BIO
Mr. Scerbak was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up overseas in the Foreign Service. He returned to the United States to attend the University of Michigan where he earned a Masters in Architecture, with distinction. He went onto a career in architecture and construction management, practicing in Michigan and Alaska, where he specialized in fast-track delivery techniques on large scale commercial and military projects. Throughout his career as an architect, Mr. Scerbak remained a practicing artist with a keen interest in how perception is influenced by the intersection of philosophy, history, and culture. He completed an MFA in Photography and Related Technologies from Parsons School of Design in 2015 and is presently a Project Manager/Architect for capital projects at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
August 2015 Push Pull -Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery, New York March 2015 Hyphen - Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sept 2014 Ping Yao International Photo Festival 2014, Shanxi Province, China Sept 2014 Photoville 2014, Brooklyn, New York June 2014 Future Projections - Auckland Festival of Photography, Auckland, New Zealand Sept 2013 Photoville 2013, Brooklyn NY, USA Jan 2012 The Bear Gallery/Fairbanks Art Assoc., Fairbanks, Alaska Jan 2012 Well Street Art Company, Fairbanks, Alaska
VISITING ARTIST LECTURE
Ping Yao International Photo Festival 2014, Shanxi Province, China
PHOTOGRAPHIC INVENTIONSIn order to explore imaging that attempts to recreate how we actually perceive the world, I invented several optical devices.
The first invention is a spherical panoramic device that enables a compression of depth of field in a wide angle view to more closely mimic the physiological and psychological perception of distance. The images in the projects Trees and Tundra were taken with this device.
The second optical devise is derived from my experience with design as an architect and the ancient Greek concept of aisthesis, or the idea that perception occurs simultaneously with all of our senses, and with the intellect, but - crucially - that each sense affects all the others (which is different than our modern view that tends to isolate each sense as a separate, discrete mode of perception). We see, we hear, but our hearing does not affect what we see. The Greeks felt otherwise, and my experience and research tells me they were right.
The device I invented enables a combining of two or three distinct perspectives, fusing them into a single point of view. The resulting images are impossible to achieve using digital imaging software (like Photoshop) since the optical images and ground plane are not superimposed but physically interact with each other, and in real time.
Many elements of perception that do not exist in the physical world but are nevertheless experienced as "real" are isolated and re-posited with this device to show how visual awareness extends further - and more deeply - than what is simply seen with the eyes. Foreground, background, horizon, scale, color, focus, depth of field, white balance, perspective are re-combined in new ways to probe the effect of perception on the entire body moving through space.
All the images and video in the projects Aisthesis, Like A Wave Washing Over, Sound Incidence, and Every Day (I Think of You) were made using this device.
Some preliminary experimentation with having sound in the immediate vicinity of the aisthesis optical devise affect the image are in the works.
