Ditch Plains

2013 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

30 min

Loretta Fahrenholz

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Loretta Fahrenholz’s video is composed of a patchwork of sequences. She constructs her film by juxtaposing stylized takes of street dance performances or images of the disasters at Far Rockaway caused by hurricane Sandy. A dancer goes back and forth in a corridor, a crooked silhouette contorts itself from anxiety on an unmade bed, bodies collapsed on the ground suddenly come to life, dancers, characterized by pixilated gestures, pretend to fight to the death. Their movements are robots-like: the machine man and the zombie only belong to fiction. “Ditch Plains” strongly raises questions related to technology and man caught up in mediatized environments. The hip-hop music accentuates the resemblance with to a trashy horror movie. Loretta Fahrenholz manages to capture the odd or intimate moments that occur in these little communities, moments where one forgets the presence of the camera.

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Loretta Fahrenholz is a filmmaker, photographer, and curator. Her films merge facts and fiction, and make use of disjointed scripts that bring out the “ready-made” aspect of her subjects. With disaffectedness and detachment, the artist juxtaposes sequences that conflate performance and documentary. Employing a process that is primarily reactive and observational, Fahrenholz addresses questions of power, social pressures, economic necessities, and socio-political conditions. References to pop culture throughout her work, as well as questions relating to technology and the instability of human life, create significant discomfort for the viewer caught up in Fahrenholz’s utopian vision turned nightmare.

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Colors:

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• fabrication.n.01
• reality.n.02
• technology.n.01
• hip-hop.n.01
• juxtaposition.n.01
• spectator.n.01