Is Kilian Eng a Time Traveler? A Look at Eng’s Work and His Spectacular New 2001: A Space Odyssey Print
By B Feldz
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What I love about Eng’s work is that it consistently plays with the familiar and unfamiliar, and Eng’s willingness to let his influences show greatly aids in producing this feeling of something familiar, but something new. While Moebius is his most recognizable influence, there are also whimsical evocations of Hayoa Miyazaki in Eng’s figures and landscapes, not to mention the grandfather of the comic-strip, Windsor McCay, being present in his vivid color palate and costumes.
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Dressed like jesters, characters Inhabit a fantastical environment. The Saturation of the colors faded due to the comic being over 100 years old.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_3200" align="alignright" width="214"]

Robots evoking the jester in their antics and appearance while in a fantastical environment.[/caption] Eng’s work is more complicated than simple nostalgia or homage to past masters. Rather, it operates in the world of alternate histories and parafictions. Eng’s print for Jodorowsky’s Dune is created for a film that never was, yet the print evokes the image from the documentary chronicling the film's failed production. The print, like the film, redeems Jodorowsky’s Dune from being lost to history. [caption id="attachment_3195" align="aligncenter" width="199"]

Poster for the film that never was.[/caption] In the same vein, Eng’s poster for Argo imagines what the poster for the film within the film would look like. This example is particularly interesting because the image does not describe any of the portrayed events in the actual narrative of the film. [caption id="attachment_3198" align="aligncenter" width="200"]

Depicting the film with in the film, not the film itself.[/caption]
In Eng’s 2001 print there is a slight departure from the examples mentioned above.
The print focuses on one of the films most visually spectacular moments, when the main character travels through time and space. Not only is the 2001 print an homage to that great moment in film history, but also to great special effects artists Douglas Trumbull and John Whitney. The process Trumbull used was called slit scan -- created without the use of computers. To briefly explain, traditionally the entire frame was exposed at once; however, in slit scan, only a small slit of the film is exposed at a time. To find out more about the slit scan, I recommend watching this video by John Hess. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhRo2WbWnKU
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