HalfLifers: The Complete History, 1992 - 2010

In this attempt to resolve the on-going crisis, Burns and Discenza find themselves in, variously, a childrens adventure playground, a garage and a yard. They utilize a mechanical digger to dig the soil, they toil at skipping and pogo-ing, they vacuum each other. Eventually a type of surgery is performed.

This title is also available on HalfLifers: Rescue Series and HalfLifers: The Complete History.

Burns and Discenza continue to battle invisible forces with the use of various children’s toys, cars and a mechanical digger, a paddling pool, rubber rings and ladders. Eventually they escape the scene of their distress in a hatchback car.

This title is also available on HalfLifers: Rescue Series and HalfLifers: The Complete History.

Various scenarios are envisaged where a rescue might be possible. Props include a hoist, a trolley, various doors and windows, ladders and a length of hose. It is unclear whether our two heroes help or hinder one another. What is certain is that no rescue is in sight.

This title is also available on HalfLifers: Rescue Series and HalfLifers: The Complete History.

Actions speed up, slow down, and run at regular speed. The usual props are there, as is a wet dog. Subtle nuances are revealed as the behavior of the anxiety-laden protagonists is rendered, for once, in real-time.

This title is also available on HalfLifers: Rescue Series and HalfLifers: The Complete History.

This first work in the HalfLifers' Action Series plunges into a world of frantic heroes trapped in a continual crisis of dissolution and reification. An ordinary domestic setting is recast as a psychoactive landscape in which the concept of function becomes situational and fluid. Only through the strategic application of organic and inorganic “devices” can this zone be successfully navigated and the mission be saved.

This title is also available on HalfLifers: Action Series, HalfLIfers: The Complete History and American Psycho(drama): Sigmund Freud vs. Henry Ford.

In a fictional conduit space, language and function are recontextualized as the HalfLifers struggle to re-assess the nature of their mission while engaged in an eternal cycle of maintenance and communication routines.

“Slipping freely in tone between editing session and Hollywood story conference, they wreak havoc on the conventions of shot-countershot as their jargon-laced exchanges turn oddly self-reflexive, a comic subterfuge that’s the linguistic equivalent of biceps-flexing before the mirror."

—Jim Supanick, “Quest for What?” Film Comment (September/October 1999)

This title is also available on HalfLifers: Action Series, HalfLifers: The Complete History and American Psycho(drama): Sigmund Freud vs. Henry Ford.

I.S.L.A.N.D.S. #1: In Residence Dual trajectories through lush innerscapes propel us into color-saturated action-scenarios where the mission to re-establish identity and sustain communication linkage is never-ending.

I.S.L.A.N.D.S. #2: Operation Big Yellow A useful inanimate object, burdened with excessive psychic residue, is funneled through Half-Life for a complete wipe-down and a few healthy exercises.

I.S.L.A.N.D.S. #3: Belief in a Watery Country Frantic re-application of a fluid medium within pre-sensitized areas transports us to the edge of a churning sea of potential activity. Pitted against the pounding energy currents, the HalfLifers find they can barely hold their own. And when the tap runs dry it’s time to move on.

This title is also available on HalfLifers: The Complete History.

A HalfLifers journey to a lush interior landscape where some domestic chores and an unexpected encounter provoke a crisis at Mission Control, paving the way for a seasonal reflection upon the meaning of "home."

This title is also available on HalfLifers: The Complete History.

The third installment in the Action Series. Two characters engage Ann Hamilton's Headlands kitchen-space and create temporal resonances. To survive they must break the fast (a midnight snack) and service the meal.

This title is also available on HalfLifers: The Complete History.

An alternative earth music video. An epic last stand. A portrait of two utilitarian workers engaging in a collaboration with Karen, manifesting improvisational geographic friendships...

This title is also available on HalfLifers: The Complete History.

The HalfLifers exhume cinema’s favorite incarnation of mindless, decaying mortality, the Zombie, in the hopes of breathing new life into this misunderstood figure. From a panel discussion in an old TV studio to a quarantined helicopter high above California’s rolling hills, these life-challenged entities walk, talk, and chew over some of the more difficult questions of this “whole linear birth-death system."

This title is also available on HalfLifers: The Complete History.