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Artifice| Deconstructing the Divide Between Natural and Synthetic Environments

<p> The 18th century poet and writer Samuel Johnson claimed, &ldquo;Deviation from nature is deviation from happiness.&rdquo; I have found this assertion to hold true. In one way or another, nature has always been an important part of my life. I am drawn to its intricacies and inherent complexities&mdash;characteristics that I both appreciate, but also struggle to understand. According to research, spending time in nature is psychologically important for humans, but today&rsquo;s technologically reliant society seems to be losing that connection. Even when we are &ldquo;in nature&rdquo; often times these places are merely an artificial representation, not truly natural. For instance, a park in the middle of a city serves as a contrived natural environment for the city&rsquo;s inhabitants, but, again, it is then constructed, not actually an organic experience. For me, nature is a place where one is surrounded by plants, land, and animals that still hold their unaltered characteristics&mdash;places that lack human culture and have been minimally interrupted by contemporary society. My work creates space for viewers to inhabit which mimics these natural environments synthetically.</p>

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10132959
Date09 August 2016
CreatorsWard, Kelsie
PublisherSouthern Illinois University at Edwardsville
Source SetsProQuest.com
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typethesis

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