Scholarly record

THE SCULPTURE-ENVIRONMENT AS A TERRITORIAL RESEARCH METHOD - THE REFLEXION OF THE MILIEU

Y.T. Wang

Abstract

The sculpture-environment has developed since the 1970’s, and it in France particularly represents an artistic planning of territory that directs our attention to the relationship between people and their surroundings. A mesological point of view could be found in the way of planning oriented by interpreting the environment. And this interpretation refers to the mediance, a concept defined by Augustin Berque as a dynamic coupling of being and its milieu. Due to the eco-techno-symbolic perspectives, the concept opposes what modern sculpture and architecture focus on — privileging the autonomy of art and the abstraction of place. Also, appearing at the time of postmodernist art characterized as cynic and anhistorical, the sculpture-environment provides another vision of art: a territorial research method. However, the landscape perspective is regularly neglected in sculpture-environment studies. This paper briefly reviews the notion of “environment” and the synthesis of sculpture and architecture in French sculptural praxis. It investigates how the sculpture-environment makes the mediance reappear and the complex reality is produced along the way. By applying the mediance as the model for realizing the relationship between the society and its territory, the study attempts to theorize the praxis of sculpture-environment. Three principles constitute the method. The first is a design approach with linguistic orientation. Secondly, the art of mediance provides an undetermined function according to the interaction of society with spatial aesthetic disposition. Finally, it doesn't produce a simple unified image but a guided medial space where people can grasp the sense of place as they walk through. Considering the sculpture-environment in the field of landscape allows us to think about the method of territorial planning from the sculpture point of view. It shows that the environment may not be considered as a mere inspiration of art and neither may be the sculpture as a mere tool for public conversation. Instead, the sculpture-environment is likely to be a trigger to present the sensation and the meaning of place.

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