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• Compressed Landscapes series, 2016
• Inspired by van Gogh, the Compressed Landscapes series of websites attempt to reinvigorate the impressionistic plein air method, by swapping the actors. The field painter is reintroduced as an algorithm ‘venturing into the wild’ by visiting online photography databases and randomly selecting images within queries like ‘mountains’, ‘forests’ or ‘sunsets’. After having found an image, the algorithm then applies the ubiquitous JPEG compression used by all web services to manage the size of image files. Rather than optimising file size, the algorithm compresses the file maximally, resulting in a raw computational impression of a delocalised landscape.
  
  The Compressed Landscapes series comprise of five individual websites, in which every twenty seconds a new image is randomly fetched from the internet. The image is heavily compressed, redering it as an algorithmic impression of a landscape. The works are infinite, searching and collecting new images as the never-ending flow of user uploads change the databases. The work aims to revisit the spirit of the work of the impressionists from a contemporary perspective. A perspective coloured by the highly changed position of nature, the changed role of the artist and the impact that new (digital) technology has had on the materiality of art.
  
  Compressed Landscapes
  Compressed Mountains
  Compressed Forests
  Compressed Sunsets
  Compressed Moons