Catalogue > At random

In Establishing Eden, Broersen & Lukács focus on the establishing shot: the moment a landscape is identified and becomes one of the main protagonists in a film. In blockbusters like ‘Avatar’ (James Cameron, 2009) and the film series ‘Lord of the Rings’ (Peter Jackson, 2001-2014), these shots have been used to capture and confiscate the nature of New Zealand, propagating itself as a new Eden, evergreen and unspoilt. Here, fiction takes over from reality: mountains and forests exist under the name of their cinematic alter ego’s. Broersen & Lukács travelled through the wilderness of New Zealand to capture these landscapes, and with that, they appropriate the nature of New Zealand once again. Creating an architecture of fragments connected by the camera movement of a perpetual establishing shot, they show this Eden as a series of many possible realities, an illusion that comes together just as easily as it falls apart.

Margit Lukács (Amsterdam, 1973) & Persijn Broersen (Delft, 1974) are artists living and working in Amsterdam. They work in a wide variety of media- most notably video, animation and graphics- producing a myriad of works that reflect on the depiction of nature in our increasingly virtual society. With intricate layers of (filmed) footage, digital animation and images appropriated from the media they demonstrate how reality, (mass) media and fiction are strongly intertwined in contemporary culture. Broersen and Lukács studied at the Sandberg Institute and at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Their films, installations and graphic work have been shown internationally, including: Biennale of Sydney (AUS), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL), Muhka (Bel), Centre Pompidou Paris (FR), Shanghai World Expo (CN), Casa Enscendida, Madrid (ESP). Their films have been shown at several festivals including LAForum in Los Angeles, Kassel Dokumentar and filmfestival (Ger), Paris Rencontres (FR, Ger & Esp), New York Film Festival (USA), IDFA, Amsterdam (NL) and International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL).