Modern Landscape No. 2
The form factor of Modern Landscape Number 2 mimics a painting on a wall, a painting of a landscape. Every part of the form has been controlled and is vital to the piece. From the use of bunting as a diffuser to the placement of the power cord, which mimics the string of a kite, all aspects of the design were chosen as tools to help aid the works narrative.

Modern Landscape #2 stands as a narrative of how modernity views the natural world. If there is one aspiration that can reflect how modernity wants to view the natural world, it would be a desire to control it. Through out human civilization, we have fought to control the land, to subdue it, and to make it our own in purpose and design. Whether it is a farmer or a nature reserve, the actual act of having power, of the perceived act of having power, fosters change over the land in a manner WE deem correct. In one word, it’s all about control. Now, this sentient can be brought farther down into more mundane pieces of our modern life, like a houses windows or pictures and even our memories. Whether it is a window or a picture or even a memory, there is a man made control over how the landscape is perceived by the fact that it has been cropped and chosen to be seen in a certain way. Whenever modernity brings the landscape into our homes; in pictures, windows, memories, etc., it is a half-truth of ‘the real.’ It is a false propagation of control.

Modern Landscape #2 was designed to show the underlining beauty and horror of modernity’s desire to control. Modern Landscape #2 utilizes a landscape, the simple and primitive glowing aura of green light which mimics a field or meadow. Like in a picture, the landscape is cut, cropped and placed in its desired location.

Modern Landscape #2 was designed to demonstrate the unknown and known qualities of control, control of the work, its creators, and the owner themselves. Simple actions of interaction between the owner/user and the piece are meant to highlight this control. First, the owner can choose to see the aura landscape or not by simply turning the unit on or off. This is true control. He or she can also affect the works message by changing its envir0onment’s ambient lighting. When the unit is off and the ambient lighting in the room is high, the piece has an industrial sterility to it. When the unit is on in an environment with medium to high ambient lighting, the green aura is framed or ‘trapped’ upon is surface, just like a picture of the mountainside. When the ambient lighting is low to none, the green aura is unleashed, or at least that is what it appears. It takes ownership of the frame, the wall, and the room’s lighting, yet it is still bound by its owner’s placement of the work. It’s still trapped. It’s still controlled. At the moment when it would seem that the work is the most free, it is still bound and caged like a wild animal by its owners choice of placing the work in its environment.

Modern Landscape #2 is meant to be enjoyed also by those who might not understand the overriding message it contains and because of their unknowing control, it makes the work that much more meaningful.