Various Small Fires is pleased to present the west coast debut of Liz Magic Laser (b. 1981, New York, NY). Laser will exhibit video works from three recent performances: I Feel Your Pain (a Performa Commission, Produced by Performa), Flight, and The Digital Face. Laser will additionally present a series of new collages that explore the relationship between the performers, audience and camera in these performances.
For opening night only, Laser will present Preview, a live performance in collaboration with Katie Simone Nehra. Preview is an interactive monologue that adapts language from movie trailers that command audience members to imagine losing their identity. An earlier incarnation of Preview debuted at Recess Inc. in New York City on March 8th, 2010, with actor Max Woertendyke as part of Simone Leigh’s Be Black Baby project. Run time is approximately 6 minutes.
I Feel Your Pain (2011), a Performa 11 Commission, was performed, filmed and edited in real-time in the midst of an audience in a movie theater. Eight actors perform a sequence of scenes that trace the progression of a relationship using dialogue adapted from political interviews such as Glenn Beck, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and John Boehner. As the actors performed, selected footage from three cinematographers was projected onto the screen in a continuous live-feed with Laser acting as real time editor. Drawing on the Soviet agitprop model of a “living newspaper,” I Feel Your Pain examines how emotions are used to establish authenticity and garner public support on America’s political stage.
The Digital Face (2012), which debuted last month in New York at MoMA PS1, isolates and examines the studied body language of politicians. Laser works with dancers Cori Kresge and Alan Good to replicate the gestural movement from two State of the Union addresses: President Barack Obama in 2012 and President George H. W.
