Anna Bensky, On the horizon just above the waves (still), 2022. Digital audio-visual work, 6:20.
Photo Credit
Anna Bensky, On the horizon just above the waves (still), 2022. Digital audio-visual work, 6:20.
Photo Credit
On the horizon, just above the waves explores the impact of non-human entities in the establishment of plant life on Rangitoto Island, the youngest of Tāmaki Makaurau’s volcanic peaks. The video is comprised of photogrammetry-based point clouds derived from Rangitoto’s lichen communities and scoria fields, while the accompanying audio track follows a reflective narrative around the visible geological and speculated ecological similarities between Rangitoto and Mars.
In an age where the ecological impact of industrial human activity is becoming increasingly visible and the topic of space exploration is present in global discourse, reflecting on these deep ecological histories offers a way to explore both our relationship to and conceptualisation of the natural world, and to examine the boundaries we may perceive, either ideologically or physically, between ourselves and the wider ecology.
The artist would like to acknowledge the tangata whenua of Motutapu and Rangitoto and recognises their custodianship of these lands.
Anna Bensky (she/they), b. 1992, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand.
Anna is a non-binary multi-disciplinary artist of Pākehā descent based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Their practice is informed by a curiosity about our relationship to the environments we inhabit and the conceptualisation of the natural world, as well as the explanatory gaps between technology, experience, and language. Recent mediums they have worked in include site-specific installation, moving image, 3D rendering and photography.
Anna is interested in the way we process the world as we move through it on a sensory and semiotic level, as well as the mediating quality that the camera and digital technology may have on these processes. Their practice often examines data and information, abstracting it from digital sources, photography, natural environments, and the body, and transforming it across visual systems of meaning. The tensions between artificial and natural, object and environment, and temporality and permanence are themes that they continue to explore throughout their work.
Anna is currently in their final year of an MFA degree at Whitecliffe.
On the horizon, just above the waves explores the impact of non-human entities in the establishment of plant life on Rangitoto Island, the youngest of Tāmaki Makaurau’s volcanic peaks. The video is comprised of photogrammetry-based point clouds derived from Rangitoto’s lichen communities and scoria fields, while the accompanying audio track follows a reflective narrative around the visible geological and speculated ecological similarities between Rangitoto and Mars.
In an age where the ecological impact of industrial human activity is becoming increasingly visible and the topic of space exploration is present in global discourse, reflecting on these deep ecological histories offers a way to explore both our relationship to and conceptualisation of the natural world, and to examine the boundaries we may perceive, either ideologically or physically, between ourselves and the wider ecology.
The artist would like to acknowledge the tangata whenua of Motutapu and Rangitoto and recognises their custodianship of these lands.
Anna Bensky (she/they), b. 1992, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, New Zealand.
Anna is a non-binary multi-disciplinary artist of Pākehā descent based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Their practice is informed by a curiosity about our relationship to the environments we inhabit and the conceptualisation of the natural world, as well as the explanatory gaps between technology, experience, and language. Recent mediums they have worked in include site-specific installation, moving image, 3D rendering and photography.
Anna is interested in the way we process the world as we move through it on a sensory and semiotic level, as well as the mediating quality that the camera and digital technology may have on these processes. Their practice often examines data and information, abstracting it from digital sources, photography, natural environments, and the body, and transforming it across visual systems of meaning. The tensions between artificial and natural, object and environment, and temporality and permanence are themes that they continue to explore throughout their work.
Anna is currently in their final year of an MFA degree at Whitecliffe.