Whiteford’s references begin with archaeology and her interest in site-specific art began when she arrived at Giotto’s cycle fresco at Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Drawing is fundamental to all her work and in that there’s a preoccupation with basic mark-making and its capacity to carry meaning.

Her landworks, like Sculpture for Calton Hill, refer to the monumental land drawings of earlier cultures – but are made with an ironic sense of distance.

‘The connections to history and myth find Whiteford modelling symbols, signs, logos and traces on the ground.’

‘Her major concern is to strip the signs and symbols of their immediate cultural references and go back to their essence, both in visual and semantic terms.’ – I like this idea

Looking at her website she clearly plays around with multiple media – light, bleach, ink, video and photography – which give me a bit of encouragement to move away from photography and found objects. Try a bit more drawing.

Her aerial videos are voiceless (except for helicopter radio chatter), like developments for a documentary – like research for a project. She appears interested in the visual patterns, forms, textures of the landscape. The noise/whatever soundtrack there is is ambient and in a sense site-specific – sounds specific to the situation of making the video – seemingly unedited.

The “bird’s eye view” plays an interesting role her work – whether as research or documentation. She’s used it in reference to archaeology and hidden signs in the landscape revealed by remote sensing – aerial photography.

https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/kate-whiteford-land-drawings-installations-excavations

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It’s definitely interesting to consider site-specific art in the sense of Christian and religious art, where frescoes and panels were to be witnessed and understood in connection to the liturgy and the church interior. I can begin to consider what site specific art could include.

I like the idea of stripping back to symbols – she’s inspired to me to look into a book of symbols I have on my shelves.

Another idea: large scale mosaic photograph onto walls of bedroom – site to nonsite – the view as the replicated/reconstructed/displaced element.

In Whiteford’s work that I’ve seen there appears to be a blurred line between research, documentation, installation, final outcomes, presentation etc. The process is the artwork and the artwork is diffused within the process. Is this a feature of earthworks and land art in general?

The aerial view/’bird’s eye view’ – google maps, trying to pinpoint difficult to find locations (like I tried with Adam Chodzko’s work) – I’d quite like to try something like that in the Pentlands maybe? Could go somewhere more remote? Would I need a car? Are there any real-time satellite images the public has access to so that I could locate it straight away/not have to wait for google maps to update?