Untitled for Technically Sweet was originally inspired by the Antonioni script of the same title for an exhibition curated by Yvette Brackman and Maria Finn and shown at Participant Inc. NYC, and Overgaden-Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen. Under the subconscious yet ever-present glow of real and psychic catastrophic events lies something even more terrifying—the natural world and its utter indifference. This two-channel video installation pits catalog-perfect natural settings with the potential for environmental devastation.
Nature
Both Vermont Landscape and Pond Life followed two opera collaborations with composer Steve Reich. The operas were a new genre called a Theater of Ideas, which said a great deal about the world cultures in which we all live. In contrast, these two small works are quiet, with no words.
Water and wind are friction forces that continuously erode and shape landscapes, and the record of their effects is left behind on Earth’s terrain. As Laurie travels to the Monahans Sandhills in West Texas, a tornado threatens and leaves her vulnerable in a place with limited refuge, but she finds a modest motel made of cinderblock to wait out the storm. Desert images are contrasted with images of rain falling on roofs adjacent to the Electron Movers studio at 128 N.
Through the floating garden, into the mountain of signs and chants, arise the path of the winged stone. A stone that used to be a fossil.
A young man recovering from emotional wounds, defiantly re-enters the outside world that welcomes his return with all its abundant miracles.
Audio-visual recordings of zoo-animals are woven into a fine web of actions and reactions, that finally spiral into a collective animalistic concert. Relating the different animals to each other through montage, fictional relations amongst them is created; a society of animals. The film thus comments on human communities, who created zoos as mirror images. There is an otherness there, and at the same time a disturbing proximity, which we’d like to dismiss.
Written, directed and edited by: Ann Oren
Sound: Robert Hefter