Jermy Reger, Artist Statement

My two main pieces I created for this class were the still image sequence and the video.

My video project, titled "the Great Smoothie Video" was a documentation of a daily ritual of mine. I talk to other people about smoothies they make, and they passionately explain their artistic approach to the smoothie, and the wondrous tastes they produce. But they don't make smoothies as much as I do. I decided to film a different approach; capturing the process from the perspective of the ingredients. And keeping the ingredients minimal so that they stand out and the viewer can appreciate their individual beauty. I draw inspiration from directors such as Danny Boyle, who can put unique perspectives on subjects to make you feel like you are there with them, and feeling the same things that they are, no matter how strange the situation is.

I revisited the original still I took of a mysterious bicycle that had been swallowed by the sea and they spit back out... as a phoenix would rise from the ashes. For the montage, I took a more in depth look at it's parts, and reminiscent of the way that Russel Mills created artwork for earlier Nine Inch Nails albums. Mills had a way of mixing organic and non organic mediums to paint stories that are not necessarily natural in their content, but feel natural in their composition. I relied on slow pans and the zooming out of the images to give a sense of transformation, going from organic to non organic. The whole piece follows the same methods, but zooms out more and more until the last few shots you are shown that this is a bicycle that has gone through a transformation itself from a mechanical man made object, into an organic being. Much like how Jeroen Offerman changes a natural landscape in "The Great Escape" into a scene that conjures up thoughts of visiting alien beings, mechanical monsters, and a hugeness that changes the viewer from something so normal, to something very very small.

worldpeace!