Through The Opera Glass

EDITION

2022, Shortlisted

school

Academie voor Kunst en Vormgeving St. Joost,
Breda, The Netherlands

Daily life continues to shape itself within the digital framework. Humans obsessively count and measure in order to understand the world. This digital existence is in a way a primitive life, one which was established by the use of counting with their fingers. The tools through which they perceive the world around them create a new relationship between humans and their environment. “Through The Opera Glass” - an homage to the first birdwatchers - examines if we are still connected to nature or if the rise of big data is concluding our intuition and experience-based handling of reality. The bird and their spectators are the allegory of this research into perception and data. In an unstable world, perceiving the reality around us as data leaves no possibility for half-values within the digital language of ones and zeros. By researching the themes of human perception, technology, and our relationship with nature, I use reflective strategies to bring visual information to my viewer. My work serves as a way to question the claimed unambiguity of algorithms and data. By collaborating documentary and staged photography I create an inconclusive reality. Through visualizing subjects, I critically question the larger social issue they represent.