Demolition

Live-transmission performance, 2012

“Demolition” is based on a short time-lapse video of the Starr Theatre in New York City from 1902. As the architectural structure is demolished brick by brick over what is assumed to be a thirty-day period, it slowly disappears. One of the first time-lapse films, it demonstrated a powerful and magical collapse of time and form.

For this work, I created a time-lapse video of a drawing of the Starr Theatre based on found video footage. Once the drawing of the Starr Theatre was complete, I erased it.

In the performance, the time-lapse drawing and the video of the erasure are projected side by side. The time-lapse drawing is reversed so that it begins as an image and slowly disappears. I enter into the projection and draw over the time-lapse drawing to generate a new drawing of the Starr Theatre. Once it is complete, it is erased.

In the end, the digital image fades and faint marks remain as a trace of my hand and the drawn form. This sequence of generating image and form followed by erasure works as historical, political, and life cycle metaphor.