Jan Robert Leegte - Performing a Landscape

JA N ROBERT

LE E G T E

Jan Robert Leegte is among the first artists who were involved in the 90s net art movement. Since 1997, he creates art in the form of websites, which he connects to art historical movements such as minimalism, land art and conceptualism. Leegte also translates the themes of his work to offline media such as print, sculpture and projections. A reoccurring theme in his work is the sculptural materiality of interfaces of computer programs. Like the early graphic design of cursors, selection boxes and menu bars that were to give the user the impression of actually physically pressing the buttons with graphic shadows. Leegte often uses these components and by placing them in a new context, giving them their own, sculptural legitimacy.

Jan Robert Leegte (1973, the Netherlands) lives and works in Amsterdam. He recently participated in seminal exhibitions such as Electronic Superhighway at Whitechapel Gallery in London, and Open Codes at ZKM Karlsruhe. His work has been exhibited in venues such as MAAT Lisbon, MOTI Breda, iMal Brussels, and Nomade Art Space in Hangzhou. Leegte’s latest show at Upstream Gallery was Inside | Outside (2020).

Performing a Landscape For this work a real-time landscape simulator used in game development has been utilised to create a fragmented view of a storm-ridden and flood-battered landscape.

Within games, generative landscapes are used instead of designed worlds, to create both the scale and the detail, but also to make sure every game to be played is unique.

Minecraft had for instance a gameworld that was the size of the earth when the game was introduced - they have since made it infinite. With this unfathomable depth, this pure power within computer simulations has introduced a new habitat for the sublime. A computergenerated landscape is infinite and extremely detailed, but is created and can be destroyed at the click of a button. This extreme fragility echoes our relation with nature in the current discussions about climate change and ecological breakdown.

In the room we are overwhelmed by the force of this simulated landscape. The storm can be heard sweeping through the trees as well as the roar of the ocean. Various screens and projections offer fragmented views of a natural scene. The setting also contains eroded Lovecraftian manmade structures,​ ​subject to large insetting waves. And as you notice these non-natural forms in the landscape, the show circles back to the pastel drawing it started with.

For in 1997, Leegte’s pivotal moment in becoming an internet artist, was when he uploaded his first html file to a web-server, transforming a sketch in code into a public browser-based installation. A simple gesture of clicking the button of standard FTP software. The act happened in a time of a naive but hopeful online ideology. It is the interface of this humble uploading software which can be seen in the landscape, succumbed by simulated flooding and erosion.

An interface that stood between the inside of an attic room and an ever expanding global network outside.

Performing a Landscape, 2020 9-channel video installation 9 unique videos of 30 min.