Orbis Obscurus – August 2008
Anamorphic Video, Aerial Animation
Four large monitors sit atop a group of pedestals. Each holds an undulating, folding, rotating mass– a mysterious blob of varying color and texture, like a soft asteroid hovering in the middle of a blue field in endless mutation.
Viewers, circling the group of luminous orbs notice a reflective cylinder sitting on the hormonal screen at one edge. Looking carefully, they see in the distorted reflection a small landscape from the recognizable world sweeping past as viewed from an airplane. This small reflective moment makes sense of the abstract bulges and rotations of the strange soft asteroid on the screen.
Each flyover is a journey, a sweeping view of a particular earthly landscape The four journeys are obliquely lifted from literature of hardship, flight, grueling travel and intimate, troubled landscape. The anamorphic processing of the video creates a monstrous, and appealing mystery; resolution by the curved mirror supplies a comforting sense of recognition.
Thanks to Ruth Ann Brown / NAAU Portland