An Uncanny Valley - Nature modelled after images (2023)

Graduation Project / shown at ⤷ Nieuwe Instituut / ⤷ E-Flux

Visitor reading a booklet in the darkened installation room in front of three projected landscape screens

An Uncanny Valley is a materialisation of unexamined conceptions we tend to hold of Nature. With the protection of the biosphere becoming more important each day, I examined preservation projects already in place using an UNESCO Biosphere Park in a valley in Western Austria as an example. The research questions which regulations and ideologies underlie our conservation efforts and if these regulations are ultimately serving the purpose of enabling nonhuman existences.

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40 second outtake, total length 3 minutes.

In the audiovisual installation I have visualised a specific picture of the valley, one modelled after the image that the policies of the Biosphere Park pursue. It uses the information of biotope registers, plant inventories, and descriptions of aesthetics and converts them into a hypernatural landscape that paints itself to be pure and untouched, but much like the real Biosphere Park, this imagery relies on hidden, rigid, digital-mechanic processes to upkeep such a hyperreality.

It is a play on our conception of Nature as a realm of the pure and sublime, which is ultimately separate from humans. Instead, we can allow ourselves to reflect and speculate on more integrated and inclusive spaces of coexistence which serve the interspecies relationships and health rather than merely modeling nature after romanticised, past images.

View down the concrete bunker corridor towards the landscape projections

Three-panel projection of an alpine landscape in the concrete hall — backside of the projection.

Hands turning the pages of a booklet on artificial grass — flicking through the process books.

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Process

Screens showing archival text and a black-and-white terrain scan — The digital landscape was modelled according to the regulations and inventories of the actual park. The zoning of the park was laid over geo-data and a landscape model. The areas of the model were then populated with the "adequate" species.

Blender scene of a meadow with yellow flowers — some local plants existed in online 3d libraries.

Mockup of several screens with alpine landscape renders

Blender workspace with scanned plant textures and cut-outs — other species were modelled by myself.

Photogrammetry of blue gentian flowers in Blender

Meadow asset library next to a scanned typed document

Render of an alpine valley with wolves at sunset

Render of the sun over mountains, a lake and flowers

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Previous version of the video installation

First prototype produced in April, 3 months before the final version was displayed at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.