Still from Blood and Guts in High School, 2004-2009, Pictured: Stephanie Vella AHC: Could you talk about your film adaptation of Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School, what the process was like, the script adaptation, filming and why this specific book, of all of Acker's others? Is Blood and Guts the book that speaks the most to you, out of all of her work? Are there other books of hers you would ever consider turning into a film? Laura: I chose Acker's novel “Blood and Guts in High School” because it was such a seminal text for me as a young artist. Her gallows humor and post-punk feminist attitude was communicated through a use of pastiche, or appropriation and reconfiguration of texts. These references were not chosen for purposes of critique or deconstruction alone. Her references were complex, unpredictable and outrageous. In the same spirit, I use the book as a jumping board. Appropriating from Acker's text as well as from popular culture and critical theory. This is a strategy I have used throughout my career (Hollywood Inferno, Heidi 2 - collaboration with Sue de Beer, and No Is Yes). As in those videos, specific references are not as important for the viewer to understand as the overall effect: As the language shifts in register and grounding a world is created that exposes the schizophrenic nature of contemporary culture – even while retaining narrative coherence. I have no plans to work with more of her texts at the moment but I wouldn’t rule it out. County Down Installation View 2013 AHC: I remember Acker writing, in one of her late essays, (this was during her battle with cancer) that she was grateful that she had lived long enough to see a film like "Crash", which was Cronenberg's adaptation of J. G. Ballard's novel. Acker had a lot of admiration for Ballard, and I'm wondering, given your work 'County Down' and its theme of the gated community as a petri dish for psychopathy, if Ballard's work has had any similar sort of impact for you, especially the novels Super Cannes and Kingdom Come which explore similar territory and themes? Who have been some of the other major or minor influences for you? Laura: Certainly J.G. Ballard and Cronenberg’s use of architecture have influenced some of my work – in particular works that explore genre. In “Blood and Guts in High School” institutional architecture informs Janie’s confrontations (or more accurately coy dance) with abuse, authority and control. George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead or Shivers by Cronenberg, are examples of horror genre films where the settings such as the mall or the suburban high-rise are used allegorically to reference power, corruption and cultural malaise. Similarly, in, “County Down”, the gated community is the perfect setting to explore a culture so obsessed with novelty and consumerism that it euphorically embraces its own destruction. In terms of influences, “County Down” uses the structure of youth-culture media products, such as horror and science fiction movies, video games, and coming-of-age films as well as corporate motivational tools as a barometer of cultural depression. In terms of influences my current project allows me the extraordinary opportunity to work with many inspiring/inspirational people. “Tour Without End” is a multi-platform project where real-life musicians, artists and actors are cast as alternate-universe-rock star versions of themselves. A core group of players improvise based on semi-scripted scenes. Many of these outsized performers are legendary personalities in the history of DIY venues for visual and performing arts in NYC and beyond. They are archetypes playing archetypes, The combination of formally composed shots and handheld camera work makes the viewer aware of the construction of the project as the players move in and out of fictionalized characters and real life -- the film moves in and out of non-linear narrative and historical document. Still from Tour Without End - In Progress - Pictured left to right: Kate Valk, Jim Fletcher The players include: Lizzi Bougatsos (Gang Gang Dance), Jim Fletcher (NYC Players), Kate Valk (Wooster Group), Matthew Asti (MGMT), Alexandra Drewchin (Earth Eater), Shannon Funchess (Light Asylum), Gary Indiana, Kathleen Hanna (The Julie Ruin), Nicole Eisenman, JD Sampson, Kembra Pfahler, Eileen Miles, Brontez Purnell and Johanna Fateman. AHC: Do you think that in the late 80's and early 90's there was at least a semblance of critical narratives available, in popular culture, for young people to absorb, in a way that just doesn't seem remotely the case today? I'm thinking of hit(?) songs about poverty and revolution "Tracy Chapman" child abuse "Suzanne Vega" war and empty consumption "10,000 Maniacs" that forced their way through on MTV and VH1 and heavy air play. I may be over idealizing those times, which were certainly ugly times, but at least it felt like there were other narratives available, even if not necessarily in a way that structurally threatened the status quo, at least, perhaps, in a way that symbolically did so, or that created