mapping

Landscapes without Memory

Military madness turns to art in some great images by Joan Fontcuberta, a conceptual artist from Barcelona, Spain. This piece, and others, were created using a computer program called Terragen. The program was originally created for military and scientific uses which turns flat 2D maps into images of three-dimensional terrain.  However, instead of entering map charts into Terragen, the photographer inserts landscapes painted by artists such as Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Turner and Constable among others. The software translates them into new virtual landscape that he (yes he, Joan is actually male) calls “post-landscapes”, forming a fault line between the virtual and real, between truth and illusion.

One of a series of 3D artworks by Joan Fontcuberta