PRACTICES OF VISION ON THE MOVE: MARINA BAY, SINGAPORE

Abstract

Studies of urban waterfront developments around the world have thus far focused on either deconstructing the landscape through iconographic and discourse analyses or examining the ways in which the landscape is (re)assemblcd through translocal relational networks of people, places and policies. This thesis adds to the emerging literature on non-representational theory by focusing on body-landscape relations. This is achieved by critically examining the complex relationships between mobility and visual practices in engagements with Marina Bay, Singapore on foot. By expanding the concept of visuality, this study illuminates three types of interrelated visual practices that emerge during walks. First, it considers how spectacular vision involves instances of sublime and attentive visual practices whereby the self oscillates between different distanciations with the landscape. Second, it looks at how familiar "Singapore" sights (and sounds) and the weather constitute subconscious vision, which highlights the importance of paying attention to the mundane materialities and non-materialities of everyday life even in an ostensibly "global" landscape. Third, it reveals how sustained engagements with Marina Bay can give rise to passive vision that involves moments of disengagement with both the spectacular and the mundane. In revealing the interrelations between visuality and mobility, this thesis conceptualises Marina Bay as a landscape of practice. In addition, it contends that the application of actor-network theory to the micro-geographies of walking provides useful insights through an explicit treatment of the agency of more-than-human materialities and non-materialities in the constitution of self-landscape relations. Finally, this thesis contributes to ongoing methodological discussions of the merits and limitations of "newer" methods in human geography such as go-along methods (e.g. walk-alongs) and participatory visual methods (e.g. visual narratives). The use of such methods towards understanding the corporeal and mobile practices constituting multiple and interrelated visual practices and different notions of self-landscape relations will be discussed.