Edward Rankus Videoworks: The Old and the New

Since the late 1970’s Professor Rankus has been creating fine art video productions that have screened internationally, have won numerous awards, and are in the collections of major museums. His film, Naked Doom (1983) is part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and his film, She Heard Voices (1986) is part of the permanent collection at The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. His film, AlienNATION (1979), caught the attention of the cultural critic Fredric Jameson, who regards it as historically and culturally significant, devoting a large part of a chapter in his book, Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, to an analysis of it.

According to Film Freeway, “Rankus’ work references the symbolic systems of science-fiction films, behavioral psychology experiments, sub-atomic particle physics, Spanish mysticism, Zen Buddhism, and Greek mythology. Concerned with the hazy borderline between inner and outer worlds, his work invokes a surrealist/expressionist aesthetic. Rankus’ work is masterfully edited and deeply ironic, and he is able to wring drama from mundane subjects. The play of symbols is very important in Rankus’ work, which in some ways approaches still-life painting in its juxtaposition of essential elements to create moods and meanings. Rankus layers various cultural symbols and builds on viewer expectations to question the arbitrary conventional boundaries of “reality” and “self.”