Wave Farm Artist-in-Residence: Lucy Helton

Sep 09, 2019 - Sep 18, 2019
Wave Farm + WGXC Acra Studio

518-622-2598
http://wavefarm.org/

Lucy Helton Portrait Image

Lucy Helton Portrait Image. Courtesy the artist. (Mar 31, 2019)

The radio WEFAX is a receptive instrument that converts numerical weather data, transmitted from dedicated stations, into visual form. At Wave Farm, Helton will continue her practice with image transmission using low energy radio waves and extending her meditations on the future state of the environment. In our current period of great meteorological and climate disturbance, the weather forecast plays a major role in the prediction, detection, and mitigation of the negative effect of natural disasters. During her time at Wave Farm, Helton will transmit via radio frequency, images of accelerated environmental change to a radio weather fax, reconstructing its thermal printed output.

The fictitious and prophetic landscapes Lucy Helton creates subtly address contemporary environmental concerns, by offering a vision of the future that’s both frightening and beautiful. Her photographs contain a visual play between the real and the imagined, regularly referencing technological innovation, they incorporate a variety of imaging strategies, including panoramas and stitched frames. Meditations on the future state of the environment and if human colonies will exist outside planet earth, led to her discovery and fascination with basic image transmission using low energy radio waves. Her resulting artworks test the boundaries of art and technology, questioning our current path of planetary destruction.