On the gardens ‘are concentrated or perfected forms of place-making’ tip:
It is surprising the degree to which garden design has *always* accorded with concurrent philosophical trends (empiricism goes hand in hand with the English attempt to replicate the landscape; rationalism accords with certain approaches to the rigorously geometrical garden, etc.)
And surely GPS-based work is in many respects an attempt to construct the Postmodern Garden: which is to say a theoretical experience of the landscape, explicitly designed and guided (or at least mapped). In this case, however, the terrain of the garden is *global*. And fragmentary.
Garden theory was very much in the air in the eighties, when I was studying philosophy; and it was centered, oddly enough, in the English department-- one of the more interesting writers to investigate this field is the British poet James Fenton.
As for the history and theory of perspective - this seems to me a good way to focus the connection between virtually all of the plastic arts and location-specific technology. It´s difficult to think of much in the way of painting, sculpture and architecture that *doesn´t* feed into this new practice - and it´s useful to find the central link.
posted with thanks to Douglas Anthony Cooper
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