Andrew Wright. Data Trespass

About

This large-scale photographic installation consists of never–before–seen nocturnal images of tumultuous geysers in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, the most geo-thermically active location on earth. Presenting unquantifiable detail while simultaneously inviting a reconsideration of photography’s veracity, this work is a continuation and expansion of Wright’s Illuminated Landscapes series (begun 2001); where he applies techniques from the photographic studio to landscape.

Other works include Data Trespass: Illegal Photographs, a suite of images that antagonize a recent Wyoming statute making outdoor photography an illegal form of data collection, and a new video deriving from a mock trial where Wright was prosecuted for his apparent contravention of this law. Dawson Looking Glass troubles conventions of landscape and street photography, while Disused Twin Brownie Hawkeye Cameras is an example of Wright’s ongoing use of twinning, mirroring and doubling in a complex play on perception. Finally his video work Beijing Odyssey explores the zones of transfer and exchange between the marvels of the machine age and the visual culture of modernity.

Wright’s use of photography challenges traditional pictorial aims and favours an exploratory, evocative approach that probes optical and representational technologies, their cultures, histories, conventions and conceits. His provocative use of photographic materials and photo-like procedures suggest alternative ways of considering and interpreting image and object. For Wright, meaning is often derived from conditions or circumstances outside of or in direct opposition to information presented as depiction.