“The trees have ears and the field has eyes”
Elaine Brown - Bethe Bronson - Laura Marker
Collaborative artwork shown at Artots Gallery, S'hertogenbosch, Netherlands. "Micrographity"
exhibition with "Drawing Connections".
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Hieronymus Bosch created a drawing which includes the text ‘The Trees Have Ears and the Field Has Eyes’ and like much of his work it features an owl, this time central to the image, sitting on the branch of a tree. The trees are strange, they have ears, and the field they are set upon is riddled with eyes in the grass. Expressing perhaps the paranoia of the artist in this case – the text has been familiar to different societies through time, a metaphor for being listened to and observed by hidden powers, religious authorities, or political enemies. The walls also have ears it seems, telephones have been bugged, tiny cameras have watched, drones can find us, and technology can be hacked. Algorithms are now constantly collected from anyone and everyone. Can we ever be truly alone? Beyond the known we consider what else is lurking in the shadows, out of plain sight, on the edge of perception?
Hieronymus Bosch, The trees have ears and the
field has eyes, Pen & Ink (circa 1505).
