Seed, Image, Ground (in collaboration with Jussi Parikka)

Single channel video or two channel video installation
2020

Seed, Image, Ground is a video essay co-authored with Jussi Parikka and a commission by Fotomuseum Winterthur

Seed, Image, Ground works with selected promotional images and videos related to seed bombing – a technique used in forestry, agriculture and environmental restoration where biodegradable containers filled with seeds and soil nutrients are dropped from flying aircrafts to the ground. Originally conceived by an RAF pilot after WW2, this technique has been fostered during the last decade, closely linked to the increased deployment of robotic aerial vehicles in environmental monitoring.

The commissioned video essay by the media theorist Jussi Parikka and the artist and researcher Abelardo Gil-Fournier investigates the link between seeds, aerial operations, photographic images and the transformation of earth surfaces into data. It demonstrates how the history of botanic knowledge and visual surveys of green surfaces is a history of images, and as such, a history of circulation, speed and motorised aircraft.

Seed, Image, Ground addresses the convergence of the military complex and the cultivation of our environment: From metaphors of war to guerrilla farming, from agricultural techniques and reforesting to the automation of airspace and environmental management, the observation of growth of vegetal surfaces unveils connections to parallel histories of the logistics of military perception.

Sound design by María Andueza Olmedo. Research for the video essay was supported by the project Operational Images and Visual Culture, situated at the department of Photography at the Academy of Performing Arts, Prague. The project is funded by Czech Science Foundation project 19-26865X.

Selected shows:

2022 Weather Engines. Onassis Stegi, Athens
2022 Medios Sintientes. Cineteca Madrid
2022 Loops.Expanded. ARTMADRID - PROYECTOR '22
2021 GROUNDING. Dokuchaev Central Soil Museum and Art.ITMO.Residency (St Petersburg)
2021 Vibrating Clouds. Design Society (Shenzhen, China)
2020 Reprogramming Earth. NeMe Arts Center (Limassol, Cyprus)
2020 SITUATIONS / Strike. Fotomuseum Winterthur

Selected publications:

2021 Jussi Parikka, Abelardo Gil-Fournier, Eine Ökoästhetik pflanzlicher Oberflächen. Über den Videoessay Seed, Image, Ground und digitale Ökologie Springerin, Heft 3/2021 "Digital Ecology"
2021 Yixuan Cai, Vibrating Clouds. Exhibition Catalogue Design Society. Curating Design Plan. Shenzhen.
2021 Jussi Parikka, Abelardo Gil-Fournier, An ecoaesthetic of vegetal surfaces: on Seed, Image, Ground as soft montage Journal of Visual Art Practice
2020 Sria Chatterjee, The Arts, Environmental Justice, and the Ecological Crisis British Art Studies, Issue 18