Mitosis

What do you say to a client that says "Pitch us an idea for a cool art piece and we'll fund it." You say yes! What at first seemed too good to be true, turned out to be one of the most fun projects I've worked on. I had been kicking around an idea in my head for a while. Like many of my ideas, Mitosis began with musical inspiration. I imagined a surreal undersea dreamscape that would evolve along with the music. The song begins with minimal instrumentation and gradually builds in complexity and intensity which conjures up images of a single-celled organism slowly evolving into a more complex being. I also love scuba diving and am fascinated by the strangeness of ocean life. This felt like the perfect setting for my idea, and an ideal playground to design something imaginative. I wanted to take what is already a surreal and abstract world and exaggerate it further to create something vibrant and captivating. The video begins with a single celled organism, and as the complexity of the audio track gradually increases over time, so too does the complexity, quantity, and movements of the organisms. Coral reefs begin to grow and spread, fish undulate, abstract sea plants wiggle and sway in the current and colorful thermal vents explode. The hues and caustic light shimmer as schools of fish swarm until finally it all culminates in one grandiose wide shot of the entire coral reef. The music as well, swells to a grand orchestral climax, accentuating the epic fantastical nature of Mitosis.