Andrea’s relationship with nature is rather contemplative ; a admiration from afar informed by the bucolic landscapes of the naturalist paintings and the photos of almost another world of travel magazines. And through the Covid-19 pandemic, as she yearns for landscapes that are both unfamiliar and familiar, she continues to reflect on our mediatized relationship with nature.

Directing our gaze at the intersection of digital media and ecological literacy, the work explores how technologies mediate the creation and circulation of images that inform how we see and know nature. These technologies are not neutral means of reproduction and transmission, but actively transform what they transmit.

The Botanical series looks at artificial and unstable images, inspired by an aesthetic idea of nature, both as something external to us (wilderness) and as something we can dominate, classify and possess. Creating a link between the space we observe and the one in which we find ourselves, it addresses the current condition of images and ecology ; not the phenomenal image but the artifact. 

Here, using a pixel sorting algorithm, Andrea manipulates botanical illustrations that circulate on the web. The application written in Processing scans each pixel of the image and then rearranges them according to their brightness level. Like streaks of light and erasure, creation and destruction, moving pixels transforms the image, putting it into motion, and generating a dynamic glitch that slowly breaks down into dominant colors.