Affiliation:
1. University of Toronto, Canada
Abstract
Does art tend towards immersion? Positing James Turrell's Roden Crater (2015) as the modern epitome of the landscape art-object, the evolution of the medium is traced through prominent examples its transformations: Titian's Venus and the Organist with Dog (1550), De Loutherbourg's Eidophusikon (1781), and Barker's Panorama (1792). Discussion regarding Roden Crater's predecessors serve to illustrate distinct innovations that greatly influenced its construction of sensory experience, spanning the use of dialogue to the integration of physicality. This chronology is used to demonstrate an overarching tendency of media towards immersion, and to reflect how the development of contemporary culture evolves towards progressively psychological experiences.