Toby Buonagurio
Professor

EVERYONE, 2020, video, 1:26 min

For the RECKONING exhibition, I set out to create a singular photograph. My intention was to use a sparkling display to serve as a metaphor for optimism. The lighted arrangement, to be photographed, produced an array of changing, flickering lights, visible to my naked eye, but not adequately captured in a still image. This short video resulted. The changing punctuations of light reminded me of a fireworks display projected onto a night sky filled with flickering stars, creating at least momentarily, our own beautiful contribution to the cosmos.

“Sunrise,” the prelude to Richard Strauss’ 1896 composition: “Also sprach Zarathustra,” immediately came to mind; the iconic soundtrack from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”