Olafur Eliasson

Since the 1990s, Olafur Eliasson has been exploring cognitive and physical phenomena as we know them from the natural sciences and nature. He uses both technically sophisticated equipment and deceptively simple means such as water or light to create artificial landscapes and moments of perception that let viewers perceive or reenact natural phenomena. Their strongly atmospheric but entirely constructed nature makes viewers become painfully conscious of how far modern civilization has progressed from immediate experience; they question the acceptance of authenticity in the area of perception. This lavish, oversized book, published in an edition of only 1,500 copies and conceived in cooperation with the artist, features a series of landscape photographs by Eliasson from his native Iceland, exploring the limits and conventions of our traditional view of landscape. They show that our perception of nature has been fundamentally affected by cultural influences, memories and expectations.