Illustrated by video material from my exhibition Walking Out which drew on landscape paintings in Huddersfield Art Gallery, I consider the challenge posed by surviving Romantic archetypes like The Wanderer, the Ancient Monument and the Picturesque Scene. 2 films of beauty spots in the north of England show visitors sharing an absorption in views which seems to bely mere ‘Heritage’ status, whilst a third film documents the progress of an habitual roadside walker through the urban fringe, exhibiting all the traits of the Wordsworthian outsider at home in a sea of traffic.
Talk delivered to:
Leeds Psychogeography Group, October 2011
Royal Geographical Society conference, London, September 2011