During the past 4 years, David Robinson has
documented a diverse selection of some of the world's most
popular tourist destinations such as Florida's Holy Land experience,
Legoland in Windsor and the Costa del Sol. Each destination
is deliberately chosen for its unique western character - a
choice which magnifies the man-made structures and parks dominating
over the surrounding natural landscape.
Robinson is also inspired by global tourism where tourists
are steered towards taking pictures of set-up picture sites
and places or what he calls 'microcultures'. Robinson reveals
a more exaggerated scenery assisted by his intense use
of
saturated colour panoramic film - giving the illusion of
a surreal and dream like landscape.
Robinson's familiarity and perception of most popular locations
has been shaped only by what we are programmed to expect
through the media such
as magazines, television and the movies.
The resulting photographs, act as testament to the shrinking
planet and global culture like trophies and proof
of their
existence.
David Robinson has long been interested in the landscape
of simulation
and has articulated its metaphorical dimension
before. His 1999/2000 series
of golfers posed at the tees
as full-length renaissance portraits swapped out
the roman
campagna for an implausibly green northern Irish hillside.
Wonderland with its scarcely populated landscapes of entertainment
goes further in asking the question: what kind of construct
am I in the middle of a nature that I continually mediate?
Robinson’s landscapes are pleasure-provoking vistas
in an era of mind-numbing labour; our worldview pressed through
a sieve of tourism, where leisure has squeezed out all the
space in the imagination that nature once held.
Extract by Andrew Gellatly from Wonderland foreword. |
