Things to Come

Things to Come
Things to Come

2011, UK, 16mm, b/w, silent, 6 min.

Ellard and Johnstone departed from a series of unpublished production photographs by the Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy. In 1936, while living in London, he was commissioned by fellow Hungarian film producer Alexander Korda to design a future city for the British science fiction film Things to Come. He created kinetic sculptures and abstract light effects, but they were rejected by the film’s director because it was claimed to be “so rich a visual result that the editor did not dare use it”. Ellard and Johnstone rebuild the set in Site Gallery in Sheffield. The film consists of abstract synchronized movement across and around this model to create a dynamic play of light, shadow, reflection, parallax, depth, surface and prismatic special-effects. The result is like a choreography for three dimensional forms in motion.