Paul Landon
Fly Me to the Moon

2004

Paul Landon’s recent work is an attempt to recreate, through sound and moving image, the dreamlike state induced by various indeterminate spaces. The single-channel work Fly Me to the Moon is composed of a series of photographs that are subjected to computer animation. The title is lifted from a Frank Sinatra song, the opening bars of which are played on a loop in the video’s soundtrack. With each repetition, one second is cut from the looped sequence; the image is then rotated in sequence with the music, inducing a hypnotic effect that conjures a mental state akin to distraction. The conclusion of the video, with its reprise of the uncut musical excerpt, summarizes the sense of being “spaced out,” or in French, dans la lune.