Through Laser Scanned Point Clouds to Techno-Sight and a Landscape on the Move
: Nordström Paulina
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
: 2017
: Geohumanities
: 3
: 1
: 122
: 143
: 22
: 2373-5678
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2017.1289820
Three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning is a geovisual technology used for precision scientific measurements and 3D representations of reality. Laser scanning technology produces point clouds, which are extraordinary kinds of images: commonly a combination of the laser beams’ journey between the scanner and the materialities of a site, and the photographs. In this article, I examine the confused surfaces of point clouds by focusing on the encounter between the laser scanner and moving objects. This encounter is registered as a figure without resemblance, which I call the chimeric point cloud. The chimeric point cloud is oriented toward the past and the future. Using this example, and drawing on Deleuze’s surface event, I broaden the notion of nonrepresentational landscape theory to a consideration of an absence of both the past and future. I show how digital images and technology affect the landscape sight at future sites of encounter through generating sensations.