2002
Our Cosmos, Our Chaos, 2000
Film still
As an undergraduate art student at Penn State, Erica Cho studied printmaking and oil painting. After graduating she became interested in the field of experimental video animation, and, attracted to its narrative capabilities, began to explore new possibilities in the medium. She entered the MFA program at the University of California at Irvine, where she focused on animation while supplementing her coursework with self-directed studies of the Brothers Quay and Zech animators like Jan Svankmajer. Her critically acclaimed shorts Kimberly Bahp Makes Sushi For Two (1998), a comically satiric take on food snobbery, and We Got Moves You Haven't Even Heard Of (1999), are examples of Cho's early explorations into this medium.
For the past several years she has concentrated on completing Our Cosmos, Our Chaos, a stop-motion animated film set in present day Koreatown, Los Angeles, which deals with Korea's history and the immigrant experience. Inflected by the genres of science fiction, German expressionism, and film noir, Our Cosmos, Our Chaos employs characters made from wire constructions or reassembled doll parts, and was shot using the stop motion capability and the macro lens on a Sony PD 150 miniDV camera. Cho also incorporated watercolor, documentary footage, animated cut-outs and archival footage in this mesmerizing film, her most ambitious project to date.
Our Cosmos, Our Chaos, 2000
Film still
Our Cosmos, Our Chaos, 2000
Film still