A.2 | EP.4 | S.11

(participants)

Elodie Goldberg Jacquemain, Christina Frank, Danita Nuchsawat Appelbaum, Adam Katz, Clinton Hughes, Dennita Sewell, & Kim Askew Kramer

(Organizations)

ASU FIDM MUSEUM

(Master Shot)

AROUND DOWNTOWN LA - MONTAGE

(A)

INT - ASU FIDM MUSEUM - VINYL WALL SIGNAGE

Elodie stands before a wall text bearing a quotation from Kurt Andersen. The words hover between prophecy and diagnosis: "You Say You Want a Devolution? Ironically, new technology has reinforced the nostalgic cultural gaze: now that we have instant universal access to every old image and recorded sound, the future has arrived and it’s all about dreaming of the past." Elodie moves through the frame as the text remains fixed. The body and camera pass at different rates. The idea lingers.

(B)

INT - MUSIC VIDEO DISPLAY

A rapid succession of images flickers across a monitor. Grunge, rap, Madonna. Popular culture absorbing and redistributing the visual language of the avant-garde. What once belonged to the margins returns as spectacle. The archive becomes a feedback loop, endlessly reassembled for new audiences.

(c)

INT - GARMENT DISPLAYS

Elodie moves between three display frames. Vertical divisions bisect the images, subtly interrupting continuity. The body appears whole, then fragmented, then whole again. The frame holds. One by one, the triptych images detach and fall away through stop-motion animation. Fragments separate from their original context, cutting into darkness. Memory persists, but never intact. FADE TO BLACK.

(Film Abstract)

Lately I've found myself thinking about human and computer interactions. As more of our communication, research, and creative work moves through digital systems, I keep returning to the fact that there is still someone on the other side making decisions. IRL production remains interesting to me because a set, studio, or exhibition becomes a temporary structure where ideas are tested collectively in person, short-circuiting the intermediary. It’s more joyful being together like that.

This montage is part of an ongoing experiment through The Pioneers Co-Op. The process begins by loosening control, allowing different images, voices, and sensibilities to occupy the same space before tightening them into a composition. Adam Katz's dream poetry, developed in our long-running collaboration at Vera Maurina Press (VMP), became an important thread in this project. Alongside Obsessed: Fashion and Nostalgia in the '90s at the ASU FIDM Museum, I began thinking about nostalgia as a shared dream. Fragments of Adam's dream imagery appear throughout the project, from a new work in progress chapbook to the micro-fim and the visual language drawn from the VMP archive.

For the film and images, we collaborated with Adam; Clinton Hughes of The Oddinary Studios, who styled the micro-film; Danita Nuchsawat Appelbaum, who created croquis and fashion illustrations for the chapbook; and Elodie Goldberg Jacquemain, who shaped the design and visual structure through her creative coding background, and appears onscreen. The elegantly simple design of this platform provides the framework for complex layering, not unlike painting. The result is a mash-up of styles, references, images, dreams, and authorships attempting to give visual form to that feeling. Special thanks to Dennita Sewell and Kim Askew Kramer for their support of this project.