Ocula Dentata

Last arrow. Last chance to save yourself from a titanic, dripping threat.

Ocula Dentata seeks to evoke an emotional experience shared by hundreds of millions of video game players the world over. Our bodies are comfortably lounging while our brains, bellies and hormones stand alone in the fire, bow drawn taut, surging with excitement. A few hundred pixels explode into an intense lived experience.

In this work I bring together the emotional experiences of a lifetime of gaming and the specific experience of an early battle with Terraria's Eye of Cthulhu. Other influences are Little Shop of Horror's Audrey II and the writing of HP Lovecraft.

—

Ocula Dentata is a 16.7 megapixel still image depicting an enormous, bloody-toothed creature flying through an inferno of fire and arrows. I performed much of the sculpture, painting, shading and compositing work before a live audience between 2013 and 2021. Most of the light and shade were created with path tracing but the final image includes stock and hand painted effects as well.