For our next installment of our Powerhouse Employee Spotlight, we’re focusing on Powerhouse’s beloved and industrious production assistant, Ben Tanzer. Trained in both Photography and Game Design, Ben built himself a strong creative foundation before joining us as an essential part of our production team in early 2015.
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NAME: Ben Tanzer
FAVORITE VIDEO GAMES: Super Mario World, Bioshock series, FFXII, Pokemon
FAVORITE MOVIE: Alien, Kill Bill I + II
FAVORITE TV SHOW: 30 Rock, Futurama, Steven Universe
FAVORITE MUSIC: Alt-J, Robert DeLong, TV on the Radio
Ben’s portfolio of both game design and photography focuses on themes of identity, choice, and perception. Several of Ben’s photography series focus on personhood and intimacy, a combination of themes he picked up from his favorite photographer, Nan Goldin. Ben’s earlier work ranges from depicting strangers alone in a natural environment to portraits of people with their favorite lyrics written on them in ink. He also plays with themes of perception, like his series Screen Studies, where he accentuates classical still life subjects with digital lighting from laptops or phone screens.
Ben studied musical theater, photography, and game design at various universities including University of Cincinnati’s Department of Design, Arts, Architecture and Planning. During his studies, Ben branched out into game design and designing conceptual “real life” decision games which both explored the concept and consequences of choice and perception. The real life games provided participants with a space where they could decide as a group how to react to the objects within the space. His main video game project, Pin, also challenges players to choose to take the game at face value or to continue forward and see the game from another angle, revealing a new truth about the narrative.
His current photography series, Identity, organically intertwines these threads of choice and personhood. Inspired by a similar self-portrait series by famous photographer Cindy Sherman, Ben poses himself as alternate people, imagining who he could’ve been in different times or places if he had made different choices.
You can find more of Ben’s work on his portfolio website, and you can learn more about his photography in this interview.
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