Obsolete Landscapes

The eradication of wild landscapes is reflected in Troika’s series Obsolete Landscapes (2024). The series pictures sky fragments of Apple Inc’s desktop backgrounds from which all landscapes have been erased. ’With an aesthetic echoing romanticized depictions of landscape photography the desktop backgrounds have rapidly transformed California’s natural landmarks into a picture of banality. Beginning with Yosemite (10.10.5) and El Capitan (10.11.6), the naming convention of Apple Inc’s operating systems expanded from the titles of individual summits to entire mountain ranges like Sierra (10.12.6) and High Sierra (10.13.6). The Mojave (10.14.6) desert followed suit, as did Santa Catalina Island (10.15.7). While this trend can’t persist indefinitely, the series points to technological advancement and it’s contribution to the history of landscape erosion – both in terms of resource extraction for the making of its products, and by making natural sites obsolete with each new update. Nature is reduced to a digital facsimile.’
— Fi Churchman