Naked Doom

Rankus’s elegant black and white video takes us into an intensely dark inner world. The visual elements remind us of clues in a mystery story: dark corridors, half-revealed bodies, a man with a gun, a throw of the dice. But Rankus complicates the mystery by adding scientific symbols: a flickering brain, see-through bodies, diagrams of the head, a skeletal hand. Rankus uses quirky props, lights, actors, and computer imaging to create a labyrinthine space reminiscent of di Chirico’s paintings—one that reads as an open metaphor for the subterraneous desires of the human mind.

This title is also available on Ed Rankus Videoworks: Volume 1.