Viewpoint - Point Of View

The work Viewpoint - Point Of View addresses tourist viewpoints as a multiple intervention in the landscape: in addition to an architectural intervention these structures also condition the view at the landscape - an approach to the environment that parallels with documentary landscape photography. The work tempts the viewer to reflect on the narrative principles of documentary photography as an artistic genre and the striking parallels between the functioning of tourist viewpoints and documentary landscape photography. Signposted locations make the tourist feel at ease: from this angle the scenery is at its best. A field of view and a framework are imposed. The restriction is comfort.

The image is made from the perspective of the landscape; facing the viewpoint. This method of capturing contrasts with the traditional tourist photographs made at exactly those panoramic points that are laden with the promise of revealing the landscape in the best possible way. In Viewpoint - Point Of View this ideal view lies outside the range of the picture, the tourist panorma is precisely what the audience is denied. It is this 'frustration' that this work wishes to explore. The viewer looks at the gazing tourists from and along with the landscape and is thus thrown back on his own act of looking. Morevoer, he is obliged to cope with his unmet expectations and to constitute the landscape himself. After all, he gets no authoritative answer to the questions that this work evokes.