Artificiality of Nature. Imagining Nature

Another fragment is brought together by the theme Artificiality of Nature. Imagining Nature.

The Swiss sociologist Lucius Burckhardt once pointed out that the word “landscape” implies a construct of the mind. Landscape is a technical term, and when applied, for example, to the idyllic Swiss lands praised in numerous literary and visual masterpieces it means that we are not looking at nature per se but at nature cultivated by humans who work in tourism, agriculture, industry, etc. For Thomas Demand the question of “nature” is crucial. Is there any nature today that has not been appropriated and cultivated by humans? Does our idea of nature as an antithesis to the city, civilization, and industry make sense? Demand is engaged in a search for the artificial in nature, and to constructing an illusion of nature with an almost surgical set of instruments.

9.1 Lawn, 1998

After his 1996 work Hedge, Demand decided “Okay, I’ll do a piece of grass. It can’t be that difficult.” Three months of cutting blades of grass by hand and planting them one by one followed. What could be described as obsessive cutting adds a level of detail to the photograph that our eye is normally incapable of registering. Even if we did set ourselves the absurd task of counting grass on the lawn, our visual apparatus could never capture each individual blade. What shows through this concentrated photographic situation are endless hours spent with scissors in hand.

9.2 Nursery, 2020

The idea that our vision of nature is constructed and predetermined finds its logical development in Nursery. The photograph shows the laboratory of a college in Ontario, where students grow cannabis as part of their training for degrees in cannabis production. Dramatically different from the images of illegal growing, the perfectly organized laboratory is the logical outcome of changes to the law in those countries that have turned cannabis cultivation from a source of crime reports to a lawful activity that opens up new opportunities for the economy.

9.3 Pond, 2019

This monumental work referencing Monet’s Water Lilies once again tests our senses through the suggested contemplation of what looks like nature. Views of nature today belong to the realm of operating system interfaces and default settings on computers. Here, the leaves of the water lilies seem stuck onto the surface of the pond, their shape deliberately simplified into almost perfect circles. And no matter how good your eyesight, you are unlikely to discern any reflections, sunbeams or other attributes from the canon of perceiving impressionist paintings.