Unsustainable Views: Aesthetics of a Pixelated Landscape

Abstract

This article examines the role of image technologies in the conception of, and interaction with, the environment we inhabit, taking as case studies relevant manifestations of these technologies. Starting from the notion of landscape—historically described and situated as a cultural construction—an analysis is carried out to identify how the specific conditions of the observer, as well as the representational devices and techniques that mediate the experience of the environment, significantly affect its conceptualization. Based on this premise, the text examines the consequences of these successive forms of distancing. It highlights the risks associated with the overexploitation of ecosystem services and the accelerated transformation of climatic conditions. It also underlines the paradox underlying the unsustainability of the very infrastructures that generate these distortions in perception, and their capacity to alter the material conditions that make their own construction and preservation possible.