Christoph Gielen's extraordinary, almost mesmeric aerial studies of human occupation are collected in his new book Ciphers – win a copy now!
German-born photographer Christoph Gielen's extraordinary aerial photographs of suburban land-use patterns (featured in uncube issue no.15) show the abstract geometries and kaleidoscopic patterning created by modern day human settlements in the USA. Shot from a helicopter during guerrilla style fly-bys, Gielen’s photographs follow the natural forms and folds of constructed landscapes in seemingly meditative gestures. They reveal the webs we weave on our planet. An inciteful short essay, “Geometric Sociology”, by architecture critic Geoff Manaugh accompanying the images states: “We are living amidst geometry, post-terrestrial screens between ourselves and the planet we walk upon.”
The unique perspective afforded by Gielen’s photographs, highlights the repetitious infrastructure patterns we may not be aware of: “diagrams of a new anthropology still waiting to be discovered” so Manaugh, “Or are they the expression of something much deeper in human culture – some mystical spatiality of the global suburb, an emerging cult of a redesigned earth – like prehistoric glyphs only visible from high above?”
Subscribe to win a copy of Ciphers!
We have two copies of Christoph Gielen’s Ciphers to give away! Subscribe to uncube to enter in our draw (it's free!), and send an email to bea@uncubemagazine.com with “CIPHERS” in the subject line before January 20th, 2014. If you are already a subscriber, then you're halfway there. Just send us the email to enter to win! Subscribe to the uncube mailing list
Ciphers
Photography: Christoph Gielen
Jovis, September 2013
ISBN 978-3-86859-318-1
