MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning” or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.
The film follows Burtynsky to China as he travels the country photographing the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. Sites such as the Three Gorges Dam, which is bigger by 50% than any other dam in the world and displaced over a million people, factory floors over a kilometre long, and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai’s urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera.
Shot in Super-16mm film, Manufactured Landscapes extends the narrative streams of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our profound impact on the planet and witness both the epicentres of industrial endeavour and the dumping grounds of its waste. What makes the photographs so powerful is his refusal in them to be didactic. We are all implicated here, they tell us: there are no easy answers. The film continues this approach of presenting complexity, without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it tries to shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.
[ Edited on 27-3-2007 by rose ]
megalania ·
It sure is. I've heard that there are some places in the US that turn old tires in roads. Apparently it lasts longer than asphalt, wears less and is less harsh on your cars suspension. Looks like it might be an alternative for the future. It seems like such a waste of natural resources.
PrettyBlueBug ·
That pic looks almost photoshopped, otherwise it is indeed a scary sight..... :P
baybuscamperkid ·
theres a guy here in Aus who can recycle 100% of cartyres, was on new inventors, had people all over the world chasing his technology, so those mounds dont have to exist.
remm340912 ·
its an awful site and i hope that guy in Oz is making a killing selling the technology to everyone. Apparently in america the tyre yards have been the breeding ground for dengui fever or something very similar to that.
electricmonk ·
Where is that? I need a set of second hand 195/65 15's to test out on my rims?
But your right the amount of crud thrown out that could be better used is astounding. I also agree that the photo has been chopped, still carries the same message though
68AutoBug ·
I agree..
the photo doesn't look real.....
but used tyres Is a big problem..
Everywhere....
Thousands are Illegally dumped every year....
Lee
Spook ·
It's hard for me to "tisk tisk" when I'd be responsible for twenty of them every couple of years or so.
rose ·
a pick of what's left after the last drag session.
BASHOdi ·
remm340912 wrote:its an awful site and i hope that guy in Oz is making a killing selling the technology to everyone. Apparently in america the tyre yards have been the breeding ground for dengui fever or something very similar to that.
It's called amerikinutus feverus and the side effects include-but are not limited to - a rabid desire to invade other countries, compulsively detaining allies citizens, gross eating dissorders, (and on the good side ) shooting each other , there are many more prime and secondary side effects I shall leave them to othes to list should they care to.
:beer
Al .