kbhrjim's photostream

2010, Archival Digital Print

2010, Archival Digital Print

The opening sequence of an epic science fiction film tends to have a large amount of text explaining the situation of the earth, galaxy, universe, alternate universe, future and/or past. It is done in the hopes of not having to spend too much time explaining the back-story of the environment that the hero must traverse to finish their adventure. I myself think that isn’t giving the audience enough credit. I remember my own first experience with Star Wars as a child. I missed the grand opening sequence with the rolling golden text streaming down the screen explaining the story as taking place “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.” I tuned in when the storm troopers were overtaking princess Leia’s cruiser. From there I had to look for hints of what time period it could be—was it over our own planet that the two androids escaped into the desert? And why were there two suns in the sky? This idea of piecing together the universe that the movie was portraying was something I quite enjoyed and I always felt the film industry overlooked these experiences when speaking to the audience.

I wanted to create a body of work that used similar methods of construction and narrative to the science fiction film industry I grew up with in the late 1970s, 80s and early 90s. But I didn’t want to give all the information away up front. I wanted to give the viewer the same experience that I had as a child, trying to piece together a situation by looking for evidence of time, place, and universe. Of course you would never get a real clear understanding of all of those aspects of a film in these still images, but it is the looking that I want to encourage people to do. I also didn’t want these images to look as if they were all working together to spell one whole narrative. I wanted each to stand alone and present its own independent landscape and environment.

The opening sequence of an epic science fiction film tends to have a large amount of text explaining the situation of the earth, galaxy, universe, alternate universe, future and/or past. It is done in the hopes of not having to spend too much time explaining the back-story of the environment that the hero must traverse to finish their adventure. I myself think that isn’t giving the audience enough credit. I remember my own first experience with Star Wars as a child. I missed the grand opening sequence with the rolling golden text streaming down the screen explaining the story as taking place “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.” I tuned in when the storm troopers were overtaking princess Leia’s cruiser. From there I had to look for hints of what time period it could be—was it over our own planet that the two androids escaped into the desert? And why were there two suns in the sky? This idea of piecing together the universe that the movie was portraying was something I quite enjoyed and I always felt the film industry overlooked these experiences when speaking to the audience.

I wanted to create a body of work that used similar methods of construction and narrative to the science fiction film industry I grew up with in the late 1970s, 80s and early 90s. But I didn’t want to give all the information away up front. I wanted to give the viewer the same experience that I had as a child, trying to piece together a situation by looking for evidence of time, place, and universe. Of course you would never get a real clear understanding of all of those aspects of a film in these still images, but it is the looking that I want to encourage people to do. I also didn’t want these images to look as if they were all working together to spell one whole narrative. I wanted each to stand alone and present its own independent landscape and environment.