My photographic research intends to locate and document signs of climate change within the landscape of Pevensey Levels. This is significant in that within the relatively temperate climate of South East England, the phenomenon of climate change does not initially seem to be noticeable to the human eye. The project aims to integrate theory and practice in order to generate a reciprocal dialogue between the two endeavours. The photographic fieldwork has informed my choices of theoretical texts and I have then analysed these in order to further consider the notion of climate change visibility. In turn, the theoretical framework has informed the photographic practice by creating the focus of my visual investigations within the landscape. These concepts include the notion of the landscape as a cultural signifier, phenomenology and perception, geomorphology and the idea of a photographic archaeology of the landscape, narrative, mnemonics, and indexicality. The photographic practice reveals how the landscape is managed and controlled to mitigate climate change. The marshland is drained with the use of pumping stations, sluice gates and networks of waterways. Water channels are enlarged to increase their capacity in order to prevent flooding. These act as conduits to channel excess ground water to outfall pipes at the seafront. Barriers such as shingle beaches are maintained as a consequence of rising sea levels and winter storms. There are five chapters in the thesis. Chapter One considers the landscape of Pevensey Levels: its geology, geography, history, occupants, management agencies, and character of the land. Chapter Two explores the issues around the phenomenon of climate change and in what ways it might be perceived and represented. Chapter Three presents the context of landscape photography and some photographic representations of climate change, and I have situated my own photographic enquiries in relation to these examples. Chapter Four outlines the concepts that contextualise my photographic practice. Chapter Five considers examples of the photographic images in terms of their narrative and the ways in which climate change is indexed. The research finds that it is possible to photographically document the presence of climate change, and concludes that its visibility is situated in three characteristics. First, in the control and management of the landscape, which results from scientific research on climate change. Then, in the intensive utilisation of the land, which consequently causes water and air pollution. This hinders recovery from the effects of climate change. Finally, plants respond to fluctuations in temperature and rainfall, which causes abnormalities in their growth patterns. The research shows that photography's ability to index and act as a mnemonic device aids the search for phenomena of climate change. Furthermore, documenting these phenomena photographically can intensify the spectator's perceptions of the landscape. The culmination of the practical element of the research is a collection of 97 landscape photographs presented on CD Rom. 51 of these photographs have been selected for inclusion in a prototype photobook (Appendix 15), in a limited edition of ten. The photographs are grouped according to their attributes related to climate change in the landscape under four general headings: Mechanism, Flux, Damage and Regeneration, each of which has sub-headings. This provides the narrative structure for the body of photographic work. The photographs are annotated with their place names, OS Grid Reference and short description. This information has relevance for future observations and photographic research at Pevensey Levels. The title for the book and the portfolio of original colour photographs is Unveiling Climate Change At Pevensey Levels. A portfolio of fifteen original photographic C-Type prints, size 16 x 20 inches, has also been produced (see Appendix 14).

This dissertation provides a theoretical and historical exploration of two contrasting approaches and attitudes that took hold in street photography during the 1950s, and of their impact on the street photography of the 1960s and 1970s. The two approaches and attitudes are identified as, firstly, that of the "decisive moment," and, secondly, what is referred to as the "moment in between." The former attitude was famously introduced by Henri Cartier-Bresson and exemplified within his work, while the latter is distinctly manifested in the work of William Klein and Robert Frank. Through a comparative and interpretative approach to each, this study analyses the work of photographers whose imagery exemplifies the stylistic differences, and the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of the two attitudes to street photography. In the first part of the dissertation, two concepts taken from ancient Greek thought - kairόs and tyche - are used to elucidate the nature of, respectively, the decisive moment and the moment in between, as well as the differences between these approaches to street photography. It is argued that the concept of kairόs embodies certain spatial, temporal, aesthetic and moral features capable of enriching the understanding of the approach to street photography represented by the notion of the decisive moment. The concept of tyche, with its focus upon chance and the unforeseen, brings to light a powerful contrast with the decisive moment, emphasising the photographers' position in respect of the fortuitous episodes that shape their practice, as well as the significance of the abandonment of linearity, intelligibility and determinability that is characteristic of this approach and attitude toward reality. The second part of the dissertation is dedicated to the impact of the decisive moment and the moment in between upon the North American street photography of the 1960s and upon the work of photographers active outside of the North American and Western European cultural and intellectual contexts. In particular, it is argued that in the 1960s, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander established within their work a bridge between the approaches of the decisive moment and the moment in between, bringing about their fruitful co-existence within a single image. By interpreting these elements through the categories of kairόs and tyche, I analyse how these photographers embraced both approaches with the aim of appreciating the aesthetic opportunities resulting from their union. This second part also involves an examination of the extent to which forms of street photography that developed in relative isolation from the intellectual and cultural contexts of North American or Western European street photography, or which are embedded in non-Western ideas and philosophy, may still be understood by means of the dichotomy between the decisive moment and the moment in between. The works of Miroslav Tichý, a photographer who worked in the climate of seclusion of Communist Czechoslovakia, and Raghubir Singh, an Indian photographer who was profoundly influenced by Indian philosophy, are analysed in order to assess whether or not the categories of kairόs and tyche can be usefully employed in their interpretation.

