Van McElwee

In this piece, a radical work of Dutch architecture becomes the raw material for a series of experiments with time. Born in a computer, the building jumps again into video where it can mutate freely. Here, particles becomes pixels and matter becomes light, as the structure is melted, frozen, shattered, and melted again into a new, transmissible signal. Shot at the H2O expo, Zierikzee, The Netherlands. Architect: Lars Spueybroek/NOX. "Van McElwee transports his viewers hypnotically, viscerally, imaginatively through ingenious fascinating images and sounds. Traveling through his video art, you know you’re in the hands of a dreamer and an artist." - Diane Carson, St. Louis Riverfront Times

A wandering figure traces tunnels through a space of possibilities. “… A kind of evocative visual poetry, equally stimulating to the eye and the mind” David Finkelstein, Film Threat

This house is under construction. Its design incorporates numerous points of view into one flowing form. The sound is a field of musical patterns without a tonal center.

Transfinite Loops is a reflection on the mind's tendency to create metaphysical order in the face of chaos. The piece is both a model and a metaphor for that process. Nighttime images of carnival rides appear, mesh and then dissolve into blackness, accompanied only by the sound of wind. The work unfolds like a series of thoughts, as time and space are unraveled and woven back together into intricate knots. "As gorgeous as any fireworks display, Van McElwee’s Transfinite Loops invents dazzling astral patterns." -Stephen Holden, The New York Times "Vivid video origami erupts into a blizzard…leading out of time & space" -TL Reid, Afterimage "Transfinite Loops is infectious, life-affirming and beautiful. It makes you feel good." -David Bonetti, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

FOLDED FOLLIES is an improvisation on Bernard Tschumi’s deconstructionist follies at Parc La Villette in Paris. The structures, which the architect has described as "post-humanist, are translated into motion and then subjected to a radical transformation. Unusual demands are made of the recording capability of the medium, as video and audio signals are pushed to extremes. Space collapses and the follies are literally folded in time.

Imagine a fly's eye, but with each facet roaming independently through nighttime Tokyo. These multiple perspectives are woven together at brain wave frequencies, creating new patterns and new spaces. “It can be argued that McElwee’s Liquid Crystal simulates a new reality conducive to human survivability in the hypermodern age.” Robert Kohn, Afterimage “McElwee’s videos are not viewed so much as experienced. The repeated images, constantly changing, become embedded in the memory like a visual mantra.” - Rudy Zapf, Playback

Waves of variation reveal the contours of impossible form, as if the process of decay were reversed, causing delicate structures to emerge from the grain of chaos. “McElwee’s work is pure image-making…quite beautiful.” - Robert Duffy, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Real-world objects are turned inside-out, imploding into unnatural spaces, becoming a single substance of endless forms.