Stan Douglas - Television Spots/Monodramas

A few years back I had the opportunity to see Stan Douglas's Monodramas at the Guggenheim in New York. At the time I was studying photography at the School of Visual Arts, my Junior year, and was working on a photographic project entitled Story Telling. I know, very original and unique right. It was a project in which I was plumbing the possibility for photographs to be structured as ambiguous open ended narratives that would invite viewer interaction/interpretation. Initially what drew my interest to Douglas's Monodramas was biased. I neglected to understand the conceptual complexity of Douglas's work and instead focused on his process of creating ambiguous narratives open for interpretation. How ever Douglas's work is far more complex than creating simple dramas.

Stan Douglas_Monodrama_1991_"Don't Call Me Gary"

Douglas's Television Spots/Monodramas were made at the hight of post modern art practice. The short videos explore the hallmark trope that many artist were plumping in their work, namely the minutiae of everyday life. Douglas particular aesthetic, especially in the Monodramas, reflects the slick advertising technique found in the late 80's early 90's commercials.  Unlike the average television ad the video pieces do not include those devices that anchor something specific and concrete. Namely narrator, text, product placement, narrative. These devices which normally help the viewer interpret the message, what to buy, etc, are absent.  As the viewer of  Television Spots/Monodramas we are set into the middle of an ambiguous setting without the narrative safety of beginning middle or end. We are left to interpret the video for what it is, and subsequently what it is not.

Douglas's process reveals the empty shell of advertising through these absences while critiquing the function/spectacle/promise of advertising. In one of the Monodramas, personally the one I enjoy the most, the viewer is presented with three scenes involving a car. Instead of a car commercial presenting the viewer with the romantic trappings of travel on the open road,  the promise of status and happiness, Douglas's  commercial presents the everyday mundane reality that surrounds the culture of the automobile. Cars break down, cars drive on the highway in daily exercises of commuting, and every grand adventure in a car usually ends in the same non desrcript parking spot.

 

  Stan Douglas - Television Spots/Monodramas

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Stan Douglas Television Spots/Melodramas

Things that don't belong - Patrick Bernatchez

The odd juxtaposition where nature reasserts itself in post-apocalyptic fashion resulting in chaos and destruction. The mundane safe unsuspecting ubiquitous places such as the office, or the interior of a car (chrysler) is turned upon its head. This technique is similar and in line with the reemergence of surrealist techniques such as depaysement or making strange through the juxtaposition of unlikely objects and events. Where the surrealist often failed to move beyond the ostranenie Patrick Bernatchez pushes forward, utilizing the surrealist technique as both a device for an uncanny investigation into site specific spaces, as well as the oft complicated relationship between nature and man.


In the video stills from the short film “I feel cold today” a metaphoric richness comes through in the multi layered concept Bernatchez has put forth for the viewer in the staged set. We are presented with both the psychological affect of the ubiquitous layout of the office space, and its affect on the psychology of the worker. The office as the site of continual fluctuation between the tedium of work and the grand myth of the capitalistic system. The pale colors, cheap office furniture, the visual white screech of fluorescent lights. Buried beneath the snow one can see Bernatchez second punch, his environmental angle. How readily to we forget the destructive and power of mother nature to reassert itself into the man made world. Here, lest we forget, is the uncanny future and reality of our daily world. We hold mother nature off with cheap walls and pumped in heat and artificial light, but when given the chance she will take it all back. Are we witnessing a cubical workers fantasy, or a eco-political gesture lest we forget the awesome power just outside the walls of our cubicles and cars.


Unlike “I feel cold today” the process and production of Chrysalide is made more apparent. Through the obvious placement of the lights, and the semi commercial quality of the lighting Bernatchez ramps up the fetishistic quality that the car has become in society. The performative act of the two hoses pushing gallons upon gallons of water into the car only to sit back and watch is a kind of sacrilege that breaks down the relationship and aura we have to the automobile. This breaking down and then revealing recontexualizes the car as a claustrophobic and isolating structure. As we speed by the world outside the windows of the car, tuned into radio stations, texting, cell phone calls, all the while speeding past everything in a disconnected manner. Car as insulated fishbowl, so why not treat the inside of the car as such. And what better car model to use than a Chrysler.