The End
The Vis-a-Vis Society teamed up with Britta Johnson and drove out to the desert last summer to shoot some Spaghetti Western, Sergio-Leone-esque choreography experiments, when the forest fires leaped over I-90, forcing us to re-route to Umtanum. We drove and drove, topped off the hot engine’s oil, until we found this remote site, strewn with bullet casings and shattered glass, just like T.S. Eliot described it in “The Wasteland,”
where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
After discovering 1,000 ways to end, and recording the results in Dr. Owning’s dad’s home laboratory, Ms. Johnson edited an incredible 23-minute video piece of this investigation. It premiered at the final installation of NEPO 5K “Don’t Run” in our “Registration” piece. This instructional video demonstrated ways to end as participants registered by selecting a race bib printed with an ending phrase.
Read more about our installation and creation process here.
Vis-a-Vis Society 