In 1818, the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich painted Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, his most famous artwork, which depicted a hiker looking out from a mountaintop over a misty sea of clouds, amidst a rocky landscape – emblematic of the Romantic movement in art in which untouched nature was idealised, dramatised and presented almost as a state of mind.

Digital natives today could easily mistake his depiction of the wanderer we see from behind as an in-game photograph of an avatar in third-person perspective. The third-person perspective is a common avatar-based interaction model in which the gamer is always looking at the back of their embodiment in virtual space.

Watching and following a digital persona makes one not only aware of their own control over their avatar, but it also emphasises the act of looking as a detached way of watching ourselves from a distance. Caspar David Friedrich's 'avatar' is looking at a sublime landscape stretching out in front of him. 

Two centuries later, our ecstatic view upon nature seems to have barely changed. Blockbusters such as Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) and the film series Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2014) employ what is called 'the establishing shot', the opening scene in which the landscape where the story will take place is gloriously presented to the spectator. These movies have appropriated the nature of New Zealand as a vast Garden of Eden, pure and unspoiled. Through myths and legends, mountains and forests take on a new identity from their cinematographic alter egos.

The artist duo Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács travelled through the wilderness of New Zealand appropriating these same landscapes that serve as sublime backdrops. By documenting these scenes and layering their photographs into an architecture of fragments, they created the video work Establishing Eden.

In Establishing Eden, a series of landscapes continuously unfold in the most breath-taking way. But through the camera's movements, time and again these establishing shots are subsequently revealed to the viewer as being two-dimensional illusions. The perspective of the photographs is constantly flipping, turning into tumbling set pieces in virtual space.

As if we are Caspar David Friedrich's wanderer, Broersen & Lukács simultaneously construct and deconstruct the myth of the landscape right in front of our eyes. What seem to be vast landscapes and endless horizons are ultimately revealed as confined frames that define the limitations of our views. 

The video work, constructed out of moving images, is therefore not so much a documentation of landscapes, but a simulation that has more to do with our perception of – and cultural-historical ideas about – nature than our physical relation with the landscape. In an eternal now, we spectators float through this fabricated landscape of landscapes, craving limitless consumption of the sublime.

This text is an excerpt of an article written by Mirjam Kooiman about Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács’ project Establishing Eden originally published in Foam Magazine 51, Seer/Believer, in 2018.

PERSIJN BROERSEN & MARGIT LUKÁCS are an Amsterdam-based artist duo whose practice explores the intricate entanglements between nature, culture and technology. Their practice includes films, digital animations, and spatial installations that explore how media shapes perceptions of the natural and constructed worlds. Graduates of Graphic Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, they went on to complete their MFA at the Sandberg Institute and were artists-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Broersen & Lukács’ artistic inquiry is rooted in a deep engagement with media theory, art history, and mythology. Their work often reflects on the politics of representation and the appropriation of nature—reconfiguring dominant narratives through fragmented, multi-perspective storytelling. Their installations and films have been widely shown at major institutions and international biennials, including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL), Centre Pompidou (FR), FOAM (NL), MUHKA (BE), Centraal Museum(NL), MacKenzie Art Gallery (CA), WRO Biennale (PL), Biennale of Sydney (AU), Rencontres Internationales (HKW Berlin, Louvre/GrandPalais/CWBP, Paris), and Wuzhen Biennale (CN). In 2024, they represented the Netherlands at the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. Their film I Wan’na Be Like You was nominated for the Tiger Award/ IFFR 2025.

Mirjam Kooiman is a curator and art historian at Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam, where she focuses on contemporary photography and its intersections with digital culture, identity, and technology. With a background in Art History and Curating Arts and Culture, she has curated exhibitions featuring artists such as Ai Weiwei and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and contributes regularly to Foam Magazine. Her work often explores themes like virtual reality, gaming, and postcolonial perspectives.