Infrastructure of Artifice by Alex Currie
based in the UK
Infrastructure of Artifice is a compelling photographic series captured in the Port of Rotterdam, the largest port in Europeby Alex Currie. This series explores the massive, artificial landscape of the port, a symbol of the globalized economy and human intervention in the natural world.
The series focuses on the port's infrastructure, revealing a constructed environment reclaimed from the sea and reflecting broader themes of globalization and societal homogenization and serves as a metaphor for the artifice that characterizes modern life, inviting viewers to consider how such constructs impact our perception of reality and our own psyche.
Artist Statement
“My work is concerned with the societal and social implications of the built environment, documenting the often overlooked or ignored and how that impacts upon our psyche and everyday being. Research-based, it aims to raise questions about the human condition in a post industrialised world.
The photographs from the series Infrastructure of Artifice were shot on location in the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 2007, using a large format view camera. Being the largest port in Europe, (second only to Shanghai globally) the Port of Rotterdam is a construct of enormous proportions that necessitates the globalized economy in which we all reside.
In an increasingly globalized world, society becomes ever more homogenized creating a level of disassociation and isolation within the human psyche. The photographic gaze is drawn to the literal infrastructure of the port, at the same time highlighting the artificial construct of a landscape entirely reclaimed from the sea. This extreme example of how humankind affects the 'natural' landscape acts as a metaphor for the implications of artifice within the modern world. The images herein, seek to meditate upon the Port of Rotterdam as a simulacrum of modern-day society and how this reflects upon the human condition.”
