T E L E V I S T A S
July - Nov 2020
New views on landscape and Gilpin’s picturesque from/for/about the New Forest
↑ Jordan Baseman, They Spent Their Money Here, 2020. Video 9:32. more info >>
Adam Chodzko, Thru hole I blind/O/Thru hole oui see, 2020. Video 17 mins. ( ↑ Trailer)
STREAMED DAILY 10 -18 Nov 2020 more info ( AND NOW WATCH THE FULL WORK ) >>
↑ Mick Peter, Tele Vistas Gallery, 2020. Printed card, dimensions variable. more info >>
↑ Jennet Thomas, Not Yet Out of the Wood, 2020. Video 4:23. more info >>
↑ Rebecca Birch, Elg Post 57 Ep1 'Stump' , Elg Post 57 Ep2 'Dawn' and Elg Post 57 Ep2 'Quarry', 2020. Documentation of live streamed performance series. more info >>
↑ Marcela Sinclair, Around the block, 2020. Video 3:48. more info >>
Tele Vistas was an evolving broadcast of artist commissions and community made video exploring the lure of landscape during lockdown. The image of the landscape, sea and forests invokes feelings of freedom and escape. With many of us experiencing period of time isolated behind closed doors during the Covid-19 pandemic, the landscape has become an especially potent image, the closed horizons of the home contrast with the wide horizons of the outdoors. Contributing artists are Adam Chodzko, Benjamin Deakin, Chris Welsby, Cotelito, Jennet Thomas, Jordan Baseman, Marcela Sinclair, Mick Peter, Rebecca Birch and Simon Bayliss.
Tele Vistas is inspired by New Forest based William Gilpin, the great writer of the picturesque movement of the 18th century. His ideas of the ‘Picturesque’ transformed the land from a lived reality into an image for consumption, inspiring painters, writers, garden designers and urban planners. Landscapes are by definition something remote, the impossible object of one’s desires (we stand and gaze, but cannot touch).
The prefix ‘tele-’ is from the Greek for ‘far-off’, and gives us words such as telescope, television, telephone, telekinesis. This idea relates deeply to the notion of gazing at a landscape, of observing or consuming nature and the rural. Such gazing is often seen through a lens (the birder’s binoculars, the video lens, the Hi Def imaging of a smartphone), and consumed on screens (television, laptop, tablet, phone). In this technological age, the near and the far are complementary rather than opposites, distances collapse, new spaces are created .
“10 Sept Marcela Sinclair
20 Sept Jennet Thomas
30 Sept Rebecca Birch
20 Oct Mick Peter
30 Oct Jordan Baseman
08 Nov Adam Chodzko
DELAYED Chris Welsby”
During lockdown Summer 2020 More Than Ponies shared a gentle broadcast of vistas consisting of videos, live streams and webcam footage of picturesque landscapes from across the New Forest. Created with local communities and individuals, and accompanied by a series of events that explored ideas of landscape, the picturesque and artists broadcasts.
Tele Vistas commissions are new artworks created by an international roster of artists who experienced these broadcasts from afar. New artworks will be available from their release date and when suitable remain online for the duration of Tele Vistas. Additional content will be also released. For updates join our MAILING LIST
Beyond the VIEWS:
Events, content and projects commissioned by More Than Ponies for Tele Vistas
Malcolm Andrews is a renowned scholar and author of Landscape and Western Art (1999) and The Search for the Picturesque: Landscape Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1760-1800 (1989), in this talk he introduces the history and continued relevance of the idea of the ‘picturesque’. More info HERE
READ: Three essays on picturesque beauty, on picturesque travel, and on sketching landscapes by William Gilpin. 1794
Maeve Connolly and Colin Perry discuss artists engagement with broadcasting. More info HERE
A rolling evolving selection of community video landscape broadcasts from New Forest June - August 2020. Dwell, watch, draw, relax …
WHAT IS THE PICTURESQUE? (a diagram by More Than Ponies)
10-13 July 2020 The Speed of Tenderness ( the distance thins down) Buenos Aires based Cotelito was MTP artist in residence from afar. Click image to view more …
Thank yous:
Tele Vistas has been made possible with support from Arts Council England, Alejandra Aguado, MTP Focus Group and all contributors and artists, thank you.
Tele Vistas Consultant Digital Producer: Chris Webb
More Than Ponies Project Assistant: Evie Redwood
More about More Than Ponies here
