EXHIBITION
What: Supernatural: Art, Technology and the Forest
Where: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1040 Moss St.
When: Saturday through Sept. 3
Admission: $13 (adults), $11 (seniors and students), $2.50 (ages 6 to 17); children five and under are free
Information: 250-384-4171 or aggv.ca
Note: Admission on May 19 is free from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.
The junction where technology meets the environment has become an uneasy meeting point in the modern era.
A bygone phrase about ecological conservation 鈥� 鈥淭ake nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time鈥� 鈥� would suggest humankind鈥檚 need to dig deeper into the biosphere runs contrary to the ecosystem ethos. On the other hand, how do we learn about the environment without studying it?
That鈥檚 what a new exhibit at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is attempting to answer. Supernatural: Art, Technology and the Forest, which opens Saturday and runs through Sept. 3, is a multi-media presentation that uses videos, photos, and computer-generated images to examine the forests of B.C.
The goal is to better understand the forest and how human interaction with it will adjust, according to exhibit curator Haema Sivanesan.
鈥淧eople have always lived with and alongside the forest,鈥� Sivanesan said. 鈥淚f we look at Indigenous histories and go back further than our modern idea of what the forest is, we鈥檝e always had a relationship to forests and forest landscapes. Maybe this [exhibit] is trying to think through some of those bigger questions.鈥�
There is an underlying sense of inspiration about the exhibit, one that can be encapsulated by 19th- century philosopher Henry David Theroux: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not what you look at that matters, it鈥檚 what you see.鈥�
Sivanesan loves what Supernatural: Art, Technology and the Forest offers in that regard. 鈥淚t鈥檚 looking at how artists are using new technologies, and a lot of that is camera-based technology, whether it鈥檚 as simple as digital photography or 3D video. All of it has to do with a camera, in some way, and how they are using that to look at the forest in a new way.鈥�
Eight 91原创 artists (Mike Andrew McLean, Kelly Richardson, Carol Sawyer, Trudi Lynn Smith, Sandra Semchuk, Dan Siney, Leila Sujir and Ian Wallace) and one collaborative team (Ayumi Goto and Sandra Semchuk) are participating. Their art ranges in tone and medium, from Richardson鈥檚 computer-generated imagery with sound that takes up a whole room of the gallery to Sujir鈥檚 blackbox-style Imax 3D captures of the Walbran forest.
鈥淚t's very compelling because it鈥檚 working between the two genres,鈥� Sivanesan said of Montreal-based Sujir鈥檚 work. 鈥淲e鈥檝e all looked at photos from very famous photographers like Ansel Adams, who鈥檝e taken pictures of national parks and forests we are very familiar with. Because of this new technology, it鈥檚 allowing artists to do different things and understand the forest in new ways.鈥�
The contributions of Victoria artist Trudi Lynn Smith are of particular note. Her 鈥淏reath Camera,鈥� a hand-built prototype housed in suede, presents what the viewer sees in tandem with what they feel while immersed in a camera-form cloak. Smith serves as a guide, shepherding the participant through a journey using only lenses from an old optician鈥檚 kit 鈥� to play with reality through what she calls 鈥渘oticing.鈥�
鈥淚t is meant to show how simple it was to build a camera and how difficult it is to take a photograph,鈥� Sivanesan said of Smith鈥檚 installation. 鈥淚t has more to do with making us think about how we look at the world. Everybody has a cellphone these days and it鈥檚 so easy to just snap a picture. This is talking about the complexities of that.鈥