Nature is a shifting concept defined and redefined by the culture and time that writes, observes, documents, pollutes, builds, and burns it. The politics of visual culture expand as we experience the trauma and sublimity of our world amplified by media. In the 21st century, the skyline of dying industrial technologies gives way to newer technologies from cell phone towers to solar and wind farms. Today our wilderness is cultivated, engineered, bounded and bordered. Our interest in understanding nature is often constrained to media screens and the poles of beauty or terror; where we swing wildly from blissed-out imagery of travel log sites to the never-ending news of oil spills, deforestation, wildfires, tsunamis, and floods. Yet, from the primal to political, haptic to hallowed, landscape is the void, the space, and the ever-thrumming vibration of life that moves us forward. In Time Tripper, Alice Pixley Young uses the confines of darkness and the art of shadowplay as a timeless medium, capable of weaving narratives that stretch across epochs. Time Tripper invites viewers to embark on a journey through deep time, where shadows cast echoes of primordial landscapes, contemporary realities, and future uncertainty. Yet, the scene she pulls us into is seductive in its dreamlike state and the primal elements of shadows draw viewers in to become complicit actors in her world.
