source: designboom

our current landscape is permeated with man made monoliths, sitting on the horizon, skewing the clean line that was once established. our built environment is an ever-expanding footprint, encroaching on our natural landscape without control. creation can be considered one of the most powerful abilities a human possesses, whether it be through the hand of an artist, the architect or businessman. a particular amount of power and control is given to the creator. however, the outcome is not always positive and can lead to adverse and unseen effects, which cannot always be understood or are ignored until the potential damage has been done.

in his recent series of images entitled ‘environmental occupations’, photographer mark dorf explores humanity’s role of creation and its relationship with its environment.
within each image, large, concrete forms, drawing on the minimalist sculptural forms – reminiscent of donald judd and richard sera – downplay any sort of expression, instead referencing nothing but geometry and the materials from which they are made. their massive and imposing presence contrast the natural and calm landscapes in which they are positioned, rendering them out of context and providing a skewed image from what is inherently reality.
when viewing the work, one may question ‘where did these forms originate?’, ‘was there a creator?’, ‘are they sculpture?’, ‘are they architecture?’…

the forms seem to mimic functional urban horizons, useless and looming within the landscape, radiating a quiet devastation. though the cubes look as if they are man made, their size and lack of evidence of construction, leave the viewer with a disconnect between their particular creator, making the objects appear much like the mass produced objects found in our current urban environments. the figures within speak to the various roles found during the process of creation, ranging from the originator to the mindless and passive impotence found in those who surround the constructions themselves.
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source: mdorf

The young artist, Mark Dorf, was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1988 and has since then developed an incredible passion for visual communication. Mark’s work examines the relationship between man’s internal and external environments. With the understanding that all art is based upon comparison and relationships, Mark re-contextualizes moment and symbol to create new meaning through the surrounding environment. He seeks to understand humanity as a participant in his surroundings, using photography as a tool to explore the curious habitation of the world, as we know it.

Mark currently resides in Savannah, Georgia, where he creates his images and continues to study the fields of photography and contemporary art. Continue reading to see the rest of “Environmental Occupations”, and a statement from Mark about the series.

The Architect
Artist Statement about “Environmental Occupations”: Our current landscape is one that is permeated with man made monoliths, sitting on the horizon, reforming the clean line that was once firmly established. The creation of this ever-expanding human footprint encroaches carelessly upon our environment without control at every moment. Creation can be considered one of the most powerful abilities a human possesses, whether it be through the hand of an artist, the architect or businessman, an inherent amount of power and control is given to the creator. However, this amount of control and power can grow to become intoxicating leading to devastating adverse and unseen side effects. However apparent these effects are, they are not always understood and can be ignored and seen as neutral to those who encounter them until it is too late and the potential damage has been done.

The Boys
Environmental Occupations explores humanity’s role of creation and its relationship with its environment. The concrete forms seen in the images, influenced by minimalist sculptors such as Donald Judd and Richard Sera, downplay any sort of expression and instead reference nothing but geometry and the dense substance that they are made from. The aggressive shape, material, and imposing presence of the objects contrast greatly against the natural and spiritual landscapes in which they are found, rendering them out of context and providing a skewed image from what is inherently reality. The question arises, where did these forms originate? Was there a creator? What are these things?

The Dream
Though these forms seem to mimic functional urban horizons, they themselves are useless and loom in the landscape with a quiet devastation. The forms look to have been man made, but their sheer size and lack of evidence of construction leave the viewer with a disconnect between a specific creator and the objects – just as we see in our mass produced urban world today. The figures within the images speak to the various roles found in the process of creation, ranging from the originator to the mindless and passive observer, impotent and unaware of his or her surroundings.
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source: lenscratch

Photographer Mark Dorf has an interesting series about what is perceived to be real, about the transformation of physical space, and the exploration of the natural world in nontraditional ways. One of the elements of photography that intrigues Mark the most is the way in which people read photography as an absolute reflection of our existence; he is asking the age old question of what exactly is representation. Selected works from the series, Axiom and Simulation, are currently on display at Viridian Artists in NYC, in the Third International Photography Exhibition, jurored by Nat Trotman, curator at the Soloman R Guggenheim Museum.

Mark grew up in Louisville, KY and graduated from The Savannah College of Art and Design with a B.F.A in Photography and Sculpture. Now living in Brooklyn, NY, he continues to seek out new landscapes and environments for his exploration of interactions with the natural landscape that we all once originally came from. Mark’s photographs “are highly fabricated and create falsified representations of our reality. However, the fact that they are photographs ask the viewer to examine every detail of the image to make sure that the images are in fact directed.”

AXIOM & SIMULATION
Axiom & Simulation examines the ways in which humans quantify and explore our natural surroundings through the use of artistic, scientific, and digital realism. As a developed global culture, we are constantly transforming physical space and objects into abstract non-physical thought to gain a greater understanding of composition and the inner workings of our surroundings. These transformations often take the form of mathematical or scientific interpretation and as a result, we can misinterpret or even lose all reference to the source: when the calculated representation is compared to its real counterpart, an arbitrary and disconnected relationship is created in which there is very little or no physical or visual connection resulting in questions of definition – data vs. object and macroscopic vs. microscopic.

Take for example a three-dimensional rendering of a mountainside. While observing the rendering, it holds a similar form to what we see in nature but has no physical connection to reality – it is merely a file on a computer that has no mass and only holds likeness to a memory. When translating the rendering into binary code, we see just 1’s and 0’s – a file creating the representation from a language composed of only two elements that have no grounding in the natural world. After all of these transformations, a new reality is created – one without an original referent, a copy with no absolute source. When observing these simulations and interpretations of our landscape within a single context or picture plane, ideas of accuracy, futility, and original experience arise.
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source: mdorf

Environmental Occupations explores humanity’s role of creation and its relationship with its environment. The concrete forms seen in the images, influenced by minimalist sculptors such as Donald Judd and Richard Serra, downplay any sort of expression and instead reference nothing but geometry and the dense substance that they are composed of. The aggressive shape, material, and imposing presence of the objects contrast greatly against the natural and harmonious landscapes in which they are found, rendering them out of context and providing a skewed image from what is inherently interpreted as real. The questions arise, where did these forms originate? Was there a creator? Is there a function?