This thesis is structured around a central overriding question: to what extent can the practice of landscape photography be used to make visible the politics of landscape in borderland territories? Introduced by architect Teddy Cruz, the ‘political equator’ suggests an alternative politics of space through which to critically consider socio-economic and geopolitical processes associated with globalisation under neoliberal capitalism. This equator is based on a revised geography of the post-9/11 world, whereby a line drawn across a world map intersects at three contested desert territories: 1) the Mexico USA frontier; 2) southern Spain and northern Morocco; and 3) Palestine/Israel. This concept and its implications for human mobility, porous frontiers and material readings of landscape are explored through my photographic practice. In this work I challenge the idea of ‘hard borders’ between sovereign nation-states and make new political and symbolic associations between the territories along the political equator. Landscape can be seen as a cultural construct imbued with social uses and a more abstract set of desires. Photography as both a material and imaginative medium is able to simultaneously narrate and re-shape landscape. Through my three projects, Imported Landscapes (2010), Badlands (2011) and Gardening the Suburbs (2013) I examine and translate borderland territories. I produce photographs that suggest how these landscapes embody the contradictions of globalisation and carry the traces of past empires and geographies. I analyse the creation of a built environment and the construction of a post-natural landscape to suggest that our understanding of landscape – in ‘real-life’ and as it is aesthetically configured in images – is something materially arranged and a product of the imagination. My practice facilitates an imaginative engagement with potential future political sustainability or modification of these landscapes. Visuality plays a pivotal role in the production of contemporary geo-politics. By exploring three of my art projects in relation to historical and contemporary visual representations of desert borderlands, political and symbolic readings of the desert emerge as inherently connected. This thesis creates an innovative connection between early photographic practices in landscape and their later critical and conceptual versions. The thesis considers the ways in which my work translates, critiques and revises these conventions. I approach landscape phenomenologically, understanding it not as a static entity but as a process. This process is composed of and shaped by human and animal life, material object and place. Through an analysis of my own embodied engagement with landscape and my material and imaginative experience of landscape photographs, this thesis opens new ways of narrating the thresholds of the political equator.

