Sixteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This research takes wind turbines—as emblematic structures of contemporary energy infrastructure—as its main subject. It approaches them as intermediaries between architecture, human activity, and the Earth’s climate, aiming to reconstruct their functional, eco-political, and aesthetic dimensions through artistic means. By examining how energy infrastructures are perceived, represented, and critically reimagined through photography, 3D modeling, scanning, and video, the study seeks to develop a speculative visual language for electric landscapes. Field investigations generate technical imagery while exploring wind turbines as mediators of invisible forces—such as wind and energy flow—and as symbols of the complex technical, ecological, and political debates that surround them. The research adopts an interdisciplinary methodology combining visual studies, cartography, and spatial analysis. It analyzes aerial and satellite imagery to map spatial patterns of wind energy networks and their relationships with surrounding non-human ecologies. Using historical remote sensing data and platforms like Google Earth Engine, the study traces infrastructure expansion alongside ecological change. Satellite heatmaps, temperature charts, and storm path visualizations serve as both climate risk perception tools and aesthetic foundations for speculative environmental imaging. Finally, the study aims to construct a visual analytical model of technological energy imagery within wind power systems. By analyzing the use of digital languages in contemporary art—such as 3D scanning, spatial visuality, and machine vision—it proposes new ways to perceive and reimagine energy infrastructures as aesthetic and symbolic constructs.