Unnatural
Curated Exhibition // Summer 2018

Nature has always been subject to our fascinated, yet distant, observation. Paintings and photographs depict the natural environment as a placid, domesticated landscape or a mesmerizingly sublime scene. These depictions are, in fact, fictions, yet we perceive them as faithful representations of the outside world. As the global population concentrates in cities and increasingly interacts with its surroundings through digital devices, the separation between natural and artificial blurs: in the city, trees are artificially lined along the sidewalks or conveniently grouped in parks, while citizens stare at the beautiful image of a beach in Koh Samui decorating the desktop of their computers. In this selection of artworks, several artists address the subject of landscape going beyond the mere illusion of a “natural” nature to confront us with visions of an environment made by and for humans, clearly artificial yet somehow capable of inspiring a calm and absorbing contemplation.

 Pau Waelder
                                                                                         

Joe Hamilton
Hyper Geography

In this video, the artist develops his signature method of digital collages in which images of landscapes are combined with everyday objects from our industrialized societies. Natural spaces and artificial environments blend into each other in a project that was inspired by a visual conversation taking place among members of the community of Tumblr, a network that facilitates capturing, re-using and re-contextualizing found images. The work addresses how nature –and, in particular, extreme environments such as deserts and polar regions– are turned into images that adorn our screens.

Felix Luque
MemoryLane (One Display Version)

This video is part of the installation "Memory Lane" by Félix Luque & Iñigo Bilbao. http://felixluque.com/Memory-Lane One Display Version (Ed of 3) Dual Display Version (Ed of 3) Install Version (Ed of 3) "Memory Lane' was inspired from several locations in the districts of Ribadesella and Llanes, Asturias (Spain) which shape Félix Luque and Iñigo Bilbao's childhood and youth memories. Better yet, these natural environments – strands, rocky areas, woodland – do not simply inspire this project: they literally feed it. Turned into data via 3D scanning and modelling, these locations served as mould to the sculpted pieces the final installation consists of. On the one hand, a camera slowly traveling through a 3D model depicts on two big screens the locations which are now nothing but millions of white dots on a black background. Objects are gently outlined so that one can still make out thick woodland and rocky areas. Yet, the black-and-white image is dimly lit at its core and one is left but imagining what cannot be actually seen and could possibly lurk in the darkness". .. "The installation forms in this way a coherent unit: sand rock and landscape – slowly shifting together and coming through as hyper-realist as well as clearly artificial – are two aspects of the same investigation on memory and space, on perception of reality and on the human capacity of generating fiction, either by means of a simple child's game or of a complex technological process". text by Pau Waelder

Felix Luque
D.W.I: Chaos (Smoke)

This video is part of the installation "Different Ways to Infinity" by Félix Luque Sanchez. http://felixluque.com/D-W-I 3D Animations by Iñigo Bilbao Focusing on the limits between scientific modelization and reality, theory and perception, the installation plays with different meanings of the endlessness. D.W.I gathers experiments as fictional strategies to generate infinity: The complexity of chaos, the space filling capacity of the rhombic dodecahedron, the replication of motorized mechanical systems as clones, or a machine’s effort to raise a pendulum against gravity. “The ancient alliance has been destroyed; man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s indifferent immensity out of which he emerged only by chance”. (Jacques Monod). The 3d animations focus on computational fluid dynamics, which is a contemporary research field influenced by the chaos theory paradigm. The first video illustrates the behaviour of virtual volcanic smoke, which flows in different volumes. In these synthetic images, computation embraces the tangible in an impressive simulation of nature and reality. In the second video, the explosion of millions of virtual particles creates complex forms. The resulting image is a fictional sky, a kind of “galaxy” cloudscape, generated by a computational simulation and based on our environment’s physical conditions.

Joe Hamilton
Merge Nodes

Merge Nodes contains footage shot on location by the artist in 12 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. The footage has been layered and edited in quick succession with sliding and zooming transitions inspired by the way we navigate digital maps. A mixture of natural and urban environments are featured in hot and cool climates with traditional panoramas and up-close details. The specific locations were chosen based on indirect flight paths between major hub airports to create a representation of landscape that traces the logistical infrastructure that allow these geographically separate perspectives to coexist.

Nicolas Sassoon
ISLE 2

Nicolas Sassoon
TREE STUDY 2

Grégory Chatonsky
Désunivers

An artificial intelligence flies over a world that resembles our own. One recognizes roads and mountains, valleys and traces. But this world is not the Earth. It is a second identical and different world. The memory of what we have been. In this work, the artist addresses the idea of a world without humans, generated and seen by a machine. It is also a foray into what he terms “Artificial Imagination” (Imagination Artificielle or ImA, in French), following the idea that to imagine is to produce images. According to Chatonsky, ImA transcends mere mimicry and could supplant an ability that has traditionally been reserved to the human mind, thus confirming that machines could replace every aspect of a human being.

Grégory Chatonsky
Movable picture