According to John Constable, landscape is an artform that aspires to make something out of nothing. While the present study may be said to adhere to this credo, since it is concerned with scenes that on a cursory glance appear to have very little to offer, the project has not evolved out of nothing, but from a mass of notes, drafts and outlines amassed over the last decade. This material originates from my postdoctoral fellowship with Nomadikon: New Ecologies of the Image, an interdisciplinary research centre for the visual arts directed by Professor Absjørn Grønstad at the University of Bergen. I owe a debt of gratitude, first of all, to my friends and colleagues in this group and its vast network of collaborators, and to all those who, in one capacity or another, have contributed with inspiration, conversations or opportunities of various kinds. Too many to mention, I want here to extend my thanks in particular to Mark Ledbetter, Jennifer Swanson, Lars Sætre, Øyvind Vågnes, and James S. Williams.