David Umemoto’s Sculptural Work Brought to Life in Ethereal Film from Nik Mirus

Director and photographer Nik Mirus has debuted his latest short film, exploring contemporary Canadian artist David Umemoto’s large-scale plexiglass sculpture, ‘Digital Architecture’. The film, which blends both stills and video techniques, showcases the development of Nik’s visual language as a photographer into his own unique style as a director. 

Represented by integrated production company L’Éloi, Nik takes an experimental approach to capturing the sculpture. Lighting and camera movements imbue David’s piece with life, paying homage to the plexiglass material, toying with its transparency and reflective qualities. Despite the rigidity of its form, Nik’s edit and stop motion sequences layer it with a level of playfulness. Viewers witness the sculpture build up and deconstruct as if the sculpture were a living organism.

In addition to spotlighting the beauty of the sculpture, Nik wishes to highlight the process in which the sculpture was created. The design of some of Umemoto’s sculptural work often begins on the computer, with classic arches, stairs and other modular pieces crafted in the digital realm. Digital files are then used in the laser cutting process to create the individual plexi pieces which can be assembled like puzzle pieces. It’s this transformation from the 2D to the 3D natural world that Nik wishes to emphasise further. 

With the use of a robotic arm, Nik was free to explore the sculpture with smooth and precise camera movements impossible to achieve with any other technology. As well as enabling greater fluidity, the arm gave Nik the opportunity to experiment with unusual angles and probing techniques that draw the viewer inside the structure, as well as sudden perspective changes for the element of surprise. The end result distorts the audience’s sense of reality and size, magnifying the sculpture to the point where it seems as though the viewer could walk through it.

Nik Mirus comments: “Over the last few years, I’ve built up a relationship with David, keen to capture photos and videos with his work as the focal point. I am so grateful to him for being so gracious as to lend me this sculpture and grant me a level of creative freedom to dive into it as I wished. I wanted to pay homage to the humble medium of plexiglass - a material I’m fond of in my personal work, too - and highlight the beauty of its geometry, the rhythm of its forms, and the optical effects created when you layer them. Visually, it’s an incredible medium, and offers so much to shoot and explore.”