Like a Rorschach inkblot, the NOITEM series can be interpreted from many different angles. The images, as delicate as spider webs and yet as hard as bone, leave the viewer feeling uncomfortable. They convey a sense of spirituality, religion and alienness all at once. These creatures float in an infinite and indeterminate space like shadows from the past. This gives them the status of Nachbilder or afterimages, optical illusions that are burnt on the retina when the eyes suffer exposure to bright lights. The presentation in lightboxes further reinforces the ephemeral and intangible nature of the “shadows”. With NOITEM, Ervinck manages to capture the ephemeral using a concrete medium. He chose six images for further elaboration from thousands of designs. These images were intertwined using different renders, each focused on reflection, colour and movement. This created an image that appears to have emerged straight from the virtual world but which cannot, in fact, simply be retrieved from the software. The series is an homage to Eadweard James Muybridge (1830–1904), one of the pioneers of photography, who created the zoopraxiscope, a device that mimicked moving images. This groundbreaking invention inspired many 20th-century artists to endeavour to incorporate movement, emotion and time into their own artistic medium. NOITEM is also the outcome of a similar quest for the free and dynamic form. Ervinck does not wish to merely revive this artistic tradition but to renew it and thus frames this experiment in the context of the 21st century. At his digital studio, he uses 3D software to explore the potential for innovation within this tradition.