Based on the well known picture by Alfred Wertheimer in 1956, Belgian Artist David Claerbout made this in 2015:
From http://davidclaerbout.com/KING-after-Alfred-Wertheimer-s-1956-picture-of-a-young-man-named:
Some more stills:single channel video projection, silent, HD animation, 10 min
Silent, black and white projection, based on a photograph in a book that marks the transition from ordinary life to superstardom of Elvis Presley, then aged 21.
That week in 1956, Wertheimer portrayed a young man who generously returns every shot the camera takes with an incredible calm, allowing the photographer to come very close and feel at ease with a ‘body’ that will soon transition from casual to monumental.
It is at this intersection that KING has been conceived.
..
In this animation (3D), the reconstructed head and body of Elvis have been textured using fragments of hundreds of original photographs of Elvis’ skin and features, allowing the camera to come in a close-up of one of the worlds most charismatic figures.
This reconstructed picture has been produced in a world without a lens (just a virtual lens), but it is based on an photograph taken in a world where having a lens in front of Elvis still equalled the proximity to that holy body.
To cut a corner short : a world without lenses is a world of pure concepts, severed from the world where uncontrollable things happen. It is the world of control which we are moving into, and it means living with the heavy burden of having to set-up everything in the picture (you know pictures are a metaphor for life).
It is hard to ignore the changes that took place between 1950’s modernity, a time in which we still believed everything the camera told us (the time of youthful Elvis) and today's reconstruction of that picture : the net result of a society of control.
’interface’ seems to be today's keyword, a provider of just enough freedom, or a means of just enough control. Interface determines where the fences stand, beyond which we have no access.
The conservatism that speaks from the composition (the dark interior, people and attributes) and half naked freshness that speaks from Young Elvis, got me interested I tried to show the relation between control and conservatism, with Elvis serving as the protective saint, once again.
Most- if not all- of my work is marked by the use of new technologies against control (for a change) instead of the augmentation of control. the paradox seems to be that I use precisely those technological tools
that I oppose.
Information on David Claerbout: http://davidclaerbout.com and http://www.gms.be/index.php?content=artist_detail&id_artist=12&menu=bio
Sources:
http://www.randian-online.com/np_blog/crime-and-production-a-journey-around-brussels-and-its-galleries/
http://www.gms.be/index.php?content=series_detail&id_serie=132&id_image=5946&id_artist=12
http://davidclaerbout.com/KING-after-Alfred-Wertheimer-s-1956-picture-of-a-young-man-named
http://metropolism.com/reviews/elvis-in-full-monty/
http://artaddict.net/events/article/4070/david-claerbout-galerie-micheline-szwajcer