Things I was looking forward to seeing last night at The Works: Weston Currie premiering a new film with a live soundtrack provided by Portland’s own Liz Harris (Grouper). And B-Movie Bingo presented by Wolf Choir, in which audience members play bingo using movie cliches from Bulletproof starring Gary Busey(!).
I didn’t see them though. I left The Works at 1:15am and the basically cleared out theater was still being setup for these two portions of last night’s Future Cinema. There were murmurs going around that neither of these films/performances were even going to happen.
What I did see last night: a two hour Google+ chat amongst five seemingly intoxicated friends made increasingly tedious with obscure inside jokes and failed audience participation.
This was Terrifying Women, a program of videos and performances by current and past Portland artists Alicia McDaid, Tanya Smith, Wendy Haynes, Sarah Johnson, Diana Joy, Kathleen Keogh, and Angela Fair. I think the idea here was to have a modern day panel of sorts in which work could be shown and then discussed by each of the respective artists participating. But what was actually presented was more of a confusing conference call interrupted at times by videos and loosely structured live compositions. As an audience member I felt bewildered and also a bit put out that I was either not in on the joke, or just completely missing it.
Some of the videos were interesting however. The ones shown by Diana Joy in particular were impressive in regards to production value and content. But on a whole this loosely structured and meandering program left me cold and wishing I stayed out in the beer garden.
More photos after the jump if you’d like to take a gander…
Terrifying Women’s show was 1 hour and 15 minutes. Get a watch, asshole.
Where’s the egg timer?
My piece WAS NOT loosely structured! I memorized it!!!
i couldn’t hear you.
Did anyone notice that I peed? Does that count for anything?
I didn’t know you’d pee’d, wish I’d seen it, was looking at myself most of the time.
Funny how such “terrifying women” are so ruffled by a little valid criticism. If you only want to perform for your friends (who “get it” and think you’re just swell), have a private show and don’t waste everyone else’s time, energy and resources.
I can only speak for myself and everyone else when I say that only with time can terror flourish.
The Annoying Women show may not have been 2 hours but it felt longer. It gave self-indulgence a bad name. I wish your spot had gone to people who might have bothered to do something with the opportunity beyond showing off and amusing their friends.
I think we give self indulgence a good name. And I don’t feel that ruffled but I don’t like being mis-timed.
And meanwhile people all over the world kill each other. I am grateful for the opportunity to perform and to discuss my work.
So what’s your work all about? For real. Why should I care? Sell me. I know nothing about you.
I will grant you that your piece was better than people all over the world being killed, but so was my kidney stone. Come on — sitting through your performance was for the most part like being stuck on a bus with a group of drunk teenagers, and I say drunk because drunks tend not to notice when they’re not as entertaining as they’d like to think. Surely you know that you flopped. Maybe you’re talented and wonderful but how would I know?