This practice-based thesis is a study of the uneven geographical development of Chilean copper mining industry and the circulation of copper in Britain. My research examines three key historical moments in a pattern of ‘denationalisation,’ a term identified by Sassen (2003), of the copper resources of Chile: (1) 1840–1880; (2) 1904–1969; and (3) 1981–today, in which resources have been transferred from public to private management. In my research, I use a combination of photographic and historical methodologies to explore the impact of those processes on the extractive ecologies of Chile and to connect them to the global geographies of London, Liverpool and Swansea. My thesis considers how photography can be used to propose a re-mapping of the relationship between the global and the local, the national and the transnational, making visible the hidden geopolitical forces that shape the mobile and unequal geographies of copper. My doctoral investigation explores the global circulation of copper and its agency to produce geographical and political change. With the aim of revealing their close connections and networks, it examines the notion of ‘unequal geography’ established by Baran (1957) and the newer ‘mobility paradigm’ proposed by Sheller and Urry (2006). I follow the flow of copper, in Held’s words, ‘across space and time’ (1999), creating a constellation of photographs and texts about the transformation and mutation of copper as it traverses the world, exploring traces of extraction, smelting, manufacture, transport and trade processes across geographies. In doing so, I open ways of thinking about how landscape carries traces of those processes, bringing to the fore the significance of photographic intervention in highlighting them. The photographic research conducted during this investigation is organised in three lines of inquiry: Global mobility of copper; Post-industrial landscapes; and Contemporary mining industry and its relation to London. The first, Global mobility of copper comprises four visual essays presented together this written thesis: Sulphiric Acid Route (2012), Metallic Threads (2010-2015), High Rise (2012) and Hidden Circuits (2015). These works explore the mutation and transformation of hard-rock mining, back and forth from Chile to Britain from raw material to capital; through ore, smelted commodity, stock market exchanged value, assembled material and waste. The second, Post industrial landscapes, is explored through two case studies. The first of these is Coquimbo & Swansea (2014), which studies forgotten historical mining connections between Coquimbo, Chile and the Lower Swansea Valley, Wales between 1840 and 1880. This is followed by Miss Chuquicamata, the Slag (2012), which examines the Chuquicamata corporate town, Antofagasta Region, Chile and its contested history. The third line of inquiry, Contemporary mining industry and its relation to London involves two case studies. It opens with Antofagasta plc, Stop Abuses! (2010–14), which connects contemporary struggles of the inhabitants of Pupio Valley with the City of London, the world’s centre for mining investment. This line of investigation concludes with the site-specific studies LME Invisible Corporate Network (2011–15), which examines the London Metal Exchange within the City of London, using mapping methodologies. These case studies can also be used to map the three periods of denationalisation of copper resources in Chile. My photographic work is based on extensive photographic fieldwork in each geographical location, conducted over the last four years, as well as my two years as an activist photographer. Through my written thesis I seek to make visible the historical conditions that are central to the formation of the geographies of copper. Both aspects of my work are informed by the notion of ‘critical realism’ coined by Georg Lukács (1963) and developed later by Allan Sekula (1984). Alongside these case studies, my written thesis contains photographic examples of my practice so as to give insight into my research process. This thesis has been produced as part of Traces of Nitrate: Mining history and photography between Britain and Chile, a research project developed in collabotation with Art and Design historian Louise Purbrick and photographer Xavier Ribas, based at the University of Brighton and funded with the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

This study seeks to deepen knowledge and understanding of the tourist gaze and tourist photography. The original concept of the ‘tourist gaze as proposed by John Urry is inherently Western-centric and, as a consequence, it is arguably of limited value as a conceptual framework for appraising the tastes, gazes and, more generally, the visual practices of the increasing number of non-Western tourists’. At the same, despite the fact that, in recent years, smart phone cameras have become widely used by people both in their everyday lives in general and in their travels in particular, few attempts have been made to explore and analyse the potential transformations brought to the landscape of the tourist photography by the increasing use of smart phone cameras. The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to re-conceptualise and study empirically the tourist gaze and tourist photographic behaviour, as influenced by a variety of social, cultural and technological factors, amongst non-Western tourists. More specifically, it aims to explore the visual preferences of Chinese tourists in the UK, to consider critically what and how they take photographs of, and to evaluate the extent to which their gazes, their performance of gazing and their photographic practices are shaped by social, cultural and technological factors. In order to meet this aim, the qualitative research method of visual autoethnography is employed during two field studies with Chinese tourists in the UK. More precisely, a first field study was based on a seven-day package tour undertaken with eighteen Chinese tourists, visiting a total of thirteen destinations around British destinations. The second field study, in contrast, involved the researcher undertaking a five-day holiday with six Chinese tourists to the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. During these two field studies, the researcher adopted the role of ‘researcher-as-tourist’, engaging in travel with the respondents, staying in the same accommodation, joining in with their activities and taking photographs with them. These