K A R E N L O H R M A N N [born in Hamburg, based in Los Angeles, Berlin, and Naples] combines her background in art and architecture with writing, teaching, editorial and curatorial projects. She is cofounder of SdMKLm, editor and producer at the art edition Correspondents, and initiator of the multimedia testing ground BAY of MARS. Current faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, SCI-Arc, she is also the program coordinator at the NOW Institute.
Central to her multidimensional practice is the focus on editorial processes as critical and projective tools in the narration of landscape. She studies territorial and time-based conditions to understand when trends turn into movements, and how immediate environments transition into visual culture. This has grown from a long involvement with the exterior — EXT.* — as a specific setting, the condition for ambience and vision, the immanent whole of what we have come to differentiate into natural and artificial. The air and atmosphere out there. The reality check.**
The many notions of landscape*** intrigue her.
Another fascination is the idea of plot.****
* EXT.
In a script or screenplay, EXT. appears as a scene heading and stands for ‘exterior.’ It means something takes place outside.
** Reality check
The occasion on which one is reminded of the state of things in the real world.
*** Landscape I
Landscape as the cultural phenomenon, the mutation of the specific and framed image of the 16th century, to an immersive rendering of landscape, into an all encompassing ambience.
Landscape II
“All the visible features of an area or land often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.” [Oxford Dictionary]; or “An expanse of scenery that can be seen in a single view.” [Free Dictionary]; etc.
Landscape III
“Landscape is the image of the whole—the world and what happens in it.” [B. Verschaffel]
....
**** Plot
How did this happen, to apply the same term to an intrigue, a storyline, a piece of ground, and a relational graph?