
Los Angeles-based animator Sascha Ciezata has reimagined Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness as a mixed-media serialized animated short, releasing installments nightly through his Instagram account.
Recalling Conrad’s protagonist Charles Marlow and his experiences as an ivory transporter in the Congo, Ciezata’s Heart of Darkness follows an intrepid subway rat named Marley, in search of the Rat King, navigating the flooded tunnels of New York City in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Ciezata employs still images, short animated Instagram videos, prodigious hashtagging, and in the clip below, snippets of a vibrant Henry Mancini number.