35 years after Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 the world population has doubled to 7 billion people. The combined effect of population growth and industrial processes on our planet is now so great that it has been proposed that our age should be regarded as a new geological epoch - the Anthropocene. Changes to the atmosphere and the effects of mining, manufacturing and agriculture are affecting Earth systems and increasing rates of extinction to levels that will be as visible in geological strata as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary that marks the end of the age of the dinosaurs. Even if the putative need for continual economic growth can be sustained by renewable energy sources and/or the long-awaited realisation of thermonuclear electricity generation, the journey to a world population of 16 billion by the end of this Century will cause us to question attempts to preserve even small areas of nature in an unaltered state. New forms of art are required to help us to think about what is natural, essential, desirable or beautiful.
20 July 2015
Anthropocene Desiderata
35 years after Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 the world population has doubled to 7 billion people. The combined effect of population growth and industrial processes on our planet is now so great that it has been proposed that our age should be regarded as a new geological epoch - the Anthropocene. Changes to the atmosphere and the effects of mining, manufacturing and agriculture are affecting Earth systems and increasing rates of extinction to levels that will be as visible in geological strata as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary that marks the end of the age of the dinosaurs. Even if the putative need for continual economic growth can be sustained by renewable energy sources and/or the long-awaited realisation of thermonuclear electricity generation, the journey to a world population of 16 billion by the end of this Century will cause us to question attempts to preserve even small areas of nature in an unaltered state. New forms of art are required to help us to think about what is natural, essential, desirable or beautiful.
11 December 2013
19 August 2013
scans
The scanner is the most used peripheral that is connected to my computer. Although it is designed to copy documents it is perfectly useable as a kind of flat-bed camera that can record three dimensional objects. My artwork consists of prints that are the result of scanning collages of found objects which are combined into a semi-abstract version of landscape pictures.
19 July 2013
Pale Blue Dot
Today we can be fascinated by the prospect of seeing Earth from such a distance that it can be depicted by just a few pixels. The 'blue dot' image is a radical and though provoking summation of our planet, but there is an history behind the picture which can be traced back to an event 47 years ago.
11 January 2013
Fauxscape
Since its emergence from the domination of history painting in the 16th century, landscape art rose to high fashion in the 19th century and back to such relative obscurity that now the indexes of many art history books do not list it.
04 August 2012
Leaving Earth - Not leaving Earth
In the 20th
Century the ambition to control nature and even to leave the confines of Earth
were initially inspired by science but subsequently challenged by uncertainty over the unintended consequences of
technology.
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