David Trautrimas at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in TorontoPhotographs from photo-eye Gallery artist David Trautrimas’s Spyfrost project are included in the current exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. The exhibition, “Empire of Dreams:Phenomenology of the build environment" curated by David Liss runs through August 15th.
"The Spyfrost project hypothesizes the origins of domestic appliances that defined the zeitgeist of the Cold War era by digitally constructing Top Secret Military outposts out of objects such as lawnmowers, stoves and refrigerators. Fashioned with an aspiring futurism and ominous sense of destructive purpose, these Skunkwork structures capture the paradoxical connection between violence and progression. Situated in Cold War landscapes, these enigmatic experiments alternate between fiction and historical fact." -- David Trautrimas
Here's Trautrimas's breakdown of what went in to a few of these images:
Seismic Conduction Tower
•Made from various record player parts found on eBay
•Made from various record player parts found on eBay
•The landscape was shot both at the Devil's Punchbowl, which was carved out of the Niagara Escarpment by glacial waters, and at Bon Echo Provincial park, in central Ontario
•The treeline was from a photoshoot around North Bay Ontario, Home to RCAF Station North Bay. During the cold war the base was used as a logicstics center for the radar bases in Ontario, and has an underground command center nicknamed 'The Hole'. Its the Canadian counterpart to Cheyenne Mountain in the U.S.
•The single window in the structure is from a massive chocolate factory around the corner from my house. Part of the factory date back to the early 1900's. Its a great building, and usually smells nice
•The treeline was from a photoshoot around North Bay Ontario, Home to RCAF Station North Bay. During the cold war the base was used as a logicstics center for the radar bases in Ontario, and has an underground command center nicknamed 'The Hole'. Its the Canadian counterpart to Cheyenne Mountain in the U.S.
•The single window in the structure is from a massive chocolate factory around the corner from my house. Part of the factory date back to the early 1900's. Its a great building, and usually smells nice
Storm Crown Mechanism
•Made from a refrigerator I found on Craigslist just had to retrieve it from the basement of a Victorian era house (up a set of rickety wooden stairs, which is not fun when moving a 200 pound appliance)
•The landscape was shot at a provincial park called MacGregor Point on lake Huron, a region known as the Southern Bruce. Many Pine Tree radar bases built during the cold war are in a similar landscape. Also close by is RCAF Station Centralia, which was actively involved in NATO pilot training during the Cold War
•The light post is from an abandoned coal fired power plant on the Toronto waterfront