Our contemporary landscape is one that is permeated with man made monoliths, sitting on the horizon, reforming the ebb and flow of the line that once was firmly established. The creation of this ever-expanding human footprint encroaches upon our environment through mathematical decisions at every moment. Creation can be considered one of the most powerful abilities a human possesses. However, this amount of control and power can grow to become intoxicating leading to adverse and unseen side effects. These effects cannot always be understood and can exist unseen to those who encounter them until it is too late and the potential damage has been done.

Though these forms seem to mimic functional urban horizons, they are useless and loom in the landscape with a quiet devastation. The forms look to have been man made, but their sheer size and lack of evidence of construction leave the viewer with a disconnect between a specific creator and the objects – just as we see in our mass produced urban world today. The figures seen in the images interact with the forms in an attempt to understand the occupancy of the odd structures and explore their power from a neutral and seemingly omnipotent presence.
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source: kientrucinfovn

Môi trường sống hiện thời của chúng ta tràn ngập những trụ khối nhân tạo lừng lững nơi chân trời, làm biến dạng lằn ranh vốn có.

Bối cảnh do con người xây dựng là một dấu ấn phát triển không ngừng đang trên đà xâm lấn cảnh quan tự nhiên ngoài tầm kiểm soát. Sự sáng tạo vẫn được xem là một trong những quyền năng vĩ đại nhất mà loài người sở hữu, dẫu thuộc bàn tay của một nghệ sĩ, một kiến trúc sư hay một doanh nhân. Một nhà sáng tạo luôn có trong tay một lượng quyền năng và quyền kiểm soát nhất định. Tuy nhiên, thành quả họ cho ra không phải lúc nào cũng tích cực, có thể đưa đến những hiệu quả khó lường và bất lợi mà người ta có khi không hiểu được, thậm chí là không lưu ý tới cho đến khi chứng kiến những tai hại nó gây ra.

Trong loạt tác phẩm nhiếp ảnh mới nhất mang tựa đề Environmental occupations (tạm dịch: Môi trường cư ngụ), nhiếp ảnh gia Mark Dorf khám phá vai trò sáng tạo của nhân loại và mối tương quan giữa nó với môi trường.
Trong mỗi bức ảnh, những hình khối to lớn, chắc nịch, mang dáng vẻ của những tác phẩm tạo hình theo phong cách tối giản – gợi nhớ đến tác phẩm của các nghệ sĩ Donald Judd và Richard Sera – làm gia giảm mọi ý đồ biểu hiện, tránh gợi liên tưởng đến bất cứ điều gì ngoài đặc tính hình học và chất liệu của vật thể. Dáng bộ kềnh càng, đường bệ của chúng tương phản với vẻ tự nhiên trầm lắng của bối cảnh, khiến chúng có vẻ lạc lõng và tạo nên một hình ảnh lệch lạc với thực tế vốn có.
Khi chiêm ngưỡng tác phẩm, người ta có thể thắc mắc: “Những hình khối này từ đâu mà ra?”, “Có ai tạo ra chúng không?”, “Chúng có phải là tác phẩm tạo hình không?” “Hay chúng là kiến trúc?”

Những hình khối dường như là một dạng mô phỏng của những chân trời đô thị đầy tính công năng, phản ánh một sự tàn phá thầm lặng. Mặc dầu các khối vuông trông như là sản phẩm nhân tạo, kích cỡ của chúng và sự vắng bóng của những bằng chứng cho thấy chúng đã được tạo dựng không cho phép người xem ảnh liên hệ gì đến người đã sáng tạo nên chúng, và vì thế, các vật thể trông thật giống với những vật dụng được sản xuất hàng loạt thường thấy trong bối cảnh đô thị ngày nay. Các nhân vật xuất hiện trong các tác phẩm có thể chính là người khởi phát sự hình thành của những vật thể đó, cũng có thể là những nhân tố bất lực, thụ động và vô tâm thường thấy trong quá trình tạo dựng các vật thể.
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source: nomadaqblogspot

Marcos Dorf trata el espacio aplicándole medidas geométricas; formas cubicas, triangulares o circulares representan graficamente el terreno transformando el paisaje circundante. Una montaña, un humedal o una vaguada son accidentes geográficos son volúmenes solidos tridimensionales, delimitados por una formula sobre el terreno.

En las series Axiom & Simulation, Environmental Occupations, Host y Footprints, el artista especializado en land art navega por las formas en que nos relacionamos con nuestro entorno a través de nuestro crecimiento como seres humanos. Estamos constantemente expandiendo nuestra presencia en este planeta, y por lo tanto la reducción de nuestro paisaje natural del que somos siempre dependientes de nuestros materiales físicos para un mayor desarrollo.

El joven artista, Mark Dorf, se graduó por la Savannah College of Art and Design, con Magna Cum Laude, en el año 2011 con un BFA en fotografía y escultura. Sus obras más recientes examinan la relación de la humanidad con la realidad digital y el paisaje física, a través de la utilización de la fotografía y la escultura. En el entendido de que todo arte se basa en la comparación y relaciones, contextualiza el símbolo para crear un nuevo significado a través del ambiente circundante. Marcos busca entender la humanidad como un observador de su entorno, utilizando la fotografía como una herramienta para explorar la habitación curiosa del mundo que nos rodea.