Troika, Forest Filled with Pines and Electronics, 2024

2024

Medium

16 shades of red, 16 shades of green, 16 shades of blue and heavy body acrylic

Dimensions

161.5 × 133 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156108

Troika's work series "Forest Filled with Pines and Electronics" (2023) is inspired by the "Internet of Trees" and depicts forest fires in California that were recorded by a network of CCTV cameras attached to trees as early warning systems. These filmed their own demise: how first the forest and eventually the cameras themselves were engulfed in flames. The artists transfer stills captured by these CCTV cameras onto the canvas in the mosaic pattern of red, green and blue that is at the source of all digital imagery and originates from the square grid of photosensors with which each drone, networked or digital camera is equipped. In order to produce the color of the enlarged pixels from 16 red, green and blue tones, they implement an algorithm that calculates or interpolates the exact color information with neighboring brightness values in such raster graphics. In the summer of 2021, a wildfire camera captured itself getting engulfed by flames – when trees burn so do their electronic guardians. Troika draws on this event and transfers the destruction of the camera and of the recorded image to that of the process of painting. The colors of the base coat seem to flow into each other and the pixel structure is broken by irregularities. In some works of the series, the numbers that define the shade of paint in the process of creation remain visible, as if the paint had been dripped down by heat and only the structure of the image remained. Thus, "Forests Filled with Pines and Electronics" shows the physical feedback of the fires on the captured image, in that the canvas itself seems to melt into its component parts. This highlights the discrepancy between the objectification of the destructive fire through the neutral, technical recording and the content of the image. Here, the translation of the natural disaster into painting becomes a mechanical act itself, in which the exact color values are determined and the color grid is applied with the help of a syringe. Their painting method is characterized by manual imitation and repetition, requiring a mechanical precision that contrasts with the wildfire and the emotional associations it triggers. The artists explore how digital information transitions into physical reality and how the two worlds influence each other. The title "Forests Filled with Pines and Electronics" refers to a line from the poem "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace" by U.S. West Coast writer Richard Brautigan from 1967, which also inspired the title for the series of works "Irma Watched Over by Machines".