Life in Retrospect and Reflection
Erik Minske
My ideas derive strongly from my work in painting, drawing and photography. I strive to explore the dark, dirty and normally unseen areas of the world. I want to marry my skills in these very different subjects together in a single project, showcasing my vision singularly.
The mood is eerie and dark, a point source light, perhaps an edge light, back light or even side light. The emphasis is on stark contrasts in light and deep detail in the rough and untouched areas of cityscapes and manmade structures taken back over by the very natural landscapes they replaced.
I took still frames that would translate into a rough animation, roughly two to five frames per second depending on motion and intensity of the scene. I edited this animation into a rough story arch to explore my feeling of nature vs. structure as well as put this animation to music, emphasizing the mood and overarching feel of the scene.
The finished video is projected into the corner of the room to emphasize the depth of field, bringing this simple two-dimensional picture back into the three-dimensional realm where it was originally taken. Over the lens of the projector is placed a “cut out” in a circular shape that is made of vellum and board to pull this widescreen footage again out of its standard two-dimensional view and more into the three-dimensional world, edging it closer to the viewer as if peering through a whole in the wall.