CUBE (2021) is a personal exploration of emotional states as they relate to re-learning how the world worked in the early stages of the pandemic. Isolation, anxiety, existentialism, and claustrophobia examined through dance and movement; exacerbated and distorted through use of an ultra wide angle lens. An un-reality developed to look inward. Some of the most personal work I’ve created to date.

I will be releasing this work first on Instagram and blogging it here in segments. A necessary step, as just with The Artists That Move Me last summer, I’m editing, writing, and posting these as I go. As of this writing, the edits remaining equal those that have are complete.

Distortion was my 2020 mood. Everything thrown for a loop and a new understanding of the world around us sudden forced upon literally everyone. It was at times maddening trying to come to terms with. This series helped me channel a lot of the frustration and rage and disappointment of what I thought the world was going to become compared to what it ended up being.

My first time shooting a studio project on an ultra-wide lens: The Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 AF-S. Mainly used for architecture, up close it distorts body proportions and perspective into the weirdness you see here. Slightly less subtle than the reality that much of my creative work is rooted in, I wanted to explore unusual perspectives, improv, athleticism - all the things that I’m drawn to working with dancers. Add just enough digitial manipulation to create some leading lines and you have CUBE.

Movement and melancholy

A new perspective was what was missing. I’d grown tired of the flattened perspective of Lumination, and hadn’t quite gotten the overhead look right with Big Stage… Id tried shooting with my ultra wide lens with a dancer in 2019 and it hadn’t quite worked out either. It was intentionally unflattering, allowed for highly distorted body proportions, and the potential of forming new shapes… it just lacked that punch that I was searching for.

I was looking for something simple (ha!) to do creatively when we were finally allowed to have collaborators back in studio again last summer. Similar to the Big Stage series, I knew I wanted to show the structure of the stage beneath the dancers- these huge stage pieces themselves, cords and strobes et al. It was interesting and no one else has anything like it in their studios around here right now! :D This is the fourth or fifth project created around this staging, with more to come this year. I’m becoming a master of making due with what you have, and last year was a hell of a time to flex that. :)

Its been weird editing these en masse this month and realizing that I’ve changed a lot as a person since these were shot. I channeled a lot of the anxiety and depression that the stay at home orders brought on by working through my creative backlog which, in the end, enabled a whole year of healing, recuperation, and reclamation of the self.

On a long enough timeline, one is bound to have to look inward eventually, right…?

Creatively confined

I wanted to add another dimension to the project (no pun)… I liked the boxed in feeling, the claustrophobic nature of confined space. Similarly to Big Stage, I knew I wanted to show the structure of the stage beneath the dancers. I wanted to show the behind-the-scenes of these huge stage pieces themselves, cords and strobes et al. The ultra wide lens allowed me to push in closer (while masked ofc) to the subject, while keeping much more of their body and movement in frame than I typically would see. Hands and feet close to the camera seen bigger than the rest of the body combined. Moods accentuated, punctuated, by distortion.

I don’t feel a lot of these confined emotions anymore. Not daily at least. The pandemic has gone on long enough now that I’ve made my peace and have learned to work within the new parameters of daily life. I’m trying to find the phrasing and the descriptions for how I feel about this work looking back now. I’m not the same kind of angry. I’m not really angry anymore. This work was about the path that lead to enabling inner peace.

Cube no.9 //  @sesoldance — Cube no.9 // @sesoldance

Making art with others last year was a difficult undertaking. I’m fortunate that most of my creative work is produced in a one-on-one studio environment anyway and that this look basically set itself up. So making the adjustment to adding masks and space was not a huge additional undertaking. Doing this project during a heatwave in a brick building with no air conditioning however was… difficult.

Really, I just wanted to hug all these brilliant artists at the end of this intensive series… but y’know… can’t yet so …

Tech Bits:

Photography, Video, Post Production: Tim Nguyen
Models: Serenella Sol, Cindy Ansah, Samantha Ketsa, Emily Losier, Esther Lam, Zach Running Coyote
Camera: Nikon D800
Lenses: Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 AF & 50mm f/1.5 AF
Lights: 2x Elinchrom Style 600RX strobes from directly above and below
Average post production time: 45 minutes per image
Texture Pack: Envato Elements
Total images in series: 72