Second Nature

Since the 1980s, cell towers have started to fill the planet to create today’s telecommunication networks. The scenery changed dramatically when an antenna was transformed into an artificial pine tree for the first time in 1992. Since then, this kind of camouflage has evolved into a global phenom­enon that raises fundamental questions about the relationship between humans and nature.

Second Nature focuses on telecommunication and surveillance infrastructure that became part of the Southern California landscape. The series depicts these artefacts of the digital age as, in writer Amy Clarke’s words, a “societal preference for ‘fake’ aesthetics over ‘ugly’ reality”.