Kip Sigwadja - "DAY"
Essay by Collin Zipp
As artists we choose to represent landscapes for many reasons. Among
the many are our love and admiration for them and our fears and
concerns for them. With the advancement of new technology and its
intertwining with art making it is inevitable that new
representations of landscapes will emerge. In Kip Sigwadja‘s piece
titled “DAY”, he immediately displaces the viewer into a CGI
landscape filled with both a haunting disorientation and
environmental concern.
The video begins with a classical piano score by Eric Satie’s Gymnopedie No.1. The viewer witnesses a vast dark sky filled with clouds fade into view. The sun rises and the clouds dance and move with such force that it immediately sends the viewer into a disoriented state of mind. It is only a few seconds into the work and the viewer becomes displaced instantly and a mood is quickly established.
Notions of time quickly enter the equation as the camera pans back from the open water to reveal a somehow familiar yet unknown terrain filled with strange vegetation. The camera continues to move slowly showing more of the terrain until suddenly a stone statue of a penguin comes into view. As the statue moves off of the screen, we move back towards the open water and we watch the sun set completing the cycle of sun up to sun down: a day has passed. An ending text appears: Remember the Penguins - Antarctica 2350.
Sigwadja has immediately given us a puzzle to solve. He has provided the viewer with some clues to first ground themselves but has done so in such a way that a sense of disorientation and unfamiliarity is evoked. Notions of time, direction, and recognition become difficult to distinguish. You question everything. From orientating yourself to the location within the work to your moral ethics regarding our responsibilities we have with our environments.
Perhaps most interesting is the medium chosen to represent Sigwadja’s landscape.
Sigwadja’s use of 3D imaging software acts as a sort of “clay” which he has molded and shaped to comment on his concerns. By using this technology, Sigwadja mimics a reality (our landscapes) which stand today on fragile ground. It is this ever mounting technology and its byproducts which have put our landscapes into such fragile states. By creating a future representation of Antarctica, Sigwdja raises an awareness of our harm done onto the land and shows to the viewer, a possible and horrible outcome.
The landscapes around us influence us in many different ways. We strive to make direct connections with our surrounding environments to make them feel comfortable and familiar; a place to call our own. Perhaps this is an influence on what compels artists of every medium and of every generation to represent the landscape.
Collin Zipp 2008
The video begins with a classical piano score by Eric Satie’s Gymnopedie No.1. The viewer witnesses a vast dark sky filled with clouds fade into view. The sun rises and the clouds dance and move with such force that it immediately sends the viewer into a disoriented state of mind. It is only a few seconds into the work and the viewer becomes displaced instantly and a mood is quickly established.
Notions of time quickly enter the equation as the camera pans back from the open water to reveal a somehow familiar yet unknown terrain filled with strange vegetation. The camera continues to move slowly showing more of the terrain until suddenly a stone statue of a penguin comes into view. As the statue moves off of the screen, we move back towards the open water and we watch the sun set completing the cycle of sun up to sun down: a day has passed. An ending text appears: Remember the Penguins - Antarctica 2350.
Sigwadja has immediately given us a puzzle to solve. He has provided the viewer with some clues to first ground themselves but has done so in such a way that a sense of disorientation and unfamiliarity is evoked. Notions of time, direction, and recognition become difficult to distinguish. You question everything. From orientating yourself to the location within the work to your moral ethics regarding our responsibilities we have with our environments.
Perhaps most interesting is the medium chosen to represent Sigwadja’s landscape.
Sigwadja’s use of 3D imaging software acts as a sort of “clay” which he has molded and shaped to comment on his concerns. By using this technology, Sigwadja mimics a reality (our landscapes) which stand today on fragile ground. It is this ever mounting technology and its byproducts which have put our landscapes into such fragile states. By creating a future representation of Antarctica, Sigwdja raises an awareness of our harm done onto the land and shows to the viewer, a possible and horrible outcome.
The landscapes around us influence us in many different ways. We strive to make direct connections with our surrounding environments to make them feel comfortable and familiar; a place to call our own. Perhaps this is an influence on what compels artists of every medium and of every generation to represent the landscape.
Collin Zipp 2008