Post Arcadia 9

These pictures reflect an aspect of my long-term project on the subject of landscape.
Landscape is in its origin a concept, which roots in the beginning of industrialization and
renaissance painting.
Seen as a concept, landscape therefore represents an image of an idea. We declare what an
ideal landscape looks like and depict it e.g. in a photographic reproduction.
In everyday life simulations of landscape and nature in relation of educative, scientific, recreational-
oriented or economical contexts are ubiquitous. They not only influence our notion
of nature in its derivation but also enhance implicitness of a designed environment.
Spaces of artificial environment, zones of attraction and splinter development are becoming
increasingly familiar and merge constantly with the remaining rural and suburban landscape.
Consequently new images of nature are internalized. With this interior imagery we again
create landscapes within which we physically and mentally range.
In Switzerland e.g. uncontrolled development has been recognized as an increasing problem
regarding ecological, socio-cultural and political matters. Living in such a surrounding affects
not only my daily life, but also influences my artistic work and my teaching photography.
The differentiation between image, copy, representation, simulation and finally simulacrum is
increasingly more difficult.
The pictures of the series Post Arcadia indicate in content and form a room representing
the above mentioned phenomena. These are both implicit in the term of landscape and photography.