Cities and industrial farming make it seem man is in perfect control. The reality is far more interesting. The soil may vary, the drainage may be imperfect, weeds and bugs inevitably wreak havoc; storms, droughts, animals and birds will interfere, all resulting in strangely beautiful images. The truly uncontrollable forces of nature are mutation, chance, hybridity, and contamination. This vital forces of the earth always burst through the human grid and in the long run will always overpower technology. (Dirk van Weelden)

The land is in constant flux, but we have a hard time seeing that, as we are seldom in sync with the processes involved. We do not take the trouble, we do not take the time. These images bring us in sync (the right speed, the right height, the right angle) and the eerie beauty they reveal suggests humans, for all their cleverness, have but a faint idea what they are dealing with. (Dirk van Weelden)

The feeling these images stir - and maybe it is their origin too - is an urge to go out. Go outside, outdoors. To leave the room, the house, the street, the town. To leave the studio, the easel, the canvas, and human company. To wander in fields and woods, along rivers and in deserts. Not just to be out there and collect images, but also to act on a desire. (Dirk van Weelden)

Art works through the senses, and when it aspires to something beyond a cheap thrill and decorative effect it could be described as a means of expanding our consciousness. These images are the result of the desire to establish a direct link between senses and consciousness. (Dirk van Weelden)

Door met zijn vliegers en - nu ook - een heliumballon naar New Mexico te gaan, zocht De Ruijter het risico van de leegte, een ruimte zonder houvast. Zonder maat geen tuimeleffect. En het landschap van New Mexico is bovenmaats. Tenminste, op ooghoogte, want vanuit de vlieger of ballon van De Ruijter blijkt dit landschap wel degelijk in staat tot een Gestalteffect. In dit nieuwe werk brengt niet zozeer de spanning tussen het figuratieve en het abstracte de kijker uit zijn evenwicht, maar neemt de onzekerheid over het hele grote en het hele kleine die rol over. De toeschouwer pendelt tussen de twijfel naar een macro-opname van een fossiel te kijken of een foto van de maan vanaf de aarde gezien. (Peter Delpeut)

De blik van de toeschouwer pendelt voortdurend tussen deze twee verhoudingen, die van de menselijke maat en die van de grotere orde, die van het detail en die van de structuur. Het Gestalteffect van het figuratieve naar het abstracte en vice versa, lijkt in de foto's van De Ruijter nergens beter mee te articuleren dan met het Nederlandse cultuurlandschap.

The works based on satellite images excluded, they are the product of someone walking through the terrain we see. He was not hovering above it in a balloon, or speeding over it in a helicopter or an airplane. He was right there, alone, a physical part of the space, touched by the light, the wind, the snow; his kite and his camera the tools that enabled him to become a sensing part of the land.

This time Gerco de Ruijter has gone to even further heights. The project “Crops” also contains a stop-motion film he put together using aerial and satellite images of irrigation crop circles. For those of you who haven’t been a country bumpkin, many cultivated farmlands look like huge patchwork quilts of circles, fed by the massive irrigation systems that rotate on a central pivot. The work is a commentary on the vast quantities of water required to feed our crops, which has contributed to rivers like the Colorado running dry.

The work is slightly haunting, and with the score, reminds me of some off-kilter projected movie that might pop up in a game like Riven. As BLDGBLOG points out, it’s also reminiscent of the tree ring turntable created by Bartholomäus Traubeck. But no matter the interpretation, the work has one essential truth: All of that water and all of those circles are down there, waiting to end up in your belly.

In the southwest of the USA the technique of centre pivot irrigation is widely used. Here these circles fit exactly into the square grid which was developed by the Public Land Survey System after the civil war.

The feeling these images stir - and maybe it is their origin too - is an urge to go out. Go outside, outdoors. To leave the room, the house, the street, the town. To leave the studio, the easel, the canvas, and human company. To wander in fields and woods, along rivers and in deserts. Not just to be out there and collect images, but also to act on a desire.

Dutch photographer Gerco de Ruijter loves looking down on the Earth. But don’t worry, he’s not some snob. He just seems obsessed with gaining new perspectives, as evidenced by the time he invaded the Netherlands with a pigeon, and his stunning aerial photography of tree farms.