Işık Kaya & Thomas Georg Blank, Second Nature, Kehrer Verlag

«‹Disneyfied› artefacts of the digital age as part of the Southern California landscape»

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Excerpt of Transcending Nature by Ziad Mahayni

One can understand the mobile phone trees as camouflaged technology or as optimized nature, as a tree that can do more than just look like a tree. One can understand the mobile phone trees as optimized, transcended nature, which would be completely in line with the new paradigm of the dawning digital age. In this way, the tree becomes a trans-tree, a trans-arbor, a prototype of transcended nature that is supposed to be able to do more than just be nature. Seen from this perspective, the mobile phone trees are part of a development that since the late twentieth century has created and is yet to create many similarly irritating hybrid artifacts, from genetically optimized plants to cloned animals and artificial organs printed out in 3D bioprinting.

The title of the series of images by Işık Kaya and Thomas Georg Blank, Second Nature, ingeniously reflects the ambivalent and tilting nature of the mobile phone trees. It can be read as a second skin in the sense of a new garment for nature, or as the next stage of evolution, as optimized and more efficient nature, as «Nature 2.0.» 

About the Artists

Işık Kaya and Thomas Georg Blank are lens-based media artists whose work explores the way in which humans shape and inhabit the world. Their research-heavy approach is deeply rooted in documentary practices. However, by pushing the boundaries of how reality can be depicted, they transcend the domain of representation and create completely independent, often hyperreal visual world. As a result, the boundaries between reality and fiction in their work become blurred.

Their projects often focus on traces of economic infrastructures and how humanity’s dominance over nature finds its manifestation in everyday architecture. By framing their subjects almost exclusively at night, they aim to accentuate the artificial and uncanny qualities of contemporary urban environments and human settlements.

Order your Copy

Işık Kaya & Thomas Georg Blank—Second Nature

Texts by Amy Clarke, Ziad Mahayni
Designed by Işık Kaya & Thomas Georg Blank

Softcover with open spine in slipcase, tête-bêche binding

24 × 33 cm

112 pages

99 color illustrations

English

ISBN 978-3-96900-056-4

Published by Kehrer Verlag

Editorial Notes:

If you have a News—Features article that you would like to share on this platform, please feel free to submit it using the submission form.

Source: Kehrer Verlag press release

Photography: Işık Kaya

Links: Website, Instagram, Book Shop

Editor: Alexandre Kurek

«‹Disneyfied› artefacts of the digital age as part of the Southern California landscape»

Read the Interview

About the Artists

Işık Kaya and Thomas Georg Blank are lens-based media artists whose work explores the way in which humans shape and inhabit the world. Their research-heavy approach is deeply rooted in documentary practices. However, by pushing the boundaries of how reality can be depicted, they transcend the domain of representation and create completely independent, often hyperreal visual world. As a result, the boundaries between reality and fiction in their work become blurred.

Their projects often focus on traces of economic infrastructures and how humanity’s dominance over nature finds its manifestation in everyday architecture. By framing their subjects almost exclusively at night, they aim to accentuate the artificial and uncanny qualities of contemporary urban environments and human settlements.

Editorial Notes:

If you have a News—Features article that you would like to share on this platform, please feel free to submit it using the submission form.

Source: Kehrer Verlag press release

Photography: Işık Kaya

Links: Website, Instagram, Book Shop