Rehearsal Footage

Rose

Mala Noche

Some additional GVS research -

Tiny Theater

In the beginning of May, Temporary distortion presented a 10min work-in-progress performance of Welcome to Nowhere as part of the Tiny Theater festival at Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Although not open to reviews, one theater blogger had this to say:

One of the standouts (of the festival) includes bullet hole road, an excerpt of a longer piece by Temporary distortion. I'm very curious to see the whole piece, since the 10-minute excerpt was fascinating. To me, this is a very good example of experimental theatre done right...an incredibly hypnotic and engaging experience.

- jamespeak.blogspot

work-in-progress showing

Temporary distortion is showing 10 mins of excerpts

from Welcome To Nowhere (bullet hole road)

as part of the Tiny Theater festival

at Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater

May 3-5 at 7pm

(additional 10pm show Friday 4)

For more information visit: http://www.ontological.com

Or go here for tickets online: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/6425

Footage Test #46

I really like this image for the background - what do you think?

Footage Test

Road Test # 8

This is an attempt to find a complimentary style to the luma-blue look from the other footage. My apologies to John Zorn.

Jim Morrison's HWY (1969, 51mins)

If this video does not play properly ...check it out at:

http://www.jonhs.net/freemovies/hwy_american_pastoral.htm

time lapse 2

time lapse

night stop

here it is

texaco, somewhere outside phoenix

texaco phone booth

An aerial photograph by Emmet Gowin

"Off road traffic pattern along the north shore of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, 1988"

objects in this mirror

Caution: Objects in this mirror may be closer than they appear!

Nostalgia born of the immensity of the Texan hills and the sierras of New Mexico: gliding down the freeway, smash hits on the Chrysler stereo, heat wave. Snapshots aren't enough. We'd need the whole film of the trip in real time, including the unbearable heat and the music. We'd have to replay it all from end to end at home in a darkened room, rediscover the magic of the freeways and the distance and the ice-cold alcohol in the desert and the speed and live it all again on the video at home in real time, not simply for the pleasure of remembering but because the fascination of senseless repetition is already present in the abstraction of the journey. The unfolding of the desert is infinitely close to the timelessness of film...

- Jean Baudrillard

You wait here, I'll be right back.

redemption on the road

From the earliest days of American cinema, the road movie has been synonymous with American culture and the image of America to the world. By my definition, the road movie is a vehicle for either one or a small group of individuals who seek to escape the world they are living in and set out towards redemption on the road.

To read more: http://www.hackwriters.com/roadone.htm

The road movie reflects a cultural psychosis that not only is tomorrow another day, but the road is the passage to which a new beginning is possible, free from the bonds of the past.

i've been doing these terrible things

sometimes i forget myself and i end up doing these terrible things.

last night

Vanishing Point

We can only aspire to these heights... A seriously badass trailer.

catching a ride

One of the biggest troubles of hitchhiking is having to talk to innumerable people, make them feel that they didn't make a mistake picking you up.

another night

Forgetfulness

This is something I keep coming back to look at. I like the style of it a lot. After a few viewings, it's best with the sound off, as a silent piece, since the voiceover isn't all that inspired.

you were not there (motel)

i woke up on the highway

on the road

Video Test Footage

This is a sample of some test footage we shot for the video projections in Welcome to Nowhere.

My Hometown

The further I get into this study of the American Road Movie, the more I am beginning to realize the importance of the cultural landscape that these roads cut through.

My own personal relationship to being an American has always been characterized by ambivalent feelings at best. I have never been a politically minded or patriotic individual, even after 9/11. In my entire adult life, I have never even registered to vote. I guess I’ve always had a rather cynical view of governments, policy makers and the whole ball of wax, and in the end preferred just to opt out of the entire process. With everything going on over these last few years, I’m sure that fact will drive some of you mental…but never mind that.

What I’m really getting around to is the fact that I have never consciously self-identified as an American: even though the furthest I have ever been out of this country is Canada. Maybe it’s all tied up in the outsider complex I’ve had since I was a child, never feeling like I fit in, no matter how much I might have belonged.



All of this has led to some sidebar research for this project: Americana. Which, as it turns out (maybe not surprisingly), is becoming a study of self as much as anything else. One of the first ironies along this road to my trying to understand Americana is the entry on the subject found in Wikipedia. Next to the rather brief entry for Americana you will find two pictures. One is a picture of an apple pie and a baseball bat sitting atop an American flag. And the second is a picture of a quintessential American diner: a diner that in real life I’ve seen a million times, located as it is, on Main Street in the town where I was born and raised.



So it seems that even in this most cursory investigation into Americana, the mirror has already been held up to my own life. Other links from the Americana page lead to Born in the USA (an album made by a guy that my parents…who are a waitress and a cop, by the way, I mean how much more American can you get…went to high school with) that includes a song called My Hometown, literally about the very town in New Jersey where I grew up.

Expect future posts as my search for America continues.

Americana

the disenchantment of destination

"Despite the compulsion to go, there is no place to go, there is always the disenchantment of destination, of having to arrive some place, only to have to move on again."

Jeff Brouws (photographs)

William, I think you should take a look at the work of Jeff Brouws while we are still thinking about locations. I would especially take a look at his books Approaching Nowhere and Highway.


We need to think about what locations we can film in the New York/New Jersey area over the fall and winter. Locations that will contrast the Nevada footage we shoot in the spring, to help give a sense of journey. I still really want to shoot at the beach while it is snowing...but we should start making a list soon and then chip away at it when you get back from the tour.

Updated Set Drawings (3D)

Black Rock

The Barren Among The Barren

Wastes Among Wastes

This is a desert's desert, a landscape of unique barrenness and beauty, solitude and plentitude, danger and freedom.

Vast and featureless, Nevada 's Black Rock Desert is the largest flat area on the continent, where the sound barrier was broken in a car. It is a place of total silence--not even birds or insects live here.

"I see the playa as the world's largest stage. It's so pure and clean that anything you put on it becomes significant."

- Black Rock, Portraits of the Playa

Stay tuned for "The Road to Nowhere" posts, where I will chart out Temporary Distortion's cross country trip this fall to Nevada. We will be filming on location along the American highways.

Sculpture

Socrates Sculpture Park's Current Exhibition is called "Interstate: The American Road Trip".... an exhibition about cross-country travel, the process of finding a destination and negotiating the terrain along the way by using the visual vocabulary of the highway and referencing the vernacular culture that lines the roadway across the US.

Box (in progress)

I have begun work on the set. Notice the small horizontal bar at the back of the set. That is approximately the height Anne’s box will be above stage level.

Misty decided that she would pose in front of the set to give you a sense of scale. The front profile of the set is 8 1/2 feet square.