Hedge Southland (2006)

Hedge Southland shows a rural field across which runs a dark hedge with a hole in the middle. Through the hole, and in the sky above, you can see a glowing orange sunset. The camera pans up and the exposure settings of the camera auto-adjust to reveal a resplendent sky, then pans down again, the sky returns to white, before the camera turns up again to reveal the beautiful sky.

Hedge Southland is shakily filmed, in the hand-held, serendipitous manner of many of Parkes’ video works. The work almost plays as a visual joke, a sleight of hand that reveals a resplendent sunset—the subject of innumerable landscape paintings—only to take it away again. The work also shows how what we see is mediated by our technologies; our phones can autofocus objects into and out of existence.