Scenario II: Let's Get This Thing Going
Dain Mergenthaler, Jordan Rosenow, Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez, Katie Waddell, Shana Hoehn, Alee People & Mike Stoltz
Curated by Danny Floyd for ACRE Projects July 1 - July 26, 2016
In the precursor to this show, I told a story about witnessing an explosion off the top of an old silo building near my house. Startled by the blast, my roommate and I looked out of our back door and watched the smoke billow and the neighbors lean out their back porches to shout and point. My first thought was that I had assumed the silo was abandoned, so how could it blow up? Was anyone inside? We watched helicopters descent onto the scene, circling the building low and close to the roof. Cranes began to rise near the east wall. But as no sign of rescue work appeared, and the smoke drifted and dissipated on on past the nearby highway, we began to see it for what it was, a movie shoot, an elaborate scenario.
Aside from its role in the plot of what we found out was Michael Bay’s Transformers 4, the explosion created another drama, that of the work and emotion for the real participants and spectators. I have since thought a great deal about those helicopter pilots and crane operators; there was never another explosion, so they only had one chance to get it right. They were performers in the movie as much as the actors, except they quite literally performed the scenery.
What we do with our bodies — our eyes, our ears, and our hands — is reciprocal with our surroundings. How we feel and what we think is in a relationship with where we are. We perform our environment, and it acts back on us. Scenarios, situations, plots, and histories are all the stories of agents activating their settings.
excerpt from Alee Peoples and Mike Stoltz's film:
excerpt from Shana Hoehn's video: