Captive Horizon

Ecologists are calling the era in which we’re currently living the Anthropocene: the epoch in which the earth’s climate and atmosphere drastically change as a result of human activity. Geologists estimate that more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface shows signs of human activity: from roads cutting like scars across the landscape to vast swathes of snow polluted with soot. Lucas Marxt captures this manmade impact by zooming in on extreme landscapes. The camera sweeps godlike over the Arctic, deserts and mountain ranges, scrutinizing the skin of the earth. Nowhere in these inhospitable areas is there a human being to be seen, but abstract, geometric shapes – lines, circles and rhomboids – betray the presence of man. Marxt’s film is reminiscent of the land art that emerged in the 1960s, when artists made man’s ecological impact visible by digging canals and pits or stacking stones (for example, Robert Smithson’s renowned at the Great Salt Lake in Utah). The structures Marxt shows are more random, and perhaps that’s why they make such a tremendous impression. Rhythm, camera position and an alienating soundscape contribute to the apocalyptic tone.