Everything from Nowhere

Throughout history, wayfinding has relied on stars, human guides, paper maps, and now the digital navigation systems in our cell phones. How does our growing dependence on screens influence our expectations of the environment and our relationship with the natural world? Everything from Nowhere is a hands-on exploration of place through the guidance of seeing machines.

Artist's Statement

Wanderlust is the strong or irresistible impulse to travel and explore. It is often driven by the desire to escape and leave behind the familiar to experience the unknown world. The internet has allowed us to wander to unfamiliar lands, never having to leave the comfort and safety of our homes. Travel anywhere via Google Earth, experience other worlds through NASA satellites, and daydream quietly while pristine images of landscapes scroll through our screensavers. I am interested in how technology influences the way we experience the natural world. My practice examines this digital "wanderlust."

This new medium of virtual navigation is exchanging an actual experience for an abstraction of experience, forming new habits of thought and behavior about the natural world. This technological window results in a setting that has become literally flat to many of us. It is this "intangible" experience of the landscape that interests me as an artist. Acknowledging this transition from natural phenomena to intellectual conception, I see our relationship with the natural landscape becoming distant and foreign.

About the Artist

Alyssa Baguss’s practice explores mediated natural environments through drawing processes. She is a visual artist and arts program director who works out of Minneapolis. Alyssa is a 2015 and 2017 recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, and her work has been exhibited in the Twin Cities and regionally, including the Rochester Art Center, Burnet Gallery, Soo Visual Arts Center, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Rosalux Gallery, and Augsburg College Christensen Center Art Gallery. 

www.alyssabaguss.com