Bernard Lang’s wonderful aerial photographs of port terminals change everything. With our perception skewed by his calculated formalism our sense of space is put out of kilter, we are sent into space to see a new world divorced from humanity, a mosaic of flat colours and geometric shapes.
Lang shows us a mechanised world, one that is devoid of emotion and feeling yet is beautiful within its own certainty. It’s an aesthetic that ashews expression in favour of the cold and rational, a world as a geometric maze of machines. Yet there is something a little frightening about this vision as it precludes humanity and reinforces the primacy of the machine. It is an unsettling picture that leaves you wanting reassurance, to touch the earth, breath in the sky and feel the heat of the sun.