Mores McWreath - The Bud, the Seed, the Egg (2008)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Download this at KaraGarga.
"In this video I use the structure of YouTube and vaudeville to directly address ways of challenging the hegemony of capitalism through Roland Barthes concept of the Neutral. Barthes defines the Neutral as “that which baffles the paradigm,” it is an expression of “the right to silence.” The performer/character, played by myself, goes through a variety of performances that touch on a broad range of subjects from the state of artists in a capitalistic society to sex and power to the pronunciation of the word Iraq that immediately degenerates to gibberish. The video takes place exclusively in a neutral space that oscillates between an empty office, classroom, gallery, or retail space. The artifice of that neutrality becomes explicitly apparent as my performances become increasingly antic. Inspired in part by Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Happy Days, all of these vignettes come together to form a sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic expression of ambivalence and frustration. It is a portrait of an individual facing a world of decisions and finding only burden, not freedom, in capitalistic notions of abundance. The “neutral” is a place outside of the decision making process, a place of pure potential that I am trying to reach in this video." (Mores McWreath)
Installation shot:
at 11:12 PM