Common conceptions of nature, such as a sunny forest or an untamed mountainside, are the products of human minds rather than a solid idea of what nature is. I wanted to investigate how these depictions of nature can reflect desires for perfection, mystery, uniqueness, and love. When thinking about the artificiality of images of nature, I looked into home decor pictures sold online. I started taking them apart and putting them back together again and writing poetry based on the elements in the collages to explore the purposes of these popular images.
Is there value in these romanticized images of nature? Can a fake portrayal of nature become a real expression of something else? What role do they play in our lives? What draws us to nature as the source for these expressions?
Considering how this exploration of nature imagery could be undertaken by others, I made a web interface that allows users to select images based on a filter of emotions. The home decor images would be combined, and poetry would be generated from the resulting picture. The final product would be sent back to the user.
