as just an investigation into flora fauna and physical entities which keep them. We as humans
have become very significant to be considered as an important element. We are building, we
are destroying and creating and interfering with nature on a bigger scale than ever and
therefore demography becomes a strong point of view to be understood.

While we talk of understanding geography in terms of objects and systems in the axis of space
and time we are talking of a span in which nothing can remain static. When we talk of space
we talk of physical and emotional space and though physical has an emotional character and
emotional spaces cannot be talked without the physical connection this classification
distinguishes between things which can or cannot be touched. While emotional spaces can
be discussed in terms of activities which become engines of emotion; existence, acceptance,
contemplation and collaboration, physical spaces can be discussed in terms of living and non
living entities (both of them being dynamic in their own time span). We can also see the living
entities as producers of built space or space themselves. While they are engaged in producing
their own offsprings(which are spaces in motion) they in a way are also engaged in generating
another generation of built spaces, clusters like cities ,towns and villages, products, symbols.

3
Can we discuss these activities in terms of aesthetics, in terms of unity, rhythm and contrast.
Can this set a framework for growth and future, can we say for certain that our movement
towards future has the elements of balance, rhythm ,unity and proportion, is it aesthetic.
Imperatively aesthetics is just not limited in judgement of visual beauty, it is also important to
look at the aesthetics of a framework which is governing most human activities...

Discussing the axis of time we come at concept of nodes or keyframes which we call as events.
Whenever we describe history we always talk of events and so we do when we recollect our
lives in front of our grandchildren. Ostensibly there is more to time than just events which we
can call as in betweens and it is this entity which is the stabilizer in the process of creation.
While discussing events we look at war, migration, religion, inventions and discoveries and the
confluence of demand and supply (of manpower, of leadership, of finance and of other
resources). While discussing in betweens we talk of institutions like state , nation, marriage
school, home; we talk of archives which are textual and non textual(people , structures etc)
and then we talk of dialogues which follow events, philosophies as response to events
theories and gossips and mass mandates.

What is the deliverable of this investigation . What happens after we have looked into these
aspects and their relationships. We arrive at a framework which helps us in understanding
the thought behind a lot of individual and community endeavors that have gone into
creation of beautiful things around us.

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 Framework
Intuition

unity
value
resonance

Rhythm

modularity
vibrance
periodicity
Harmony

composition
Volume
Colour space
texture lines
tone proportion Sensory experience

cognitive experience

Contrast/similarity coding decoding

placement (application, valuation and appropriation)

Aesthetics

The creator The consumer

Nature human

Flux(geography)

Space Time

Emotional physical
Existence
Events Inbetweens
Living Non living Institutions
acceptance War
collaboration Natural entities innovation (state
Flora
contemplation (rivers and marine revolution marriage
fauna
hills mountains confluence of demand school etc)
people
plains desert) and supply
clusters migration archieves
(cities,villages etc) climatic crisis (textual
landmarks financial crisis non textual)
symbols migration for opportunity
products dialogues
architecture