Anthropocene examines global landscapes that have been transformed by the actions and activities of humanity.
Artist Thomas Smith has created these images using a unique and groundbreaking technique. Each image is composed from thousands and thousands of thumbnails extracted as screen grabs from Google Maps, which are then reconstructed piece by piece using Photoshop to produce incredibly detailed images, a level of detail one can only really experience in person.
Anthropocene itself reflects upon the complex structures that make up the centers of global capitalism, transforming the aerial landscapes of sites associated with industries such as oil, precious metals, consumer culture information and excess. Thousands of seemingly insignificant coded pieces of information are sown together like knots in a rug to reveal a grander spectacle.
Questions of photographic and economic realities are further complicated through the formal use of patterns that have their origins in the ancient civilizations of Persia.
This work draws upon the patterns and motifs used by Persian rug makers, especially the way Afghani weavers use the rug to record their experiences more literally with vivid images of the war torn land that surrounds them.
This collision between the old and the new, fact and fiction, surveillance and invisibility, is part of a strategy to reflect on the global order of things.
Text and information via www.thecopperhousegallery.com
Exhibition at the Gallery in Dublin until May 23rd
