Are we living life on loop?
There are moments in life where we’re caught up doing our day to day activities, and all of a sudden, we get struck by a strange thought: “it feels as if I’ve already done this before.” A déjà vu. Perhaps, we feel this because we dreamt a similar experience just a few nights ago. Maybe, we get this weird sensation because what we’re doing feels way too much like the past. Still, one thing is certain: it is not a pleasant sensation.
Living the same experience over and over is not something we look forward to. We all want to discover new places and be surprised by the wonders of the future. We don’t want to be repeating the same cycles time after time just to survive. To believe time is circular makes me shiver in fear for it would be an inescapable prison whose bars are placed by us. Loops are prisons. Change is one of life’s greatest reliefs.
While we do crave transformation, we abhor chaos. This is perhaps why we feel immense pleasure by looking at patterns repeated ad infinitum, beautiful, swirling artistic loops that bring order to entropy. Wouldn’t you feel happy looking out the window and seeing the same thing happening over and over seamlessly, perfectly, without a glitch?
[Fiction]
Sholim (@sholim_)
Sholim’s works are mostly GIFs in black and white or vibrant colors that follow never ending loops, accompanied by songs that remind the viewer of fresh eighties synth-pop. He composes these vignettes as if they were living collages, entangling his spectators in a hypnotic and dreamlike state.
Through clippings, zooms, and panning shots, Sholim recreates the mystery of dreams and their weird, uncanny atmosphere. His abrasive collages remind us of the visceral works of Max Ernst, and his construction of mysterious characters with distorted faces resembles the most cryptic works of Magritte.
It’s as if as if he wanted his followers to feel like they’ve fallen into an abyss of confusion and delight every time they scroll through his page, over and over again.
Antoni Tudisco (@antonitudisco)
Antoni Tudisco’s work is a humorous reflection upon society’s consumerism through a bold and glossy palette. Some of the most recurring subjects in his GIFs are moving bodies that resemble paleolithic Venuses, classical sculptures, and even pop artists.
Junk food, tennis shoes, cars, and jewelry are some of the most recurrent subjects of his work, but not in a regular fashion. He takes out the fantasy in everyday objects, making them look violently shiny.
Tudisco’s work captures the viewer in a sugar rush of color and a pop-themed fantasy. His is a strange and glamorous world you can’t wait to inhabit.
Erik Ferguson (@fergemanden)
Ferguson is a CGI animator whose work ranges from Lovecraftian monsters and dark representations of humanoids, to electrical living textures and playful gags based on random topics, such as bodily functions.
His nightmarish creatures crawl and live in mesmerizing worlds. While watching them, the viewer feels like a scientist in a lab, discovering new life forms trapped in a never ending GIF.
Ferguson’s humanoids exude darkness and horror. The precise way he combines the organic with the artificial makes them look as though they were beings from the future, from a world where people have blended with technology to create a new, strange species.
His gags, however, are on a totally different level. He creates hyperrealistic representations of body parts, dancing around as if they had life of their own. In this same style, he also creates metaphors where other strange mysterious beings reproduce bodily functions.
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These three artists show that our technological advances develop together with artistic expressions. If you’re interested in checking out some other radical artists who will take you into a dreamlike trance, take a look at the 11 neon nightmares that will haunt your sleep.
If you aspire to become an artist yourself, check out how to become a real artist in just 21 days.
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References
Sholim