first-hand travel and photographic experiences conspired to become an integral part of the resultant data resources which were not only analysed but also shared with the respondents during interviews with them. From the data collected during the two field studies and, indeed, the autoethnographic experiences of the researcher, it became clearly evident that smart phone cameras had become the principal means of taking photographs amongst Chinese tourists. Moreover, smart phone cameras have also altered the landscape of tourist photography, primarily by de-exoticising this practice and further enhancing its ‘playfulness’ and increasing its social functions. During the field studies, the Chinese tourist respondents engaged in a variety of visual and photographic activities, purposefully including but by no means being confined to an interactive game of photo-taking and photo-sharing, imagining authenticity, sensing the passing of time from gazing on natural spectacles, and deliberately observing what they considered to be ‘advanced’ aspects of the toured destination. Based upon these identified performances and practices, this thesis proposes the concept and framework of the Chinese tourist gaze. That framework essentially establishes what Chinese tourists prefer to see during their travels and seeks to explain why and how they see certain specific spectacles or tourist objects. At the same time, it theoretically re-situates both their gazes and their ways of gazing within a network of influential social, cultural and technological factors, including: the travel patterns of the élite in pre-modern China; the cultural characteristics of Chinese people; the intertwining of contemporary communication and photography technologies; and, the fusion of the Chinese nation-state, its economic policies policies and the resultant social and environmental problems that have emerged over the last three decades. Moreover, the framework points to potential future transformations in the Chinese tourist gaze, such as the de-exoticisation of that tourist gaze. The principal contribution of this thesis to extant knowledge is the concept and framework of the Chinese tourist gaze, as this may provide future researchers with the foundation for continuing to study and more profoundly understand the tastes, gazes, practices of gazing and other visual activities, including photography, of Chinese tourists. Indeed, given the inherent Western-centric bias in the relevant literature, an appropriate theoretical framework enabling them to do has, arguably, not previously existed. In addition, the dimensions and characteristics of tourist smart-phone-photography revealed in this research are of much significance, contributing to a deeper, richer understanding of transformations in the practice of tourist photography and, in particular, of why and how contemporary Chinese tourists take photographs. Furthermore, through identifying and exploring how the Chinese respondents in this study shared their photographs, greater knowledge and understanding has emerged of Chinese tourists’ technological travel communication and connections as well as their attitudes towards and use of the multiplicity of social networking sites and mobile-apps.

This portfolio and commentary documents an approach to audiovisual composition that utilises sound and photographic images in an effort to create immersive, affective art which I call audio-photographic art. When presented in an immersive context, I contend that the temporal dissonance between still image and sound opens up a space between the materials. I draw upon Gernot Böhme's writings on the aesthetic of 'atmosphere', as well as the the theoretical writings of Roland Barthes, Paul Ricoeur and Eleni Ikoniadou among others to illustrate how this experience is constituted. This space between is an affective conceptual space in which the participant enters into a relationship with the materials of the piece, transcending their usual perception of time as they are immersed in the internal times of the artwork, their own memories and atmosphere. Through the use of maximal aesthetics and atmosphere as compositional tool, these themes are explored and developed throughout the creative portfolio. In the written submission I study the practical and theoretical concerns of the space between from three perspectives: 'The Temporal Space', 'The Memorial Space' and 'The Atmospheric Space'.

This practice-based research study examines two questions in an effort to determine how the photographer can play a role in the promulgation of environmental activism. Firstly, I ask if certain aesthetic approaches to the documentation of industrial pollution can be regarded as antithetical to the values of environmentalism; in particular, I examine the use of the sublime and the role that beauty plays in documenting scenes of environmental despoliation. In response to this question, I describe the problems associated with establishing a counter-aesthetic position in my artistic practice, which is commensurate with environmental ethics. Secondly, I ask how photography can be used as a means of conducting environmental protest by working in solidarity with environmental scientists and activists, in the struggle for environmental remediation. In a bid to answer this question, I argue that the production and dissemination of the photobook is one method of realising the dissensual capacity of art to bring about the conditions necessary for remediation to occur. Importantly, my practice proceeds through an understanding of debates ongoing in contemporary theory. In particular, I argue that Jacques Rancière s conceptions of dissensus (Rancière, 2010: 173) and the politics of aesthetics (Rancière, 2004: 25) can be interpreted as a means of understanding how aesthetics can be used to enact a form of political praxis. Using Rancière and Murray Bookchin s concept of social ecology as a basis for my artistic practice, I claim that photography can not only make the existent reality of pollution visible, it can also initiate a form of participatory democratic subjectivity, allowing the demands of the artist to become visible too. Moreover, in the design and dissemination of the three photobooks I have created, I make a case for a collaborative model of artistic practice, which extends beyond the medium specificity of photograph, and embraces multimodality and trans-disciplinarity, as a means of situating the photograph into a broader discursive field.

