Daniel McKewen | Explosive Revelations

Dan McKewen’s work entitled Explosive Revelations employs the device of the Hollywood-style explosion to expose the constructed and futile nature of the moving image. Pointless, impotent explosions bloom and fade, punctuating a non-existent narrative – they promise the spectacle of violence but destroy nothing and disappear without a trace. The video itself is sourced from a stock footage supplier that provides users with a selection of explosions that can be inserted into movies by masking out the background. McKewen does not use this footage as intended, leaving them instead as merely explosions erupting on top of a black background, fizzling out into non-existence.