American photographer Tom Bamberger digitally creates panoramas that are inspired by one question — how far can the horizon line of an image be convincingly extended? His work involves digital technologies that explore notions of time and perception. By blurring the line between his digital alterations and the existing shape of the landscape, Bamberger explores the nature of repetition, arguing that there is little difference between, for example, DNA’s reproductive process in a forest or field and the computer cloning that his work depends on.
He says, “My panoramic photographs (2000-2005) were derived from a small sample. It was a long process of multiplication and subtraction. Thousands of imperceptible changes accumulated until the obvious symmetries washed away and the pattern hovered between the “natural” and synthetic. This systematic artificial process refines the subject into a question of how we see.”
Bamberger attended Boston University, Massachusetts and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he studied philosophy and taught mathematical logic. He has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in the U.S. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a fellowship from the Wisconsin Arts Board, he currently serves as the adjunct curator of photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
