Mark Dorf

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Preservation
 4k Video (Color, Sound)
Dimensions Variable
6 min 13 sec loop, 2021


Preservation unfolds as an endlessly scrolling 3D scene, where golden trees are suspended within glass vitrines. These display cases evoke the aesthetics of a museum, a laboratory, and a medical facility all at once: spaces of observation, control, and care. Lit starkly from above and below, the trees within the vitrines stand among chrome rocks, as if they has been catalogued, archived, and re-staged—transformed into a precious commodity under a human logic. Outside the vitrines, fluorescent tubes and sheets of glass lie scattered, evoking the aftermath of this transformation.

Alongside the animation, lens-based aerial footage of a forest flanks the scrolling digital tableau, pulsing in and out of visibility. These fleeting glimpses of a forest ecosystem contrast sharply with the rendered isolation of the vitrined trees, drawing attention to the tightly designed technological simulation.

As climate collapse advances, Preservation reflects on the paradox of preservation under late capitalism—how ecological systems are both fetishized and destroyed, worshipped in abstraction while subjected to exploitation in practice. Within a culture saturated by images, other than human systems are increasingly encountered as a spectacle—circulated, aestheticized, and consumed as visual and experiential luxury. In isolating and aestheticizing trees as rare objects, the work questions the impulse to preserve through possession, containment, and display. It stages the false binary of Nature and Culture as a shared construction—one that simultaneously mourns what is lost and metaphorically replicates the systems that have contributed to that loss.

Preservation was debuted with bitforms gallery in The Tree Of Life curated by Claudia Hart.


Selected Exhibitions / Screenings
2025 Louisville Photo Biennial, Louisville, KY
2020 bitforms Gallery, New York, NY



Preservation
 4k Video (Color, Sound)
Dimensions Variable
6 min 13 sec loop, 2021
Preservation unfolds as an endlessly scrolling 3D scene, where golden trees are suspended within glass vitrines. These display cases evoke the aesthetics of a museum, a laboratory, and a medical facility all at once: spaces of observation, control, and care. Lit starkly from above and below, the trees within the vitrines stand among chrome rocks, as if they has been catalogued, archived, and re-staged—transformed into a precious commodity under a human logic. Outside the vitrines, fluorescent tubes and sheets of glass lie scattered, evoking the aftermath of this transformation.

Alongside the animation, lens-based aerial footage of a forest flanks the scrolling digital tableau, pulsing in and out of visibility. These fleeting glimpses of a forest ecosystem contrast sharply with the rendered isolation of the vitrined trees, drawing attention to the tightly designed technological simulation.

As climate collapse advances, Preservation reflects on the paradox of preservation under late capitalism—how ecological systems are both fetishized and destroyed, worshipped in abstraction while subjected to exploitation in practice. Within a culture saturated by images, other than human systems are increasingly encountered as a spectacle—circulated, aestheticized, and consumed as visual and experiential luxury. In isolating and aestheticizing trees as rare objects, the work questions the impulse to preserve through possession, containment, and display. It stages the false binary of Nature and Culture as a shared construction—one that simultaneously mourns what is lost and metaphorically replicates the systems that have contributed to that loss.

Preservation was debuted with bitforms gallery in The Tree Of Life curated by Claudia Hart.


Selected Exhibitions / Screenings
2020 bitforms Gallery, New York, NY