Perched Above the Past by Peter Tertzakian

Glasgow, Scotland, 2023

Peter Tertzakian

Perched Above the Past

Photography

11 x 11 in (27.94 x 27.94 cm)

$450

Available

This telephoto image looks upward toward the rooftop of a 19th-century building in Glasgow. A prominent brick chimney anchors the left side of the frame, beside which leans a ladder—still in place from a time when chimney sweeping was a routine occupation. In the mid-frame, a cluster of rooftop television antennae extends into the sky from another set of chimneys. A single bird perches atop one, quietly occupying a space once tuned to broadcast.
The image juxtaposes two energy technologies that once defined domestic life: coal heating and over-the-air analog television. Both are largely obsolete, yet their infrastructure persists above the skyline. The ladder remains, even as chimney sweeping has become a rare and specialized trade. The antennae remain, though the analog signals they once captured—forms of electromagnetic energy—have been replaced by digital transmission networks. The bird’s presence doesn’t repurpose the antenna so much as reveal how obsolete structures can take on new, unintended roles—sometimes as perches, sometimes as echoes of prior energy systems.

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Purchase

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Additional Details

Additional Artworks

A Very Rich Country, 1955

Irony (Coleman Iron)

Crowded Signals of Change

Lightbulb Triptych

The Last of its Kind: Ajax 1922

Seized

GE Tantalum 1906

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