I’m so in I see Ravel, 2015

I’m so in I see Ravel is based on a digitally modelled bust of Robert Anton Wilson (1932 – 2007), the American author and polymath who became, at various times, a novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychonaut, futurist, libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic. Conceived as a quantum portrait in honour of Wilson’s theories on quantum physics, the bust formally and conceptually draws on the futuristic endeavour to capture movement and multiple points of views, contained in Umberto Boccioni’s work (such as Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913), and in the constructed sculptures of Naum Gabo. At the same time, it is updated to present a vista of the future-past via contemporary technology: the 3D rendered bust was generated through an assemblage of Google images of Wilson at various times of his life, reflecting Dawood’s cinematic approach to non-linear time.

The work is accompanied by an improvised piano piece by composer and musician Steve Beresford based on Olivier Messaien’s chromatic, synesthetic scales. These sparse melodic notes appear to nominate the spatial direction of Dawood’s biomorphic bust. The kaleidoscopic 3D graphic swivels about and turns over in space as though in freefall, in a measured act of creative spontaneity.

Click here to view a trailer.

Written and directed by: Shezad Dawood