petey ulatan sees the world a little differently. the honolulu-based creative likes to ask ‘what if’ — what if the world was flat? what if our universe had different laws of physics? what would it look like? with these musings in mind and an artistic inclination, ulatan creates mind-bendingly manipulated landscapes that warp the perception of the world around us.

drawing from popular movies like ‘inception’ and ‘interstellar’ — surreal films where the laws of physics are turned on their head — ulatan creates cubic landscapes that ‘flatten’ views of natural and urban panoramas. oceans are bent at 90 degree angles, where water flows horizontally and vertically at the same time; skies are squared within curiously angular cloudscapes; and cities are seen folding over themselves, where skyscrapers stand on their sides. images from the surreal series — some of which ulatan has made into moving media — reshape reality into a warped world of familiar, yet undoubtedly distorted scenes. ‘we have the power to take the natural beauty we see around us further and create our own worlds,’ he describes. ‘I find it particularly gratifying to be able to do that.’