Earth Show

Mariele Neudecker
400 Thousand Generations
2009

This is Mariele Neudecker's Piece from the Earth Show at the Royal Academy. The piece is called 400 Thousand Generations. This is referring to the generations it took for photosensitive tissue to evolve in the human eye. Personally I think this was a highlight of the whole show as it was one of the most visually impacting pieces in my opinion. I think it purveys the essence of the show in it's concept and does this by also being aesthetically pleasing. This is important to me as it is what I work towards. I think there is depth to this piece which was lacking in many of the others. Layers of meaning that individuals can interpret differently. At first I did not see the resemblance to eyes. I think the fact that they resemble eyes could be saying that humanity needs to open it's eyes to global warming. The fact that it is called 400 Thousand Generations could be significant also. In my opinion this is saying it has taken all this time to develop sight in humans and we are not using this skill. We just need to look at the effects of global warming for proof.

In the description it says that the artist has used materials that ensures that it is "slowly but constantly changing" this makes the piece even more interesting to me. As seeing live art does it the world of justice but if it is changing all the time, the experience of the piece is different for each person. The description also says "preserved in stasis, as museum objects" this made me think that it could be from a museum in the future. When mountains are extinct this is the last impression of one. The fact that it is upside down could imply it was so far removed that future beings did not know which way up mountains were.