| gothic pastoral | curated: halo + ian bruner


when we think about nature, why do we imagine it as utopian and harmonious?
what are we missing when we erase the brute exchange of life force and the realities of the biotechnological era?
we have to get acquainted with the idea that there is no real harmony in the universe as we have conceived it, in order to find the harmony that is really there.


i’ve rarely liked outdoor shows. the sentimental greenery, the construction of nature as the opposite of the artificial world rings hollow to the poetry of our present. i’ve been searching for an index of the natural world which is more true, which speaks to ancient and current conditions of life: one which is burdened, ecstatic, adulterated - still striving to experience beauty and relentlessly full of both life and destruction.

Gothic Pastoral is a project exploring the auras of the new pastoral, the 1000s of miles of apocalyptic sky gracing the overgrown fields and twisted forests which comprise so much of our actual planet: unsorted, nowhere, a new 'nature' that exists in contrast to -- and is the production site which supports -- the leafy green fantasy. we daydream about the hymns of the unseen, of rusted-out server stacks slowly leaking our secrets and rare earth minerals back into the earth, of petroleum-based animism congealing into the sacred chorus of avatars + dolls + angels, of 5G pylons humming their prayers into our hearts and into oblivion -- we dream of our surroundings closing in around us like fate and of our corporeal bodies scattered across space, suspended like the lagged glow of extinguished stars and pierced by both known and unknowable histories.

here we join in the shambles and thickets, a massively multiplayer network of ritual interventions in the backalleys and wastelands that we call our home.

- halo, 20.03.2021




gothic pastorial curated by torre alain


gothic pastorial curated by torre alain
jürgen baumann, charlotte besnard, ringo lukas, xiheua, viktoria dagostino, chloé arrouy, about
gothic pastoral iv: plunged into the lovely things


gothic pastorial curated by torre alain


gothic pastorial curated by torre alain


gothic pastorial curated by torre alain