It's finally happened---aliens are among us.
Ralf Brueck's images transform daily life into a sci-fi wonderland. Distorted shapes and glitches disrupt otherwise normal landscapes, making it easy to imagine paranormal activity or a good old-fashioned beaming up. In his series Dekonstruktion and Distortion, Brueck brings the unnatural closer to home.
Brueck selects locations sometimes through research and sometimes by chance. To achieve these distorted realities, he usually shoots with an analog 4x5 camera and doesn't use filters or shifts in perspective. He later works with just one photo, digitally altering specific aspects within the image. Each distortion is carefully planned before he shoots, and nothing is ever added from another image or source. “One of the ideas behind my work is to manipulate the DNA of the picture, to let it mutate. Every detail you see originates only from the one sole photo," Brueck says.
Some images take weeks to get just right. Others take months. All were developed through experimentation with the manipulation of pixels. Though he received formal training in art school, Brueck is almost entirely self-trained in digital manipulation. He likens the process to using a paintbrush. It's just another tool to get his point across.
The titles of the photos are full of cultural influences---referencing James Bond, Twin Peaks, and Stanley Kubrick, to name a few. The degree of intention isn’t important, but simply adds to the overall creeping feeling that somebody should call Mulder and Scully.
