Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen is interested in how technology and ecology can work together. Accustomed to reviving extinct landscapes and ecosystems using technology tools and virtual reality (3D animations, sound and immersive installations), the artist is currently working on his latest project ‘Places of the unexplored’. This involves documenting life forms in salt marshes shaped by crystallisation, algae and bacteria, based on a field research process and together with specialists in species preservation. During his six-month residency at Luma Arles France, which ends this month, Jakob Kudsk Steensen has immersed himself in the Camargue region and a nature, preserved by salt and frozen in time, that feeds our imagination: he has produced several 3D scans that capture different crystallisation processes brought about by algae, bacteria, salt, water, and wind; using them, he has structured a virtually reconstructed landscape. Research work that forces the artist to consider the differences in scale between human and geological time; an awareness raised by closely studying the evolution of biodiversity. From the wetlands of southern France to exploring the caves of the Ardèche, Jakob Kudsk Steensen unveils the organic processes that control the whole of life. A project that brings together, in a unique landscape, all these processes invisible to the naked eye that shape life.

Photo: Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Find all the articles from Impact Art News n°20 – June 2020