A New Nature
(2020 - 2021)

“Does nature have a future? Not just the stuff of it—plants, megafauna, whatever—but the concept itself: the Western myth that humans and their creations are somehow separate from other aspects of earthly existence. In “A New Nature,” artist Mark Dorf meditates on the possible trajectories of ecology, society, and technology and what they mean for the planet.

While it is undoubted that biodiversity is dwindling and that human efforts have touched every part of the globe, perhaps the future of nature is not all doom and gloom. Dorf’s future is not blockbuster apocalypse nor primitivist edenic return nor Silicon Valley solutionist perfection—all futures of fiction, to be certain. Instead it is messy like our present, a mixed reality in which human actions and intentions are mediated, repelled, magnified, or rendered irrelevant by effects in timescales too large to comprehend in a human lifespan. The Earth itself becomes augmented with technology for better or worse; “nature” is reconceived as a hybrid planetary system of technology-organisms.

This new nature is beautiful and hopeful and dire and disgusting and, above all, strange. Produced at Rocky Mountain Biological Research Laboratory with a team of ecologists, “A New Nature” visualizes the wonder, abjection, and mystery of Earth’s present and possibility, an augmented reality in which change, good or bad, is the only constant.”

Full length stream available on dis.art / Text by Drew Zeiba

Supported by the Rocky Mountain Biological Research Laboratory and National Science Foundation Grant DEB - 1754518

Excerpts from A New Nature
Projected 4k Video (Color, Sound)
Dimensions Variable
10 min 15 sec, 2021

Written, directed, and produced by Mark Dorf
Music and sound design in collaboration with Cory Zimmerman
Mixed at Salon District
Voice Over #1 spoken by Cassandra Croft
Voice Over #2 spoken by Mark Dorf
Voice Over #3 spoken by Paul CaraDonna

Selected Exhibitions / Screenings
2024 Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver, CO
2023 Times Square Arts Midnight Moment, New York, NY
2023 Public Works Administration, New York, NY
2023 National Arts Club, New York, NY
2023 Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Canada
2023 CalArts, Santa Clarita, CA
2023 Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2022 Ying Arts Center, Shanghai, China
2022 dis.art (streaming)
2021 Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich, Switzerland

Selected Publications
2023 Antennea Magazine, Issue No. 34

Installation view at Museum für Gestaltung, 2021

Installation view at Museum für Gestaltung, 2021

Installation view at Museum für Gestaltung, 2021

Installation view at Museum für Gestaltung, 2021

Installation view at Museum für Gestaltung, 2021

Times Square Arts Midnight Moment Commission, April 2023

Times Square Arts Midnight Moment Commission, April 2023

Times Square Arts Midnight Moment Commission, April 2023 - Image courtesy of Time Square Arts and Michael Hull

Times Square Arts Midnight Moment Commission, April 2023 - Image courtesy of Time Square Arts and Michael Hull

Times Square Arts Midnight Moment Commission, April 2023 - Image courtesy of Time Square Arts and Michael Hull

Times Square Arts Midnight Moment Commission, April 2023 - Image courtesy of Time Square Arts and Michael Hull

Times Square Arts Midnight Moment Commission, April 2023 - Image courtesy of Time Square Arts and Michael Hull

Installation View, Public Works Adminsitration, NYC, 2023

Installation View, Public Works Adminsitration, NYC, 2023

Installation View, Public Works Adminsitration, NYC, 2023

MARK DORF

MARK
DORF