Ben-Long-Moving-Landscapes-The-Hay-Wain-after-John-Constable

 

The Hay Wain (after John Constable), 2012,
Digital print on advertising billboard
610 x 305 cm
Installation view, Old Snow Hill, Birmingham
Commissioned by EC Arts

Motion-blurred landscapes are presented on commercial billboards in the public realm. For each of these artworks Long has digitally manipulated the image of a historically significant 19th Century oil landscape using computer painting techniques. The effect created is of the rural environment being moved through at high velocity, as if captured by photographic means from the window of a locomotive. Paintings by artists such as Constable, Wilson and

 

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Gainsborough, who expressed a romantic outlook of tranquility and contented country life, are reconsidered in relation to a modern reality that no longer moves at a stable, orderly pace. Moving Landscapes prompt us to examine whether we are exhilarated or baffled by the acceleration of modern life and whether access to more information at a faster speed means a greater or lesser experience of the world around us.