Scape-Mates (1972) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

Release, runtime and language

1972 · 29 mins · English

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Directed by

Ed Emshwiller

Starring

Stoney Emshwiller, Sarah Shelton, Emery Hermans

In an early video experiment, Emshwiller builds an electronic landscape that blends abstract and figurative elements. Color‑graded dancers are chroma‑keyed into a mutable, computer‑animated setting created with the Scan‑i‑mate analog synthesizer. The work layers frames within frames, lets disembodied heads and hands drift through a collage of animated forms, and continuously reshapes dancers and scenery via image‑processing, juxtaposing “real” and “unreal” to craft a sculptural illusion of three‑dimensional space and a new visual vocabulary.