Mark Adams
Photography

Lichtung [Heidegger's Path] 

from SelfScapes 2018

These images are part of SelfScapes research event which took place at Dalby Forest in North Yorkshire. SelfScapes refers to the relationship between self and its environment. The aims of this research cluster was to investigate both the body and place as sites for interconnected experiences and how this might be mediated through a range of media.

Central to Heidegger’s philosophy is the concept of the forest clearing, a coexistence of space and a state of being or presence. This philosophy has a close relationship with photography as it is experienced while walking in a forest. One’s orientation in the forest is often determined by the temporal and often changing qualities of light refracted through the trees. Shafts of filtered and fragmented light also determine the way photographers make images in the traditional darkroom and the way we orientate our eye in and around a photographic image. The continually changing and flickering light of the forest establishes a sense of retracting and expanding spaces

My response to the site at Dalby Forest is experiential, it’s about embracing getting lost and adopting an intuitive wayfinding method. By incorporating a practice mirroring the natural and man-made dimensions of the site (the use of organic film-based media and digital GPS tracing to inscribe the route taken) the hybrid nature of my experience and process is disclosed in the photographic images. An orientation towards light determines one’s presence within the forest which is simultaneously central and surrounding.’