PSY-DIGI-POP FREAKOUT

Let Ryan Trecartin Blow Your Mind With His Pre-Teen Reality Show Web Drag

The Re’Search (Re’Search Wait’S), 2009-2010 from Ryan Trecartin on Vimeo.

Hyper-reality webcam-spazz Ryan Trecartin has already shared his ADHD videos about web personas at Outfest and the L.A. and New York modern art museums. But now you can see a recent film which just finished showing in New York’s PS 1. It’s called The Re’Search, it’s just twisted enough to enjoy as a bit of Saturday brain candy… just don’t try to make too much sense of it.

Jezebel’s Jenna Sauers gives us the “plot”:

his videos are hyperkinetic and Internet-y, but in a strangely dated Windows ’98, too-many-dialog-boxes-opening-when-you-go-to-Lycos kind of way. In each work, kids wandered through off-kilter, parentless (mostly) domestic environments, making announcements (or parroting announcements back) to each other like, “I am starting not to trust the house,” and “I love redistributing myself to those who haven’t experienced me yet,” and “I can’t expect your age group to understand my personality.” (I wrote each of those down in my notes.) The audio is sped up and altered, giving the characters a Chipmunk unreality. In one film, two teenaged girls argue and throw BlackBerry phones into a swimming pool where an office chair already floats uneasily. One of the girls is painted silver, and there’s a boy there with red hair and eyebrows, like a bright red not like a ginger, and they call him a fag. Then three girls found a band, and spend a lot of time talking about their other friends and who can and cannot be in the band.

And if the entire 40-minute video sounds to weird for you, consider starting out with this selection from Trecartin’s I-BE-AREA starring Pasta and M-PEGGY. It’s cray-cray, but with only one-fifth the time commitment.

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