an effective interweaving between full and empty symbols, that doesn't seem like the case (through the lens of popular culture, at least) today, what are your thoughts on this? I ask because the characters in your films are often young people, surrounded by a bankrupt, empty culture that perfectly mirrors where we are today and I'm wondering if it felt slightly different then, in terms of some of the more heavy-critical content that was in the pop culture milieu? Laura: There is a line from my film/installation “No Is Yes”, spoken by the late, great Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, “Never trust a sentimental punk.” I don’t think there is a huge difference in relation to the current state of popular culture and access to critical narratives. In fact, access to these narratives have never been so abundant, thanks to the Internet. There is an endless variety of niche market subcultures available to us. However, I don’t see much evidence that people are willing to do the work to seek these out or pay attention to anything much longer than 30 seconds. You can’t have everything. Still From No Is Yes 1998, C-Print, Camera by Laure Leber Pictured: Jen Daking AHC: In Hollywood Inferno you have a re-gendered re-imagining of Dante's Inferno, where the journey to hell takes place in the penultimate architectural symbol for mass consumption and sterilized a-political culture, the shopping mall. Also it takes a (?)classically(?) male grand(?)narrative and uses it to deconstruct western hegemonic tropes and cultural dead spaces, and also as a way of shoring up the hypocrisies of the male-narrative as a given (where gender doesn't become an issue in the ways that it does for women authors) and with heavy and biting humor. Though there is so much humor in the work, I'm wondering if one way to also read/watch Inferno is by digesting the idea that hell is very much a place where this blatantly chauvinistic, hegemonic devaluing of women, their work and their lives is perpetuated by the culture, that 'hell is the culture' to rephrase Sartre, was that part of the intent as well? Could you talk some about the hell of our current culture as you see it, for young people, for young women, and also about the film Hollywood Inferno? Laura: Firstly, I agree with much of your description of “Hollywood Inferno” but it’s important to note that many references are about the difficulty of working as a cultural producer in the current atmosphere where there is such a multiplicity of images. The work connects horror genres films and the art world, and their sometimes-overlapping cults of personality. With Virgil, the screenwriter as a guide, our modern day Dante, Sandy is lead through a defamiliarized territory, populated by demonic Furbies, Columbine models, and fire-breathing teenagers. This culminates in an act of sisterly betrayal as the director espouses a mixture of Dave Hickey’s ruminations on beauty and George Lucas’ comments about Star Wars. The director (Kel O’Neill) imitates Christopher Walken while wearing a mask cast directly from the actor Willem Dafoe’s face. It presents a world of image oversaturation where actual experience becomes suspect and transgression loses its intentionality and becomes synonymous with the fashion that immediately mirrors it. Still from Hollywood Inferno (Episode One), 2001-2003. Pictured Alissa Bennett
I think social media perpetuates that cycle in that self expression and self objectification and our self and cultural worth are intricately connected to our numbers of likes and followers. Further, it also allows for the most sexist and racist cultural tendencies to be amplified: as in revenge porn, alt-right, gamergate and Donald Trump on twitter to name a few. AHC: You've talked, in the past, about the dismissal of the young woman's intellect, how our culture turns them into objects of desire with no regard or concern for their pleasure, what you've termed a type of cultural ambivalence, I'm wondering what and who you see as the positive-counter influences for women today in the face of all of the prepackaged disparity stacked against them, and also what your take is on where we are now, better or worse and what hopes you have for the future, culturally, politically, ethically etc? Laura: I think there has been tremendous momentum in terms of real political organization in the states including Black Lives Matter, Bernie Sanders and a renewed push for intersectional feminism. Unfortunately, much of this momentum is met by an equal rise on the extreme right. In terms of contemporary art, music and theater, I decided to make “Tour Without End” as a way to celebrate artists run, DIY spaces and the tenacity and resourcefulness of artists who flourish in that community. The cast and musicians featured represent the diverse community of LGBTQIA and people of color who are largely responsible for this rich underground scene and who have shaped and affected other mainstream art cultures. For more information visit http://www.lauraparnes.com/ Comments are closed.
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