Landscape as the artist’s subject has been beloved since antiquity as an idyllic mise-en-scène of rural life, pastoral poetry, an indispensible part of painting, and then as a significant concept in XVIII century philosophical tractata used to describe the feelings of the sublime. Generally speaking, everyone enjoys the view of a "snatched" piece of natural beauty, whether it is a thick forest, a river, endless mountains, a sea, or tranquil meadows. Aside from offering rest to the eye and comfort to the soul, nature stirs theemotions. The landscape can embody our relationship with the origin of life and thetranscendental point.
There are, however, not so beautiful landscapes. Landscapes that bear witness to the tumultuous relationship between (wo)man and nature. Landscapes that bear witness to the detrimental conquest of (wo)man over the environment.
Today’s landscape is not just Arcadian; it designates an area as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors (European Landscape Convention, Florence Firenze 2000).
This is where the photographer's tale of the gradually progressing synergy of (wo)man and nature begins.
The ratio to which the influence and presence of (wo)man in nature is distinguished, marks a difference in landscape degrees, starting from completely authentic, untouched parts of nature, to artificially created territories and disappeared and destroyed apocalyptic views of the environment.
There are very few completely natural landscapes today, those that bear no mark of human activity. Modern civilization and progress have marked and are still marking hugetraces on Earth's surface. This evidence of (wo)man has taken over nature's role aslandscape creator and become its destroyer (Homo anhilator).
In the contemporary sense of the word, “landscape” is literally everything that surrounds us. Today’s “landscape” is the space that we perceive, that in which we act, and it is definitely not just a result of nature’s influence. Above all our landscape today is the product of our intended and unintended intervention.
This cycle of photographs has been created in the light of research on the relationship between man and nature i.e. four degrees of the process of human presence in nature. By dealing with landscapes not deemed to be beautiful or attractive by the standards of classical beauty, the photographer speaks the view of "the other." By taking photos of the endless space of quarries, of deserted sea surfaces, and of scorched, polluted and dirty areas, he critically speaks about the social environmental conscience. This consciencedespite being more advanced and more present in current common and political discourse, is still next to nothing. The photographer reveals the infinite potential of human destruction and depreciation of spirituality in the world of ruthless consumerism.
The cycle of photography "Landscapes of entropy" is a story of the gradation of human presence in the landscape. By researching and problematizing (wo)man's relationship with nature, the photographer critically examines the degree of human intervention in the space that surrounds us all. By inhabiting the space, (wo)man rarely enriches or ennobles it, more frequently s/he tames it and deconstructs it in an exploitative fashion. This project critically stresses the "black holes" of a non-environmental consciousness in ourconsumer society. It points at our "walking on the edge" and our inherent, almost inescapable, blind spots.