ULTRADISTANCIA: MONSTERS OF MINE
When i look up to the sky i see gods, when i look down to earth i discover monsters. But gods are not necessarily good nor monsters bad, they are just puzzled about us, humans, staring at them from here.
In the brand new ULTRADISTANCIA series, MONSTERS OF MINE, open pit mines, abandoned mines sites and large mining operations from all over the world reveals their fascinating side carved out of the geography. High resolution satellite images of Russian diamond and North American iron ore, Australian gold, Argentine silver or North Caledonian nickel, among many other mines turned into fascinating creatures composed from Earth' s depth treasures.
After the launch in 2016 of ULTRADISTANCIA, the acclaimed satellite art project that captured the attention of Google and media, i began to experimenting with digital crafts techniques that allowed me to create the beautiful monstrous figures that are revealed on the earth's surface.
Each of of the pieces of the MONSTERS OF MINE series are real open pit mines captured by the satellites, manually worked without altering the original topography of the ground, to isolate the figures and creates the characters and personalities that are revealed.
If the original ULTRADISTANCIA series was about the search for the incredible patterns and geometries made by the man or offered by the pure nature, in the forms on the surface of the earth as seen from above; and also about the possibility of travel without movement by hovering the globe with the use of satellite imagery; MONSTERS OF MINE adds the encounter of animal, anthropomorphic and monsterish figures in the places where the hand of the man have drastically altered the terrain.
Turn the, sometimes terrible, mining activity into, sometimes beautiful, monsters allows me to reflect on how much we need and love the same things that can, sometimes, badly affect us. We love our monsters.
Took me a little perspective, a higher ground and a more accurate eye to start finding the MONSTERS OF MINE. Once discovered it will be impossible not to see them from now on.