JPR
Film Editor
We've come a long way from the days of painters like JMW Turner crafting landscapes of hurricanes and rainstorms from oil watercolors. As technology has evolved, so too has its connection and relation to art and nature. Nowadays, not only can we see art, we can feel, hear, and even smell it around us. The line we draw between nature and technology is getting increasingly thin, and I, for one, am in full approval. Want to see the sun-tinted waves of the open sea? Easy - just walk to the Debenham's storefront in London at night and experience them for yourselves!
The beautiful simplicity of this installation caught me off guard as I wandered through the busy London streets, and made me think about other ways that art has tried to imitate nature through the use of technology. All three of these connect in the most beautiful and accessible way. I'm reminded of something I saw in a shopping mall not too long ago: they had a projector hanging from a ceiling, with a moving image of a sea cast upon the floor where customers walked. While this itself is interesting, what happens when you step on the scene is even more appreciable - the fish and water in the image interacted with the people that were walking above them. If someone stepped their foot on a specific point on the map, a fish would swim closer or the waves would ripple as if we really were in the ocean! Although I understand this sort of thing is supposed to appeal to young children, I couldn't help but smile as a fish swam along side me as I walked across the marble floor.
The emotions that JMW Turner's audience might experience when exposed to something like this - I would love to see! Technology's ability to manipulate how we perceive nature is truly the stuff of sci-fi novels transported to us before our very eyes. I can't wait to see what scientists invent for us next!
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