Jessica Arseneau
Field of Depth
2018-19
3 channels digital video
Installation views at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig
For Field of Depth, I researched the landscapes of public and private university campuses in Houston in order to address the financial system of the higher education institutions in North America.
Evolving similarly to a slide show where the photographs of the campus are being shown one after the other, the work evokes the physical depth's dimension in the landscapes' construction. It takes a look at the communication capacity inherent in the spaces' structures and the signification it conveys. Does the architecture, land design, kilometre-long territories and wide fields disseminate an open space for everyone or rather the privilege, wealth and exclusivity?
It extends to the spatial construction that has been dominating vision in the Renaissance: the linear perspective. During the Renaissance period the concept of infinity was introduced for the first time in the visual paradigm without being affiliated to the divinity. The omnipotence of such composition remains in Field of Depth, where the infinity of depth's inherent dimension reminds the making of "debt". Debt (financial) becomes a power structure. It requires a conformity behaviour by the individual, where it has to consent to the rules made by the institution.
Appearing on the three screens, the text added at the editing is a poetic experience. It expands upon the paradigm of depth and debt in the landscape as a construction that affects the view of images, the aesthetics and human activities.
Exhibition views on Augustusplatz, Leipzig City Center, for group exhibition Reading the Cities