REALIST STATES

"Realist States" is a road trip through ghost towns and imagined landscapes, blending analogue photography, collage, and digital archives. It reimagines the tradition of the great photography road trip through the lens of modern technology, where the vastness of the world is explored not from the open road but from the confines of a screen. This observation becomes a stand-in for physical travel, creating a fragmented, mediated view of the world. It challenges the reliability of observation and the biases of the observer when algorithms curate the window through which the external world is viewed.The project examines how virtual exploration reshapes our connection to landscapes, turning what was once a tactile, immersive journey into a distant, detached experience. This perspective underscores themes of isolation and nostalgia, as the act of observing through a screen both connects and alienates, highlighting the tension between the desire to explore and the constraints of modern life.