Luke Rizzotto - Idyllic Idling

Idyllic Idling, Computer Animation, Music, 1:30 Loop, 2022

Through travel, one enters a state of transience - vulnerability, both physical and emotional, as one goes from one place of safety to another. This feeling of liminality is pronounced when looking out at the land while traveling, and especially while driving - watching the landscape slowly morph and change over time, becoming something else. Witnessing this can remind the viewer that, much like the human body, even the massive landforms we see, no matter how impressive and grand, were formed through natural processes and will eventually erode to nothing again. The process of experiencing these emotions are not just similar to travel, but also to yearning. The yearning for something else is, to many, what drives the desire to explore and experience something new - whether that’s far-off physical spaces, nonexistent memories, or utopian tomorrows. My digital realms are an analog for this dissonance as it greets the yearning for exploration with ephemeral interaction.

Idyllic Idling presents such a state of dreamy restlessness. The viewer is bound within the hollow house - soothing yet devoid of inhabitation - while a fantastical realm of mountains and sky envelope said house. Confined to the interior, the viewer must look through the window at the unreal, undulating environment and gaze outward. Such a moment reveals the intense dissonance of yearning and the desire to be somewhere else. Within the house, the viewer must contend with the memories of and desire for happy times against the mundanity of daily life. There is a simultaneous hope and dread for what is out in the world, in conjunction with the knowledge that one must eventually return home. These works embody this process and call for the viewer to ponder their relationship between their yearnings and daily life.