Video work can be so hard to see, and as such I feel badly because I was planning to present such an emphatic endorsement/advertisement/announcement for the LA screening of one truly truly of the greatest works of art that I have ever seen—one that just so happens to be a very hard to see bit of video—but I just realized that it has been screening here since august and is only showing for one more week…! Oh my god how did I not realize? I was looking at the UCLA Hammer Museum web site to see about the Oranges and Sardines group show—major post on that later—when I saw that the run of Ryan Trecartin’s I-BE AREA was September 10 – December 7, 2008. So so late am I finally saying: Time to get over there.
I-BE AREA is brilliant in that undeniably true way, that un-fuck-with-ably true way, but also in many new ways. It is video, but it takes the form of a narrative feature length film that establishes a new pace which is wholly successful in addressing/referencing the wholly the contemporary experiences of being a young person. Typing the words “internet,” “technology,” “cultural/art awareness of the,” “queer/transgender/gender-queer” feels like a dated act. Consider Ryan Trecartin as having invented the new keyboard. As such, it is as much a feat of cinema: I-BE AREA is a fully narrative film that employs what a wholly purposeful, unique, and much needed means of deconstruction, it’s own new approaches to not only narrative, but editing and pace, approaches that had to be created out of necessity to reflect this very new/NOW moment. Much like the experiences it is reflecting it is thrilling and hilarious, really hysterical as much as it is sobering and at times confounding. It is such true art.
It screens every two hours on the hour and I would suggest trying to make sure that you see it from the beginning. Also, I have refrained from posting any stills because I feel like out of the context of actually watching it, they are incredibly misleading, but below is a link to the hammer site—stills unfortunately necessarily included—where you can see about times and admission.
Hammer Site
Hammer Site
Hammer Site
Hammer Site
Hammer Site
Hammer Site
Hammer Site
