Noémie Goudal is a French artist who lives and works between Paris and London. In 2010 she graduated from the Royal College of Art and since then she has worked on many series.
In the Observatoires series, produced in 2013-2014, she shows many science fictional architectures in quiet landscapes. Her work is an encounter between realistic documentary images and dreamy illusions. Her work is inspired by images of German artists Bernd et Hilla Becher, whose interest is focused on industrial buildings and objective black and white photographs.
She has used methods that blend traditional photographic techniques with physical manipulation. What look like large, geometric structures set in barren landscapes are in fact two dimensional facades constructed from paper, which Goudal has photographed to appear ancient yet futuristic. The buildings are photographs of small scale architectural models that have been blown up, printed on paper, mounted on card and then set in the landscape. Though the images have a grainy, documentary feel to them, their content is an illusion. The paper constructions have fold lines and in some images, even the tape that holds the buildings together is visible.