Axel Antas: NEW TO NATURE at Rokeby Gallery, London.
Exploring relationships between landscape and technology, nature and artifice
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Chris Welsby on TECHNOLOGY AND LANDSCAPE
“In my single screen films and single channel videos the mechanics of film and video interact with the landscape in such a way that elemental processes — such as changes in light, the rise and fall of the tide or changes in wind direction — are given the space and time to participate in the process of representation. The resulting sequences of images make it possible to envisage a relationship between technology and nature based on principles other than exploitation and domination.
“The gallery installations deal with the transformations which occur when the non-Euclidean space of the landscape is imported into an architectural space based on the rules of geometry and perspective. The dimensions of the gallery, the size and scale of the image, the proportions of the video monitor or projection screen, the positioning of the monitors or screens, are primary considerations, and central to the meaning of the work. The fragmentation of image and sound, which characterises these installations, acknowledges the split between culture and nature but, at the same time, opens up the possibility of a less dualistic reading.”
