An ecoaesthetic of vegetal surfaces: on Seed, Image, Ground as soft montage

Abstract

ABSTRACT Engaging with Harun Farocki’s notion of the soft montage, our visual essay builds on our recent Seed, Image, Ground video project (2020). Commissioned by the Fotomuseum Winterthur, the moving image piece addresses the surfaces of vegetal growth in relation to the surfaces of media such as screens and images. While the video is a central reference point for this visual essay, our aim is not so much to theorise our own moving images and their juxtapositions and rhythms. Instead, in this article, we present a series of surfaces and scales that appear in and through the images. Images build upon images and this constitutes the practice-led approach in the temporal unfolding of the video. In other words, the video works as a temporal articulation of image surfaces across and upon living surfaces. Hence the central motif of the video essay and this accompanying text is to ask ‘what do images of growth look like?’ We also employ Celia Lury’s notion of ‘problem space’ to consider the methodological potential in the split-screen practice and its relation to Farocki’s soft montage.