Ovation
Ovation powerfully reimagines Marco Brambilla’s earlier video art work Sync (2005), focusing exclusively on cinematic portrayals of audience reactions. Through a carefully curated and meticulously edited sequence of iconic film clips, viewers are presented with a spectrum of emotional responses – from awe and rapture to fear and laughter – captured in evocative slow motion.
Civilization (Megaplex)
In Civilization (Megaplex), Brambilla constructs a vertical video scroll depicting an endless ascent from hell to heaven. Populated by hundreds of characters and scenes sampled from Hollywood cinema, the work reimagines religious iconography through a pop-culture lens. This continuous loop invites reflection on the interplay between morality, aspiration, and the spectacle of modern media.
Evolution (Megaplex)
Evolution (Megaplex) offers a horizontally scrolling tapestry that retells human evolution and history through cinematic imagery. Inspired by natural history museum dioramas, the work assembles elements from hundreds of films to depict an apocalyptic spectacle of human conflict. Looped sequences contribute to a hypnotic circularity, allowing viewers to parse Brambilla’s dense imagery repeatedly.
Creation (Megaplex)
Set between the birth and death of the universe, Creation (Megaplex) continues Brambilla’s series exploring the human condition through cinematic collage. This 3D video mural presents a cosmic journey from the Big Bang through embryonic inception, an idyllic Eden, to urban sprawl and eventual annihilation, before looping back to origin. Utilizing groundbreaking 3D technology, the work offers a surreal illusion of depth and vivid imagery, inviting viewers to contemplate the cyclical nature of existence.
King Size (Megaplex)
Commissioned for the opening of the MSG sphere in Las Vegas, King Size is a monumental 8K-resolution video collage that pays homage to the intertwined legacies of Elvis Presley and Las Vegas, examining their roles as metaphors for the American Dream’s entropic trajectory.
Heaven’s Gate (Megaplex)
Heaven’s Gate is part of the Megaplex series of video collages, presenting an explosion of visuals that engulfs viewers in a kaleidoscopic dreamscape.
The series — including Civilization, Evolution, Creation, and Heaven’s Gate (2008–21) — is conceived by Marco Brambilla as unfolding between the birth and death of the universe. The artwork takes viewers on a journey through Dante’s seven levels of Purgatory, each depicted as a fantastical landscape composed of loo-ping samples from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Drawing on Hollywood dreams and excesses—while referencing gaming, news, cinema, and reality TV —this installation weaves these heterogenous images into a hyper-sensory parallel universe.
Pelleas Et Melisande
This production of Debussy’s only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, presents a new concept of abstract staging where the entire scene is formed by a concave mirror, creating the impression of being inside a silver eye ball.
Commissioned for Opera Vlaanderen, Brambilla’s staging employs surreal celestial imagery to craft a metaphysical journey through themes of loneliness, violence, drama, resolution, and death. The abstract video backdrop transforms the opera into a psychological portal, immersing viewers in the subconscious realms of its characters.
Celluloid Dorothy
In this continuous video loop, Marco Brambilla presents a stylized close-up of a doe-eyed Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (1939) played by Judy Garland as she drifts into a dream like state. The interplay between light and shadow on the celluloid enhances the hypnotic rhythm, deepening the dreamlike quality. Layered visuals are made to blur the boundary between real and illusion, transforming Dorothy’s journey as an abstract homage to the golden age of filmmaking. In doing so, Brambilla invites viewers to experience Dorothy’s dream as both intimate and universal.
Apollo XVIII
Apollo XVIII is a multi-channel video installation that explores man’s relationship to space exploration.
Getaway
Shot from the point of view of a passenger aircraft, Getaway begins with an aerial view of a generic industrial district and ends with a landing on the main runway at Los Angeles’s LAX airport. The video is presented on a small LCD screen in a plastic setting designed after a 1970s Pan Am airline tray—a relic from a time when passengers could fly in style.