Paul Thulin

In light of contemporary society becoming more environmentally conscious, the mere forms of the inherited machines of industrialism stir one to consider the hidden threats continuing to pose harm to the earth’s delicate ecosystems. Our future rests in the hands of a re-imagined eco-industry that will redefine our personal relationships and expectations of the machines we engage and/or rely on a daily basis. Paul Thulin captures his version if this new reality.

Machines is a photographic series inspired to visually explore a futuristic vision of American studies scholar Leo Marx’s theory of the “machine in the garden”. The images reveal a "middle landscape"; nature existing in a seemingly contradictory state of lush untamed wilderness while under the dominion of a mechanized society. The driving narrative forces of the imagery are grand pastoral landscapes inhabited by mysterious machine "like" structures engaging a mix of characters intended to symbolize industry, the natural world, the primitive, and the cultivated.

Machines is created through a process of photographic digital assembly. Each image comprises of a fusing of multiple details from my extensive personal archive of analog and
digital photos representing the American landscape, thrift store trinkets, industrial forms, animals and people. The work is a unique photographic fiction that has gradually arisen from creatively engaging digital image editing technologies.