THE MACKEYS, 2010, Installation view / Audience, MAK Vienna
THE MACKEYS evolved out of a six months residency during the MAK Schindler Program in Los Angeles.
The Movie
A filmic collage on Los Angeles based on former residents‘s memories, diary entries, references to art, literature and film. It starts with a young woman talking about a confusion of two movies with nearly identical titles - L.A. Plays Itself and Los Angeles Plays Itself.
Subsequently follows a remake of the opening titles to Thom Anderson‘s Los Angeles Plays Itself. A couple of minutes later we hear the sound of an helicopter taken from the opening sequence of Robert Altman‘s Short Cuts while the camera pans in bird‘s-eye view across the hedge‘s and front yard of R.M. Schindler‘s Mackey Apartment House. A voiceover recites a passage from Memoirs of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber: „To make myself at least somewhat comprehensible I shall have to speak much in images and similes, which may at times perhaps be only approximately correct. For the only way a human being can make supernatural matters, which in their essence must remain incomprehensible, understandable to a certain degree is by compairing them with known facts of human experience.“
The Performance
On the opening night of Final Projects at R.M. Schindler‘s Mackey Apartment House on 1137 South Cochran Avenue a multilayered performance was staged in and around the house. It was scripted in such a way to conclude in a movie comparing baroque theater to contemporary art performance and institutional critique.
The Installation
For the installation of The Residence aka The Mackeys I chose a set of three sculptural elements combined with the videofootage of the performace which took place in March 2010 at Schindler‘s Mackey Apartment House.
Signifying architectural elements of the tour through Schindler‘s apartment house, these abstracted sculptural remakes mark the three stages which a spectator attending the performance would pass through.
Designed as theater props the stations give this multilayered performance further reference to its roots in Inigo Jones‘ Masques and Antimasques - a special and early form of institutional critique in late renaissance theater.
Inigo Jones was a cultural advisor to the royal court of great britain, a smart multitalent - architect, designer and director of theater.
The Mackeys ist ein umfangreiches Projekt, welches im Zuge des sechsmonatigen MAK Schindler Stipendiaten Programmes in Los Angeles entstanden ist.
Der Film
Eine filmische Collage über Los Angeles basierend auf Erinnerungen ehemaliger Stipendiaten, Tagebucheinträge, Referenzen zu Kunst, Literatur und Film. Der Film beginnt mit einer jungen Frau die über eine Verwechslung zweier Filme mit sehr ähnlichem Namen erzählt - L.A. Plays Itself und Los Angeles Plays Itself. Daraufhin folgt mein Remake des Vorspanns zu Thom Anderson‘s Los Angeles Plays Itself.
Ein paar Minuten später hört man die Tonspur eines Helikopters aus Robert Altman‘s Short Cuts während die Kamera aus Vogelperspektive über die Hecken und den Vorgarten von R.M. Schindler‘s Mackey Apartment House schwenkt. Dazu rezitiert das Voiceover eine Passage aus Daniel Paul Schreber‘s Memoirs of My Nervous Illness: “To make myself at least somewhat comprehensible I shall have to speak much in images and similes, which may at times perhaps be only approximately correct. For the only way a human being can make supernatural matters, which in their essence must remain incomprehensible, understandable to a certain degree is by compairing them with known facts of human experience.“
Die Performance
Am Eröffnungsabend der Final Projects in R.M. Schindler‘s Mackey Apartment House wurde eine mehrschichtige Performance für den Aussen- und Innenraum des Hauses präsentiert. Die Performance war so inszeniert, daß daraus später ein Film entstehen konnte, in welchem barockes Theater mit zeitgenössischer Performance Kunst und institutioneller Kritik verglichen wird.
THE RESIDENCE (Instructions), Installation view, Bäckerstrasse 2011
THE MACKEYS, 2010, 2 Channel Video Presentation, Installation view, MAK Vienna
THE MACKEYS, 2010, Invitation card, MAK Vienna