Screen Share: Access & Collaboration in the Video Archive (Internal Recreation by Elliot Reed)
Internal Recreation
Elliot Reed
Artist Credits:
Filmed Elliot Reed’s Brooklyn studio, in collaboration with artists Jade Kuriki Olivo (Puppies Puppies) and Diamond Stingily.
About Internal Recreation Internal Recreation, a music and dance video performance by Elliot Reed, follows Reed’s project to aestheticize the incomplete relationship between art, artist, and audience. The act of recording and editing this faux-performance animates Reed’s ambivalence around producing live work to be viewed online: “rather than an exercise in futility, performing alone feels as if I'm forced to invert the energy loop traditionally completed by the viewer.”
The title of the video, drawn from the song used in the piece (written by Reed in 2013), points toward the sensation of performing without an audience, the labor of producing a live event is somewhat lost without the energetic exchange shared with an audience. The piece is as sonically dynamic as Reed’s performance is visually stunning. Reed’s use of diegetic sound includes a “live” mix of recorded music (played live in studio), quotidien dialogue between Reed and collaborators Jade Kuriki Olive (Puppies Puppies) and Diamond Stingily, and intimate sounds of breath that one associates with live performance creating a recorded “live” mix that further confuses the live/recorded binary.
Artist Bio:
Elliot Reed is a performance artist and director based in New York. Working in realtime, Elliot creates solos, ensemble performances and video centering the live subject. His projects exist between people, leveraging candid interaction amongst performers and audience. Utilizing a choreographic lens, Elliot assembles bodies, movement prompts and narrative within exhibition space. As viewers move through his work, the narrative arc moves through them, unfurling itself in actual time.
Elliot is a 2019 danceWEB scholar, 2019-20 Artist In Residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, and recipient of the 2019 Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. Exhibitions include a commission with JACK Quartet (2020), MoMA PS1 (upcoming), The Getty Museum (2018), The Hammer Museum (2016), The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (2018) The Broad (2017), University of Southern California (2016), and performances at MoonStep Tokyo (2017), MNSKTM Osaka (2017), VFD London (2017), and MOOI Collective Mexico City (2017).
Video Description Written by Kristel Baldoz
Kristel Baldoz is a Filipina-American performing artist and activist. She creates performances using movement, set design, data, and indictment in an attempt to quantify personal encounters and lived experiences.
Video Descriptions Voiced By Eshé Hues
Eshé Hues is a trangender sonochromatic artist from Chicago, IL who unifies the relationship between music, color, fabric, and hands through sound and object. He has a M.A. from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and is a recent recipient of AdHoc's NYC Nightlife United grant.
Video Description Transcript:
00:00 Cool, we’re just gonna like, um…
00:03 Well, actually…
(Breath held) – Maybe a change of direction. A change of mind.
00:05 ELLIOT’S BROOKLYN STUDIO. Wood floors, white walls, a purple light hanging from a door knob.
00:19 Rehearsal discussion, logistics being sorted and broken.
Elliot asks Jade Kuriki Olivo and Diamond Stingily if their cameras are ready. There is questioning, confirmation, and improvisation. All cameras are rolling.
00:33 Performers set all eyes on Elliot, a visually marked black artist who is preparing to turn up.
00:41 Jade and Diamond wear striped shirts just like Elliot. Similar but with different hues. They form a duet pacing the floor in preparation, focusing their cameras on Elliot.
0:57 Elliot poses, cordless microphone in hand. The striped-shirted camera persons swirl around Elliot.
Head up and booty out, they turn their focus sharply to the right.
A knee folds to take an exaggerated step. Hips buckled. Swag.
1:08 Lyrics appear on the top right corner of the screen. [Arrow]
3:06 Break.
3:10 Torso melts forward and rotates, morphing, broken but coy
3:19 Lurking and swooning. Lick those lips and bite.
3:25 Shyly slides but slightly stumbles with floral seated chair.
3:28 Places chair to elongate the imagined diagonal.
3:32 Sweat stain on striped shirt.
3:33 Jade is seen in a distance through Diamond’s angle.
3:35 Elliot aims and runs towards the corner.
Tosses, moshes, clashes, and collides. Break.
4:04 Dance break.
4:06 Energetic pulse driving Elliot’s movements. Torso swings to the right on beat with the distorted euphony. Elbows back and fists punch forward.
Teeth grip tightly and feet planted firmly.
Music takes over.
4:14 Head bashes up and down four times.
4:19 Diamond got a lens, Jade got a lens on Elliot right now.
4:21 Get it, Elliot!
4:23 Jade and Diamond frame Elliot. They firmly hold the cameras in front of them documenting quick movement. They don’t miss a beat.
4:27 Elliot grabs a chair and breaks away from the hypnotic tune.
4:39 Chairs in diagonal, the third chair is positioned in the center of the room.
4:44 Diamond and Jade orbit, encircling Elliot.
4:45 ANTICIPATE.
4:46: Drop.
Music scatters.
5:12 Synthesized tune takes over creating a dizzying sound.
5:18 Everyone stretches away from the center.
5:24 A chair fitted around their waist, a yellow stripe shoe floats in the air, and their face a few inches away from the ground. Arms catching their anticipated fall.
5:33 A glamorous roll onto their back. Elliot is spent.
5:38 Elliot blinks and we look through Diamond’s gaze, lurking over Elliot’s arm as they continue to hold the microphone.
5:53 Cut to a wide shot: BACK IN ELLIOT’S BROOKLYN STUDIO.
5:59 Elliot climbs up onto his feet.
6:02 Cameras captured the moments before.
Recognition that Elliot just busted his ass performing. Jade and Diamond offer support.
Wandering. Everyone disperses from the last moment.
6:16 The ghosts of the performance stay. The upright stool, the fallen brown chair, the folding chair that is not fully unfolded, the purple light hanging from the doorknob, the ladder, the mirror, the wooden floor, and the white walls are activated.
Break.
6:22 Closing Credits
Cinematography and performance:
Diamond Stingily
Jade Kuriki Olivo aka Puppies Puppies
Music, Editing + Performance:
Elliot Reed
Special Thanks:
Jade, Diamond, Kristen Holfeuer,
Kennis Hawkins, Yarden Stern
With support from:
NYU Women & Performance
Internal Recreation
Elliot Reed
2020