Blue Skies (2021)
Three-channel projection, one-channel monitor; stereo; 3:52 on loop
Blue Skies is a four-channel video work interlacing slowed excerpts from the 1946 film of the same name with ultra-enlarged footage of the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki. Three of the four channels alternately project a kaleidoscopic line of dancing Fred Astaires–smiling in tapered, long-tailed tuxedos, top hats, and canes in hands–agains a formless array of pixelated purples, blues, and whites. On the fourth channel, streamed through a 12"x12" Toshiba television seated on the floor and propped up at a 45-degree angle, white text scrolls continuously on a black background. Viewers' experience of reading the text is meant to occur semi-privately, with their backs to the remaining three channels, an arrangement that makes it virtually impossible for viewers to perceive the image and text simultaneously.
