The Space Between: David Ian Bickley on Landscape and Digital Experience
In an era where technology continues to reshape not only how we see the world, but how we experience it, David Ian Bickley’s practice sits at the intersection of landscape, memory and digital transformation. Working across video, sound and immersive installation, his work explores the shifting boundaries between the natural and the constructed, the physical and the virtual.
Drawing on cinematic language and evolving media technologies, Bickley creates atmospheric environments that feel both familiar and disorienting. His works often evoke fragments of landscape, mythology and human presence, layered through moving image and sound to form spaces that exist somewhere between reality and simulation.
Rather than presenting fixed narratives, his practice invites a more fluid form of engagement. Viewers are encouraged to navigate these environments intuitively, encountering moments that feel at once grounded and intangible. In this way, Bickley reflects a broader cultural condition, where perception is increasingly mediated, and where the line between lived experience and digital construction continues to blur.
In this conversation, we explore how his practice has evolved, the role of technology within his work, and how contemporary art can reframe our understanding of place, presence and perception.
Are you self-taught, or did you undertake formal artistic training?
I am primarily self-taught. My artistic identity emerged organically from the landscapes I grew up in Derbyshire, Dorset, the salt marshes and dramatic hills that formed the background of my childhood. At seventeen, when my parents moved to a remote Dorset village, long-dormant impressions of place suddenly rose to the surface. That period coincided with my discovery of electronic music and my ability to paint, and those forces converged into a way of working that has shaped me ever since. My practice also grew through hands-on involvement with archaeologists, museums, and film work, including documenting large archaeological digs such as Maiden Castle. These experiences provided me with frameworks that felt far more formative than any conventional training.
How would you define your visual language or conceptual approach?
I describe myself – somewhat playfully as a Pre-Raphaelite quantum engineer. The phrase captures my fascination with fusing mythological symbolism and scientific wonder. In my work, micrographic textures, deep-space imagery, and mythic or ritualistic forms intertwine to generate a sense of awe, scale, and mystery. I am deeply drawn to the ‘living landscape’ – a terrain full of memory, motion, and hauntology. My imagery often arises from this sense of being inside the consciousness of place, working not only with what is physically there but what is lingering, imagined, or remembered.
Can you describe your creative process from conception to completion?
Sound is always my starting point. I compose an ambient soundtrack before I begin visual work, establishing a tonal palette that guides the entire creative journey. This sonic foundation prevents me from becoming lost, because it contains the emotional logic of the work. From there, I move through landscapes – physical and psychological – until I find resonance, a kind of key that unlocks the ‘spirit of place.’ Only then do I begin shaping materials, imagery, and narrative. For me, the process is akin to entering a mythic space: the landscape becomes the medium, and the work emerges out of its moods, memories, and elemental forces.
Does narrative, symbolism, or storytelling play a role within your work?
Narrative is essential. My work often unfolds as a journey – through time, landscape, and states of consciousness. Materials, for example, follows the arc of a day that doubles as a journey from pre-birth darkness through growth and into returning night. Symbolism arises naturally from the land itself: mountain lakes, Bronze Age circles, jagged stone fields, and ancient pathways become metaphors for thresholds, transformations, and cycles. The narrative is not imposed but discovered as I move through the terrain.
Which artists have most influenced you historically or contemporarily and why?
The Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Millais, influence me through their ability to arrest the viewer with a kind of reverent hypnosis. Richard Long shaped my understanding of walking as an artistic act, of lines drawn across land as narrative devices. David Lynch’s Dune profoundly influenced my visual sensibility, the fusion of technology with tactile, earthly materials like wood, brass, and stone. Artists of West Penwith, such as Barbara Hepworth, also resonate with me; their work captures the same qualities that draw me to that landscape: its light, geology, and deep time.
What personal, cultural, or environmental influences shape your practice?
Everything in my practice begins with landscape. Places I lived as a child, the Dorset hills and woods, the Derbyshire dales, the salt marshes – these formed a sensory and imaginative foundation. Cornwall, especially West Penwith, continues to be a profound source of clarity for me; its granite tors, prehistoric monuments, and the famed North Light create a kind of heightened awareness.
Celtic mythology, particularly the notion of ‘Celtic Song Lines,’ influences how I conceive of the land as something sung into being alive, resonant, and unfolding. I am also deeply drawn to the moods of nature: brooding, dark, dangerous, or quietly alive. These moods work symbolically with our subconscious, much like the low drone of distant thunder.
Where is your studio based, and how does the space inform your creativity?
The truth is that landscape itself functions as my studio. The places I work within – Dorset, Cornwall, the Irish landscape shape my thinking and my imagination. These environments provide not just visual stimuli but emotional and mythological entry points. My practice requires immersion: walking, listening, absorbing, and allowing the land to speak. The studio, in that sense, is always shifting, but always grounded in place.
Do you have any rituals or rhythms that anchor your studio practice?
Yes sound and movement. I begin every project by creating an ambient or drone-based soundtrack that sets the emotional and mythic tone. Walking is another essential rhythm. The act of taking a line for a walk – literally and conceptually – helps me understand the land, its layers, its moods, and its symbolic possibilities. These rituals create continuity, allowing each project to emerge slowly and intuitively from the same core approach.
What bodies of work or projects are you currently developing?
I am currently developing SPIRITS, the sequel to Materials. While Materials explores the elemental forces of landscape, SPIRITS focuses on the interface between humans and those elements. The spirits are not literal entities but conceptual mechanisms – structures of interaction, memory, and myth. The work is still in process, so its exact form continues to evolve.
Where can collectors encounter or acquire your work?
My work can be encountered through many exhibitions, screenings, installations, and collaborations with institutions that have supported or presented my projects and also at seditionart.com, my website davidianbickley.com, and davidbickley.bandcamp.com.
