High Life

What initially looks like a stream of pixels – or buttons on an early supercomputer – is actually an industrial car park shot from directly above by photographer Stephan Zirwes. Vertigo sufferers look away now, says an anxious SpaceTM's Mark

Google Earth has provided everyone with an insight as to how beautiful landscape can be when seen from various heights. Yet these views, however fascinating, miss the mannered selection found in Stephans work. His shooting height seems to be the perfect mid-way between improbably high and just low enough to make detail on the edge of recognisable. This is at its most revealing when focussed on expansive man-made areas.

They show the intricate way man orders and patterns his space, whether by design or by accident. Stephan reveals designs on a scale so epic that their creators on the ground could never really understand them or even know what they are creating.