the passing out heart game
In Collaboration with Emily Bulfin
Passing Out Heart Game is based on scenes written by Emily Bulfin and with animation by Jalal Jemison. Passing Out Heart Game is a five-channel video installation that combines video, choreography, light, paper, and a hallway to tell the story of a woman being dragged through portraits on a wall. The woman occupies the portraits of all channels at once. Each of these video portraits demonstrate isolated moments that play forever looped. As hallway photographs they resonate together but remain isolated parts of a larger story in which memory may be imagined rather then real, may be hoped for rather then happening, may be parallel but not experienced.
Passing Out Heart Game occupies multiple spaces at once. It is a study of the landscapes that contain us and is a meditation on control: resisting the unknown and releasing into this unknown. Passing Out Heart Game inhabits the contradictions these opposed actions hold and the treacherous space in-between.
The installation is made up of five screens (paper with plexiglass) embedded into a made hallway. Much like large photo lightboxes on the wall, they are framed and rear-projected. There are two screens on each side of the 8 ft high hallway walls. The fifth screen is at the end of the hallway on another made wall, creating a T with two side exits. The fifth video loop dictates the overall arc of the story while the remaining four fit into this arc on different timed variations. Each loop maintains individual soundtracks. There is a small pink LED light (planet) above the hallway that lights up when the main loop is ending indicating a new beginning. Along with this light source, when the full loop completes, the channels fade to a complete color out, a mixed pink spectrum of graphic flat color that washes the hallway in light.
Other people involved in creating this work are performers: Elizabeth Davis-Maloney, Julia H. Crammond, Lindsay Brighia, installation technical direction by Malina Rodriquez, sound design by Chris Larson, costume design by Emily Ryan, production coordination Eugenie Frerichs, production assistant Lis Massa-Mccloed and dance architecture by Daniel Addy with help from Stephanie Snyder, Kristan Kennedy, Jorg Jacoby, TC Smith, Andrea Chiotti, Harrell Fletcher, Lucas Clements, Nick Clements, Charles Wittenmeier, Bill and Martha Dieter, Stage Right, TG Firestone, Carla Mann, Yard visual effects, Patty and Craig Holt and Dicky Dahl.
Screened: PDX Film Festival, Portland, OR, 2007; Reed’s Raw Art Week, Portland, OR, 2007
This work was made possible through a grant from Regional Art and Culture Council with sponsorship by Disjecta Art Center.