This study aims to contextualise my own photographic practice in relation to the interaction between mundane and sacred landscapes and the role that the transformative alchemy of light has on our perception of the ordinary. Reference will be made to the development of the genre of landscape photography, with particular reference to the selective aesthetic of pristine Wilderness, as embodied in the work of Ansel Adams, through the ‘man-altered’ landscapes of the New Topographics and Mark Klett’s rephotographic project, to discuss an aesthetic of the everyday. Reference will also be made to the benefits to health and wellbeing that can be achieved as a result of engaging in a state of mindfulness (Crane), also known as optimal experience or flow (Csikszentmihalyi) through photographic practice. Rather than narrowing the focus of the study by excluding relevant information to make the research less complex, the thesis comprises information from a diverse range of disciplines encompassing both the more obviously creative subjects of photography, aesthetics and poetry and areas such as health care. Given the parameters of the PhD process in relation to the breadth of the research undertaken, the specific study of each diverse element is, of necessity, not as detailed as it may have been had a single, more specifically defined, area of research been the entire focus of the research. The inclusive nature of the research presented in this thesis offers unique insights by providing direct comparisons and establishing new relationships between the theoretical and methodological approaches of a range of differing disciplines. While a written thesis forms part of the dissemination of the research findings the images that have emerged as a result of engagement with the study will be exhibited as an integral element of the outcome. The images that have been created as a result of the research process will take their place as objects within the world, offering viewers potential new ways of perceiving and experiencing what Rancière refers to as the ‘splendour of the insignificant’ within the landscape of their own everyday lives.

Le sujet de la présente thèse est le portrait photographique post-mortem à Buenos Aires et, spécialement, son développement dans le cadre de l'insertion de la photographie dans la presse de masse du début du XXe siècle. En ce sens, l'objectif principal de ce travail est de contribuer à la connaissance des rapports entre mort et représentation visuelle dans le début de la culture de masse. L'analyse d'un corpus hétérogène - des photographies, des peintures, des photogravures, des caricatures, des images aussi journalistiques que publicitaires - essayera donc de rendre compte de quelques problèmes fondamentaux de la présence de l'image et le portrait dans les rites funéraires et les pratiques de deuil modernes. On a aussi le propos de mettre en relief le rôle des pratiques mortuaires dans le processus argentin de modernisation et ses liens avec le développement de la culture visuelle de masse. / The subject of this thesis is the postmortem photographic portrait in Buenos Aires and, especially, its development in the context of the insertion of the photography in the early twentieth century massmedia. In this sense, the main objective of this work is to contribute to the knowledge of the relationship between death and visual representation in the beginning of the mass culture. The analysis of a heterogeneous corpus - the photographs, paintings, photo-engravings, cartoons, journalistic images and advertisings - therefore tries to study some fundamental problems of the presence of the image and the portrait in modern funerary rites and mourning practices. Its intention is also to highlight the role of mortuary practices in the Argentine modernization process and its links with the development of visual mass culture. / El sujeto de la tesis presente es el retrato fotográfico post-mortem a Buenos Aires y, especialmente, su desarrollo en el marco de la inserción de la fotografía en la prensa de masa de principios del siglo XX. En este sentido, el objetivo principal de este trabajo es contribuir al conocimiento de los relaciones entre muerto y representación visual en el principio de la cultura de masa. El análisis de un corpus heterogéneo - fotografías, pinturas, fotograbados, caricaturas, imágenes tan periodísticas como publicitarias - tratará pues de dar cuenta de algunos problemas fundamentales de la presencia de la imagen y el retrato en los ritos funerarios y las prácticas modernas de duelo. Tenemos también la intención de poner de relieve el papel de las prácticas mortuorias en el proceso argentino de modernización y sus lazos con desarrollo de la cultura visual de masa.