The title for this body of work is Garden in the Machine —a reversal of Leo Marx’s book title, The Machine in the Garden. In his book he traces tensions between the ideal landscape and the Industrial Revolution. He contends that the pastoral is defined by the machine. “Wilderness” is that which is non-machinic. My project reveals how machine and garden have been inverted, as computer modeling becomes the metric by which we understand nature.
I use AI models to create videos that address this contested territory. The work acknowledges how our expansive technologies have led to crises; yet its aim is restorative. Traditional still life meditates on time; these works extend that sensibility into a contemporary expression of disjointedness. We’ve tried to contain the natural world, to stop its fluctuations, but here they’re set adrift in the unresolved contingencies of our times.