Mary V. Marsh, “Scenic: a travelogue”

Artist Statement

My projects explore the changing technologies of communication through a lens of personal experience and anxiety. Prints, artist's books, and installations look at how information is delivered and perceived, and investigate the intersection of experience and persuasion. I have become fascinated by the cell towers that are disguised as trees. I am trying to imagine our digital messages moving through the landscape by wire and electromagnetic waves. At each step it must be translated; from letters and symbols entered, to electronic impulses in tiny wires, decoded by a cell transceiver, then converted back to a radio signal to the receiver’s phone. Camouflaged to blend in, they exemplify our need for connection everywhere and satisfy our desire for infrastructure to be invisible. The faux trees become silent witnesses to our movements and relationships as our data is collected.

“Scenic” is a tour of eight views of concealment solutions; cell towers disguised as trees. A two-layer accordion-fold opens up to a landscape of scenery. The photopolymer intaglio prints show details of the fake trees, combined together and watercolored, they evoke a continuous scene. Original text ponders the intersection of a road trip and our digital messages traveling through a fabricated landscape. I was imagining a tourist souvenir from a past era. The table-top diorama can be opened up, arranged, and shared to remember a trip. It can then be folded up and placed in the enclosure inside a portfolio cover, ready to put back on the bookshelf.

poem in handset type:

A moving panorama, seen through car windows and screens.

Our messages travel from one transceiver to the next,

the camouflaged towers a destination on the journey.

Digits transmitted by radio waves, and relayed through network protocols,

trace our movements.

The landscape as stage set.

Mary v. marsh

California, USA
quitecontrarypress.com
IG:  @quitecontrarypress

Scenic: a travelogue
2025

Photopolymer intaglio, watercolor, linoleum cut, handset type on Rives BFK, Bugra, and Colorplan paper. Foil-stamped cloth portfolio, with inside enclosure

9 x 51 x 6 open

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