ease one + Christina Angelina | THE kinetoscope
slab city, california
photo by fna photo
The Kinetoscope is a circular mural inside an abandoned water tank by ease one and Christina Angelina in Slab City, California.
Visitors must climb a staircase to the top of the tank (roughly 15 ft), where there is a ladder to take them back down, into the structure. Once inside, amplified sound reverberation accompanies two series of artistically rendered female faces. Faces are captured in a variety of freeze frames and combined to create motion, inspired by the work of photographer Eadweard Muybridge.
Each individual face embodies a specific emotion tied to a meaningful moment when Angelina trusted her intuition, an inherent sense often ignored by society. The subtle interconnectedness of these moments creates a sense of "magic" in its movement as each form contributes to the natural flow of the piece. Her use of totem animals continues through the incorporation of raven and rattlesnake skulls.
Faces sit atop a ghostwritten blend of Eastern/Western writing styles by Ease One. These hidden words form the lyrics to Society by Jerry Hannan and Eddie Vedder.
It's a mystery to me
We have a greed with which we have agreed
You think you have to want more than you need
Until you have it all you won't be free
Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
This piece uses a limited palette to subtly unify elements of figuration, lettering and graf futurism in a sophisticated, stylized manner. The background is of latex paint, the rest is of spray paint.
Related links: National Geographic, designboom, Huffington post, laughing squid
the kinetoscope | process
