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Manufacured Landscapes

Submitted by Mike McGregor on April 14, 2007 - 8:33pm.
tags:

Manufactured Landscapes
Directed by Jennifer Baichwal

Photographer Edward Burtynsky explores how industry and human activity has transformed the modern landscape.

Travelling mainly through China and it's explosive industrial and urban growth, but also to other locals such as the Ship Breaking beaches of Bangladesh and mines and quaries around north America.

The Visuals in this film are just amazing and look like something out of a Sci-fi Cyber-punk universe. Some landscapes have been transformed beyond recognition as anything earthly. Others looks as if the natural features have been removed and replaced by piles of discarded consumer goods that have been discarded as far as the horizon, meant to mimic rolling hills and dells. Yet others which have already been claimed by human activity are reduced to enormous fields of rubble to make way for something new.

Burtynsky is careful not to offer an opinion of whether or not this alteration of the landscape is Good or Bad, Right or Wrong, Beautiful or Ugly etc. He says he only aims to show it so that the viewer can be exposed to these massive industrialised landscapes, allowing the viewer to take away their
own impressions.

I'd say that all you photogs out there should go rent this...

-30-
Mike.
"We only wear black, but that's just until something darker comes along..."
-Anonymous Black Bloc Member.
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
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kimmie e's picture

Amazing

Submitted by kimmie e on April 17, 2007 - 8:24am.

These images are amazing. I think I'll have to go rent it simply for the art.

Love is when you don't ever want to sleep, because reality is better than any dream

Trev McNaughton's picture

Kansai International Airport

Submitted by Trev McNaughton (not verified) on April 15, 2007 - 9:12pm.

does it mention the Kansai International Airport in Japan?  the on located on an artificial (man made) island on Osaka Bay?  that place is overwhelming... check it out on google-earth..its huge!

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alex homanchuk's picture

I love Burtynsky's works but

Submitted by alex homanchuk (not verified) on April 15, 2007 - 2:59pm.

I love Burtynsky's works but I often find his arguements for neutrality entirely unconvincing.  I think we are all aware of how "embedding" can impact journalistic objectivity, Burthynsky's work is made with the permission, and often assistance, of major corporations and governmental agencies -- it's how he gets access to photograph these manufactured landscapes. 

On another note, just in case anyone missed it, artist and grandaddy of Conceptual Art Sol Lewitt died April 8th at the age of 78.  

 

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Bring the troops home! - so they can stand trail for war crimes.

Mike McGregor's picture

journalism?

Submitted by Mike McGregor on April 15, 2007 - 5:13pm.

Has he ever worked as a journalist or photo jouirnalist? I got the impression that he consideres himself more of a photographer and artist. I'm not sure journalist objectivity applies here. Also, don't forget that if you can't get access to something, you can't shoot it. period. 

-30-
Mike.
"We only wear black, but that's just until something darker comes along..."
-Anonymous Black Bloc Member.
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

alex homanchuk's picture

 I think Burtynsky has been

Submitted by alex homanchuk (not verified) on April 15, 2007 - 8:39pm.

 

I think Burtynsky has been heavily influenced by the Becher's and clearly Edward Weston and Adam Ansel.  I did not mean to imply that Burtynsky had worked in photojournalism, merely that the kind of access he enjoys does impact his work. I was using the contentious issue of “embedded” reportage merely as an example of the ways that access can insinuate itself through to the finished project and that his formalist approach perhaps insulates him somewhat from criticism.

 

 

 

 

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Bring the troops home! - so they can stand trail for war crimes.

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