The idea for this piece came from an image of a Kaiserpanorama, a flash in the pan in the history of cinema. The early 19th century, similar to today, was a time in which Westerners were desperate to experience other realities. In contemporary times, the world is smaller, travel more accessible, and we are saturated with images taken from every corner of the globe. Yet we still crave the experience of the altered reality, the virtual reality, the escape, the frontier, something external that will transform us. How- and why- does this insatiable longing for the unknown shape our lives?

Our Kaiserpanorama is shown in an auction house; an institution deeply linked to the history of exploring, collecting and trading in the antique and "exotic". With the early cabinets of curiosities (or Wanderkammen) through the auction houses and museums of today, comes the promise that each of us can view or even privattely own a slice of the unknown or the unknowable.

The urge to collect, explore, and discover are central to our culture; it is both a violent colonial impulse and a catalyst for centuries of art and literature. Also now central to our culture is the fear of environmental destruction and the sense that we have filled the world with our longing-there is nothing left to discover but the unknown consequences of our consumption of Earth's resources.

Our fantasy is falling apart. The views you will find in this kaiserpanorama teeter on the line between wonder and fear, awe and catastrophe, architectual triumph and decay, and a playful and uneasy relationship with the "natural".