THE OTHER
SIDE OF
THE FRAME

#005

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Each animated scene in DEEPWORLD begins with an act of homage. The composition is constructed faithfully from an iconic Western painting or photograph, a work that has historically represented leisure, beauty, power, or domestic tranquillity. The figures, the light, the spatial arrangement are reproduced in 3D with care and precision.

Then the camera turns. Just outside the original frame and in the space the painter chose not to show, catastrophe is already underway. The asteroid was always approaching. The volcano was always erupting on the other side. The Titanic was always sinking just out of shot.

The Western art historical tradition, in this reading, is a sustained act of selective framing: an agreement between painter and patron to look only at the beautiful, the powerful, the serene.

DEEPWORLD completes the picture.

An atomic explosion rushing toward the reimagined Birth of Venus (Botticelli, c.1484–1486)

Washington Crossing the Delaware. The Titanic sinking; a lone survivor adrift on a flamingo float

The Titanic sinking; a lone survivor adrift on a flamingo float (AFTER WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE ·LEUTZE, 1851)

A burning asteroid falling toward the garden (AFTER The Swing · FRAGONARD, 1767)

Erupting volcano beyond the window; their mansion renderedin glass; a chrome pterodactyl overhead

Erupting volcano beyond the window; their mansion renderedin glass; a chrome pterodactyl overhead (AFTER The Arnolfini Portrait, Van Eyck, 1434)

A volcano erupting on the far bank (AFTER A SUNDAY ON LA GRANDE JATTE · SEURAT,1884–1886)

An asteroid on its final approach to the city below (AFTER Lunch atop a Skyscraper - Ebbets, 1932)