ARCADES
2018
C-type prints, inkjet prints on acrylic, vinyl, concrete, clay, wood
Commissioned by Contact Photography Festival, Toronto
The 21st century has seen a dramatic shift in the way that architecture is experienced. Advancements in technology have enabled architectural representation to visualize the built environment through the lens of the virtual, generating digital renderings that depict both proposed and already-built structures as future projections. Arcades considers how this camera-less mode of representing architecture implies a virtual archaeology, as existing buildings are reimagined through image-generating software. Vistas of new cityscapes appear to excavate the past in order to renew the present, and our experience of architecture in the physical realm becomes shadowed by such images. This project considers the timescale at play, where capital is held in the virtual depiction of space rather than the physical structure itself, and where properties are bought and sold based solely on their digital representations.
Arcades expands on these notions and focuses on the materials themselves through the actual construction of an imagined archaeological site. Rather than the surfaces traditionally associated with ruins and excavation sites, the structure is clean and sleek, much like the historical buildings that are reconceived as new urban developments. The individual components of Arcades are titled numerically, as if catalogued from a single excavation. The installation speaks to the architecture left behind in a period of vast urban growth as a result of both growing technologies and declining industries, and considers the urban homogenization that propels the construction of contemporary cities, paying close attention to the generic materials and motifs used to advertise future sites.
POST PRODUCTION
2018
Site specific billboard, Toronto
Post Production collages architectural renderings and photographs of Toronto’s skyline. The layers of images reference the methods that are used to imagine new buildings, and the tendency to build on top of industrial properties whose original function is now obsolete. As a large-format mural positioned on the façade of a heritage building that has housed many different functions over the years, this work creates a dialogue with the surrounding developments, employing their visualisation aesthetics to collapse and confuse the space between the real and the virtual. Simulated landscapes and vistas of new developments dominate the city scape, providing a window into the digital realm—not to be confused with the physical reality that it points toward.
