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It has been three years since Chicago-trained artist Joshua Mosley was last seen at the Donald Young Gallery, but his quirky yet spellbinding films still manage to draw you into their esoteric narratives through images that border on childish. But, if some of bronze creations, which come to life on screen, look a bit like seventeenth- or eighteenth-century French philosophers, don’t worry, the film’s dialogues and underlying themes were taken from Mosley’s reading of Pascal’s “Pensées” and Rousseau’s “Emile.” Using the five sculptures of the exhibit as the main characters in the short animation called “Dread,” Mosley creates a multifaceted approach to humanity, nature and God. Employing 3D scanning methods, each statuette displayed throughout the exhibit is perfectly transplanted to film, where, on a backdrop of stop-motion photography and original soundtrack, they come to life in a captivating symphony of picture and noise that could satisfy an infant, adolescent or academic. (Philip Marino) Through October 21 at Donald Young Gallery