You are in The Rotunda, featuring Autoscapes [1994 -> ] Graham Budgett - Quicktime required; click/drag the space below to pan

A difficult relationship of the automobile to the land [and to its particular history of representation as 'landscape'] is intimated in the series of photographic prints Autoscapes. This is achieved through a disruption of Bildraum or 'image-space'. Viewed in the gallery at 60 x 42 inches [152.5 x 101.5 cm], picturesque landscape qualities feigned by the Autoscapes eventually disappear when upon closer inspection vestiges of a former use begin to flatten the studio-constructed perspectives of these 'landscapes'. Shot obliquely on a copy-stand from just a few square centimetres of background imagery in a published car advertisement, these apparently 'documentary' or 'evidential' photographic prints are stripped of their original colour and sepia-toned to mimic the very different photographic genre of nostalgic landscape. However, clearly out of character with their intended referent, these images simultaneously display half-tone screen dots that appear only partially in each autoscape's intentionally limited range of sharpness. Aside from that small area of incongruity, the rest of the image appears to conform to the conventional 'truth' of photographic depth-of-field. [This effect cannot be reproduced at low resolution on the web.]