© Videonale e.V.
HARRY DODGE
*1966 in Moline, CA USA, lives in Los Angeles USA
Studied at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, New York USA, at Laney College, Oakland USA, City College, San Francisco USA, San Francisco State, USA and at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Champaign-Urbana, IL USA
STANYA KAHN
*1968 in Kalifornien USA, lives in Los Angeles USA
Studied at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, New York USA and at San Francisco State University USA
Exhibitions [selection]:
2010 100 Years (version #3), Garage: Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, RUS
45 Years of Performance Video from EAI, Wiels, Brussels, BEL
2009 Unusual Behavior, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA USA
100 Years (version #2, ps1, nov 2009), PS1, Long Island City, NY USA
New Feminist Video, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY USA
2008 Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York USA
Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York USA
California Video Retrospective, Getty Museum, Los Angeles USA
2007 Two Deaths, ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe GER
2006 Defamation of Character, P.S. 1, New York USA
Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York USA
2005 Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT USA
Retrospective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles USA
What might human life look like after the collapse of the world as we know it? How will people survive without much technology available to them? These seem to have been the questions Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn were interested in and which they opened up to question in their video with its post-apocalyptic, model-like vision. Somewhat like a documentary, but with an aesthetics and morbid atmosphere reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project or Lost, the scenes are of the last living groups of people in Los Angeles, as they struggle for survival, communicating non-verbally with each other. They differ from each other in their behavior and their external appearance. Some wrap their heads in blue or white cloths and live in basements. There, the members of the group go about their seemingly absurd business - chopping up and cleaning furniture or observing their surroundings on surveillance cameras. The members of the central group, of which Stanya Kahn is also a member, do not cover their heads and work mainly outdoors. Their chief task consists of looking for food, as well as electricty - in the form of batteries. As different as their appearances and activities seem at first, the groups in All Together Now do have a common aim: survival by exploiting resources and creating new structures after the collapse of society.
Daniel Müller