video art wednesday

Below is Chicago artist Nicholas O'Brien's 2008 piece, The Natural--which is not-so-coincidentally currently on view in IMAGE/PROJECT, the AAC's show of contemporary photography and video. If you haven't seen the show already: Boo, hiss.

The Natural intercuts footage from The Lord of the Rings trilogy and from various nature documentaries. Oddly, both sets of footage seem to employ the same formal conventions, satisfy the same viewer expectations, and construct the same sort of unreal space.

The Natural from Nicholas O'Brien on Vimeo.