The Old Earth cantos is the name i've given to this series of collages formed on a range found windows. The idea for the series' theme and name came from the Hyperion book series. A space epic consisting of 4 books written by Dan Simmons. What struck me most when reading through the books was how well this post-earth society is fleshed out. Through advanced anti-aging, life extending technology, a few characters in the book are able to give their accounts of life earth from thousands of years in the past, before an event referred to as "the big mistake" destroys it, preventing the human colonies throughout the universe from ever returning to their point of origin.

In the story their is a poet named Martin Cillenus who writes of life his life on Old Earth and how he ended up leaving. Within the books this collection of stories and poems is named The Old Earth Cantos (thus the project name). The poet's books are a novelty as in a time when neural implants allow anyone to know anything, things like fine art and writing become relics of Old Earth collected and sold only as a way of demonstrating social status, money and power.

The books address this idea that the more we rely on technology, the less power dominion we have over our own lives. 

Between putting down and picking up the books this idea stuck with me. It sparked an interest and i needed to explore it. Moving away from films for the time being i decided that going forward on this project i would create a representation of Humanity from the past 100 years, the present and the next 100 years of technological advancement.

I turned to the visual materials i had amassed that i felt would best create this vision. A large stack of BBC Science Focus magazines that had been mostly read and a huge tome of Country Life volumes, published between 1900 and 1911.

Using these images I've been able to create a series of collages that represent human progress and change over this 200 year period. Collages that make predictions of the future and depictions of the past. 

The windows work as a great plane on which surreal landscapes can be built up and seen as singular works while the see through glass surface allows for each piece to also work in unison with whatever fills in the background, be that another piece from the series, a real life landscape or the work of other artists that it presents along side.