The Rehearsal
Screenings
2023 Vacations in the Subconscious, Alphabet Art Center,
Cologne. Juror, Wilfred de Cologne
23rd West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival, WV
University School of Art and Design, WV
2023 Biennial Faculty Exhibition, Blue Galleries, Boise
State University
In this performance-based video, a series of scenes uses group improvisation, re-enactments of real events, props and other semi-choreographed scenes of play and struggle. These act as metaphors for creativity and conflict, choice and restriction, and how these have played out in recent political and cultural events.
Dual wrestling pairs, a ballet sequence, play fighting with beach toys and a therapy session using megaphones, build a non-continuous narrative.
News readers narrate lines from “The Society of the Spectacle” by Guy deBord. This text feels prescient in relation to current debates about collective responsibility versus individual choice, truth versus fake facts, power and control, and loss of it.
The whole piece is set up like a rehearsal. It is as much about its making and the dynamics of group creativity and production as a commentary on current cultural conditions. The editing reinforces the dynamics of the piece. Multiple images are layered, scaled, or collaged together. Images act as screens revealing and concealing other images.