Pour Some Sugar on Me
A. Suparak
2002
Adapted from an article published in The Independent Film and Video Monthly, 2002



Lately I've been thinking about mating. Of the incessant struggle to be a self-sufficient, independent, biospheric thing, then seeing someone hot and wanting ass. Or maybe not even hotness, but a muted and reliable warmness- someone that you've taken for granted and loved on the back burner for years, but nothing passionate or inspirational anymore. Staying together because it's going to be a cold winter and their flesh is always warm, because 88% is Tee-rific but the left over dozen disappointing. Well, sometimes that happens. And I'm thinking about children. I've sworn them off but I am curious. Offspring as science experiments, mix-matching genes for a visually traceable lineage. These things were in mind during the conception of my most recent programs of film, video, audio work: DIRGES AND STURGEONS for Anthology Film Archives and KEEP IN TOUCH! for The New York Underground Film Festival.

Autonomy and insularity changing with mitosis and mirroring- the introduction of another even if it is based on yourself. Like projecting your romantic ideals onto another and possible byproducts: rearing children, cloning. Perpetuation and conditioning to perfection, like practicing a script.

An idea of "future": either offspring, the advances of science, or even death. Death and suspension, in-between states, limbo (intentionally passing out for kicks in Price's "Industrial Synth"; petit mort in Clouin's "The Little Big"; being taken out of one's reality and later returned via kidnapping and outer space in July's "GSED"). Spiraling down to nihilism. Oh, I guess I could be sweepingly grand (and overtly simple) and say the shows are about life and death. Or about fire and water. I could be Bill Viola.

Speaking of, I've been re-learning the 1980s- a time when I was too young to think properly. I have a fondness for what is familiar without deliberate aesthetic or intellectual choice. Run-of-the-mill nostalgia for images and sounds memorized by heart without comprehension. Twenty years of knowing Billy Jean was not Michael J's lover, how suburban-home brown carpet gets matted, the density of a Capri Sun and the text commands for pre-video computer games. This mini-revival of Eighties culture crept into a few programs before D&S and K.I.T., in A NEW ROMANTIC T.V. SOUND made for the previous NYUFF and SOME KIND OF LOVING for the Joanie 4 Jackie Co-Star series.

I was thrilled to be able to reach young girls through Joanie 4 Jackie, to reach what I was when I first heard of then-called Big Miss Moviola: angsty Southern Californian teen desperately trying to find ANYTHING different from clean Hollywood fakery, and stumbling across punk rock's d.i.y. ethos, feminism, self-determination and sexuality. The works in SOME KIND OF LOVING are what would have helped me in my 1980s-early '90s youth: memories and fantasies made by women, evidence of our ambivalence towards identity and sexuality. Plus good raw cunnilingus. The works have a rough home-movie aesthetic so viewers can figure out how to make their own movies.

When I was making A NEW ROMANTIC T.V. SOUND I was re-listening to music I grew up with and thinking about New Wave (specifically the British New Romantic)- how it was electronic and the attitude was lukewarm and distant, but the lyrics/hair/clothing were romantic and fluffy. And I was thinking about situations that are supposed to be intimate (at home, or in love) that are just routine and empty. There is also an influence of body-based performance art from the late '60s-early '70s as another extension of the self-reflective theme. The aesthetic for the program was stripped-down, raw and grainy, like Sixties minimalist art blended with big Eighties video pixels. Title references a Duran Duran song. Prior to N.R. I was working on humongous shows for massive audiences (including outdoor screenings at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and programming for the MIX Festival) and was annoyed with feeling obligated to entertain and simplify. So instead of the expected flashiness for the festival the program was about boredom and mundane activities, like talking to your dog or talking to your grandma.

These are just some thoughts tying together and influencing the last couple years of programming and touring.