Into the Abyss and Back
By Steve Bennett | December 13, 2020
This video was created four years before COVID-19 struck, as a multimedia arts project. Now that there’s an end in sight, given the vaccine and a new administration, the video strikes me as an appropriate metaphor for this juncture in the pandemic. We collectively sank into an unthinkable abyss and hopefully upon the return voyage we’ll be better able to deal with future shared crises.
Details: This collaborative video takes us on a journey through the rich world of a spider’s web after a gentle rainfall. Motion designer Luis Socorro crafted a series of my hi-res macro shots into a virtual camera tour that simulates how the scale of the universe might be perceived by a being trapped in one tiny drop of water. The actual section of web featured in the video is only a few inches at its widest and an inch deep. But to such a tiny creature, a journey through the web might seem like an interstellar voyage.
Copyright © 2020 Steve Bennett
Steve Bennett is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based visual artist. He began taking photographs more than 40 years ago, in the age of film, and transitioned to digital photography in the late 90s. Today, in addition to taking and making traditional street, macro, and landscape photographs, he creates photo-based abstract composites designed to take viewers on fanciful flights of the imagination through virtual realms. His work has been displayed in numerous juried exhibitions, and at Google’s Kendall Square, Cambridge offices as well as various technology, biotech, and financial service companies in the Boston area.