Five Identical Landscapes

About The Project

Multi-media installation
1994

It is rather difficult to imagine that the paint applied on canvas, even when it is done with remarkable skill and attention, can represent a landscape. Nevertheless, if we have come to an agreement that such a possibility exists, the question remains – Where is the place of the viewer?

Five canvases are displayed on four walls. Five video monitors are arranged around the room which has got open entrances from all four corners. It invites the visitor to move around freely. On the screens of the five monitors the image of an overexposed landscape and a dark, bare-walled interior slowly slides from the right to left, but if you choose to identify your point with that of the camera, the image moves in the opposite direction. You also have the possibility to choose neither and perceive the framed image on the screen of the monitor as it is, framed and unchangeable. There is no possibility to see all of the elements at the same time, so you can not be sure if what is shown on the other screens is the same as you are looking at. You have to explore.

The positioning of oneself in a landscape (space) creates a unique relationship with the line of the horizon. This line which consists of a multitude of points and does not have a material reality, becomes a clearly determinable reference point to the viewer, as each of dots on the line establishes a unique and unchangeable relationship to the perceiver, provided that also his/her position stays the same. This idealised and static relationship is broken as soon as movement is introduced and then the act of perception becomes a constantly changing rearrangement of one’s position and viewpoint.

The work examines different aspects of visual representation as well as constantly changing spatial experience of the viewer in a dialogue with the artwork.

Latvian National Museum of Art collection.