This site is a png Pastoral generator combing skys and landscapes into frames when refreshing.

Pngs (portable-network-images) are anonymous, circulated, public, and generic.

Pngs are contradictory. They appear to be a public resource, but the watermarks prevent you from getting a “perfect” image.

Pngs are a fiction. Even the transparent grid in the background of the image is just a symbol and simulation of transparency.

Pngs are advertised as a free, personal, capable, and beautiful item. All of these are idealized description.

At the same time they are not perfect. They are a mass-produced replica. They are constrained by pixels, and the grids show different sizes.

Same as Pastoral/Idyllic, a peek at utopia under the gaze of the city, a symbol of perfect fantasy. The default image background of the computer and mobile phone is always a variety of landscape scenery (e.g. Window XP desktop).

Four iconic elements - sky, landscape, frame, and the grey pixel grids are used to represent the image.

Landscape picutures are always the decorations added onto the wall. While in the context of screens, they are called wallpaper. Wallpaper is the skin on the surface, and at the same time they are the background. On the computer display interface, the file is like a picture frame on the wall. The screen is like a picture frame, carrying the beautiful countryside scenery and a dream of escaping the busy city life.

In this series of generated combination, the scenery sometimes appears within the frame, sometimes inside the frame, sometimes attached to the frame, and sometimes free from the frame. The overall is forming a gallery, a poem, a eclogue.

Junyi Shi, 2022