Terratic Animism

Jakob Kudsk Steensen

BRIC

Inspired by the 1939 The New York Times article “The World of Tomorrow as it appeared under the Snow of Yesterday” and its black-and-white photographs of the snow-covered exhibits from the 1939 New York World’s Fair, Terratic Animism takes Times Square’s visitors on a digitally simulated journey through a futuristic wintry forest. Jakob Steensen mixes realities, combining virtual recreations of a forest with screens showing recorded footage of Steensen’s performative explorations through derelict energy structures. The result blurs the boundaries of space and time, envisioning a future dystopian view of objects created to imagine a utopian future, displaying screens within screens, and putting viewers in the center of the forest as it surrounds them each night on the iconic electronic billboards of Times Square.

Photographs courtesy of Ka-Man Tse.